February 1st, 2020
HEN (Humboldt Early Education Newsletter) First Edition
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From:
Early identification and intervention for developmental disorders are critical to the well-being of children and are the responsibility of pediatric professionals as an integral function of the medical home. This report models a universal system of developmental surveillance and screening for the early identification of conditions that affect children’s early and long-term development and achievement, followed by ongoing care. Developmental surveillance includes bidirectional communication with early childhood professionals in child care, preschools, Head Start, and other programs, including home visitation and parenting, particularly around developmental screening.
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New Screenings for Childhood Trauma Raise Hopes and Questions
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From:
California health officials are gearing up for the launch of a statewide screening effort that aims to help doctors measure children’s exposure to trauma and their risk of related health problems.

Starting Jan. 1, California became the first state in the nation to reimburse health care providers who screen patients enrolled in the Medi-Cal program for “adverse childhood experiences” or ACEs.
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From:

Child Trends expert Jessica Dym Bartlett appeared as a guest on
KPCC’s Air Talk with Larry Mantle
to discuss the challenges for California’s plan to screen children for adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) during routine pediatric visits. Screening for ACEs without an understanding of a child’s full range of traumatic experiences—and without providing families with adequate access to providers trained to care for children who have experienced trauma—risks doing more harm than good.
To address childhood adversity, it’s critical for policymakers, practitioners, researchers, and the media to understand
the differences among childhood adversity, Adverse Childhood Experiences, and child trauma
. Bartlett is the co-author of a brief that
cautioned against relying on ACEs-based screening as the sole response
to addressing the risks that adversity and trauma pose to child development and well-being. Instead, it is essential to pursue a comprehensive, trauma-informed, and strengths-based approach to screening, referral, and follow-up.
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New Report—How California’s Flexible Funding Reaches English Language Learners
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From:
Signed into law in
2013
, the
Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF)
was intended to give school districts flexibility in spending so that they could better serve the needs of their specific student populations. The intent wasto allow the people who may know most about what students need to channel resources towards them. But how have local decision makers responded to the LCFF’s call for directing resources toward at-need populations, like English Language Learners (ELLs)?
A new study
, in partnership with
Pivot Learning
, from
Dr. Eduardo Muñoz-Muñoz
at San José State University looks at how two school districts have used the LCFF’s flexibility to address the needs of their ELLs, who account for roughly 19% of students in California, mostly in elementary grades.
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From:

The environments in which educators work are the same environments in which children learn. Children depend on educators who are skilled and who have their well-being and needs supported. Yet, early educator work environments - the on-the job supports that teachers need in order to help children succeed - have routinely been overlooked in quality improvement efforts.
CSCCE staff members Marisa Schlieber and Caitlin McLean discuss the importance of supportive early educator work environments in a new blog post,
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Interactive: Opportunities for States To Improve Infant Health Outcomes
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From:
In May 2019, a report by the Center for American Progress outlined policy solutions to improve maternal and infant mortality and eliminate racial disparities in maternal and infant health outcomes. This interactive allows users to investigate states’ progress toward implementing some of the recommendations that are featured in the report and highlighted in an accompanying issue brief. It also provides context on how states fare on overall infant health outcomes and racial disparities in health.
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Pre-to-3: Head Start forges new partnerships to support children's transition into kindergarten
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From:
A former high school principal, Head Start Director Deborah Bergeron is working her connections with K-12 organizations to get more school and district leaders involved in PK-3 efforts.
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Why ZERO TO THREE Stands Behind the FAMILY Act
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From:
As paid leave discussions ramp up in the new year, advocates must delve into the details. ZERO TO THREE continues to stand behind the comprehensive paid leave included in the Family and Medical Insurance Leave (FAMILY) Act (H.R. 1185/S. 463), introduced by Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) and Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY). The FAMILY Act would check all the boxes on the
paid leave checklist
, creating a national program to make paid leave affordable for employers of all sizes and available to all workers and their families. The legislation would protect parents’ jobs while they are on leave and provide 66 percent of their current monthly wage for 12 weeks. Notably, this benefit would also be available to any worker that needs paid time off to address their medical needs or those of a family member.
While the broadening focus in Congress on paid leave is welcome, not all proposals meet the needs of real families. The main alternative pieces of legislation are neither comprehensive nor equitable. All focus only on parental leave, which disadvantages younger workers in the workplace, and ignores the reasons most workers take family leave: their own health care or to care for sick relatives. Here are two examples of alternative legislation:
The Advancing Support for Working Families Act (S. 2976/H.R.5296), introduced by Sens. Bill Cassidy (R-LA) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ), would advance five thousand dollars of the Child Tax Credit (CTC) to new parents in the year that a baby is born or adopted to supplement a household’s income while a parent stays out of work with the child or uses it for other purposes. On the surface, this may seem like a good deal, but it is essentially just a loan. The legislation would require that families pay that money back by taking a five hundred dollar reduction in their CTC for the next ten years. However, many low-income families rely on the entirety of the CTC that they receive every year, and there would be no job protection for a parent taking time off, further threatening their financial security.
Read ZERO TO THREE’s statement
.
The New Parents Act (S. 920/ H.R. 1940), introduced by Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) and Rep. Ann Wagner (R-MO), would require employed parents to borrow from their social security retirement insurance to cover lost income when taking time off after giving birth or adopting a child. This means that, in order to have some financial security when a family welcomes a child into their life, they must make the decision to retire later or have that money deducted from their social security payments when they are beyond their working years and need it most. The legislation does not respond to the need for medical leave.
As paid leave proposals draw national attention, babies need advocates to focus on the details of proposed plans. We look forward to working alongside you to fight for the comprehensive paid leave legislation that babies need.
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CCAoA's Statement on FY2020 Appropriations and Early Childhood Funding
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From:
Congress and the White House have officially approved federal funding for the remainder of FY2020, reaching a bipartisan agreement that provides more than $1 billion in increased funding for federal early childhood programs, including:
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$5.826 billion for the Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG) —
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$10.613 billion for Head Start/Early Head Start – a $550 million increase from FY2019;
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$275 million for Preschool Development Grants – a $25 million increase from FY2019.
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Big promises for little kids: Has California governor delivered on early education?
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From:
As he was campaigning for governor, Gavin Newsom made some enormous promises for the youngest Californians and their families — universal preschool, affordable, high-quality child care, six months of paid family leave. And he’s delivered — on the first few steps.
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Legislation Tracking Matrix
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From:
Only two bills with some relevance have been introduced on the Assembly side to date. The remainder of the matrix lists bills from last session pending whether any are re-introduced this session.
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Info on ECE in the Gov's Budget Proposal 2020-21
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From:
Funding Changes:
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COLA
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2.29% COLA to child care and preschool programs
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General Child Care
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An increase of $10.3 million Cannabis Fund for 621 General Child Care Slots
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Administratively shifts on-going funding of $50 million (appropriated in the 2019-2020 budget) for 3,000 CCTR slots from general fund to the Cannabis Fund
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CalWORKS Stage 2 and Stage 3
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An increase of $53.8 million General Fund to reflect case load adjustments. This includes a slight reduction in Stage 2, and increase in Stage 3
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Universal Preschool for 4-year old’s phased in over three-years
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The budget continues the Administration’s commitment to Universal Preschool for all eligible 4-year old’s phased in over three-years. This is the second year of this proposal.
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For the second year, an increase of $31.9 million in 2020-21, and $127 million ongoing General Fund to support an additional 10,000 State Preschool slots at CBOs beginning April 1, 2021
Reactions to the Budget
Several news outlets and legislative offices have reported on the Governor’s budget, including the Legislative Women’s Caucus.
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New Report: PreK–3 Alignment: Challenges and Opportunities in California
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From:
Governor Gavin Newsom has placed early learning high on California’s education policy agenda, investing an unprecedented
$5.5 billion
in child care and preschool during his first year in office, with more proposed in the
2020-21 budget
. What happens following preschool to sustain learning gains? To what extent do early learning programs align with early elementary grades in areas such as instruction and teacher professional development? What are the challenges in creating alignment? What state policies facilitate or hinder districts from creating stronger connections between preschool and elementary school?.
Aligning instruction in preK and early elementary grades is critical to realize the full benefit of preschool programs, as skills developed in one grade must be built upon and reinforced in later grades. In a new PACE report, researchers
Julia Koppich
and
Deborah Stipek
took stock of current alignment activities across the state, identifying the main barriers that districts encounter when attempting to align preschool and the elementary grades. This report found the depth and strength of California districts’ preK–3 alignment efforts to vary considerably. As preK–3 alignment is not an explicit state priority, districts do not feel obligated to focus on it in the face of many other demands. Divergent beliefs among districts about the role and purpose of preschool can enhance or inhibit alignment efforts, as can the formal roles of district preK directors and elementary principals who have preKs on their campuses. Different licensing requirements for preK and elementary teachers as well as the complicated web of regulations associated with different funding streams influence the strength of alignment efforts. Even within these constraints, however, there are many steps districts can take to improve preK–3 alignment.
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What does a values-based budget for ECE look like in your state?
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From:
In states across the nation, the underfunding of early care and education (ECE) is compromising the well-being of educators and the children in their care. So what does a values-based budget for an ECE system that would benefit children, parents, and teachers look like in your state? In coordination with the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), we have released a
series of mini-reports
for each state and the District of Columbia, in which we identify how much a high-quality ECE system would cost, and how many educators and children would benefit from such a fully funded system. Find your state report
here
.
The price tag may look high, but a fully funded system would not be created from scratch. In a companion brief to the state reports,
Who's Paying Now?
, authors Elise Gould and Hunter Blair of EPI demonstrate the implicit and explicit costs of our current national ECE system. Findings include:
·
Parents forgo roughly $30-35 billion in income because the current high cost of ECE leads many to leave the paid labor force or reduce their paid work hours to care for their children; these forgone wages translate into a loss of about $4.2 billion in tax revenue each year.
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If early educators were compensated like their K-8 peers, these teachers would see their wages rise by $80.3 billion, resulting in a gain in tax revenue of about $42.9 billion.
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CCLD has released a new Provider Information Notice:
PIN 20-01-CCP REQUIRED LEAD TESTING FOR DRINKING WATER IN LICENSED CHILD CARE CENTERS AND THE PROVISION OF LEAD EXPOSURE INFORMATION TO PARENTS AND GUARDIANS BY ALL LICENSED CHILD CARE FACILITIES
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From:
An electronic copy of PIN 20-01-CCP REQUIRED LEAD TESTING FOR DRINKING WATER IN LICENSED CHILD CARE CENTERS AND THE PROVISION OF LEAD EXPOSURE INFORMATION TO PARENTS AND GUARDIANS BY ALL LICENSED CHILD CARE FACILITIES is available for viewing/downloading by
clicking here.
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Cindi Kaup,
Regional Lead, CPIN Region 1, Shares Outcomes from the Jan 23rd
CPIN Number Sense Training
Did you know our brains come pre-wired to learn math concepts and at six months infants demonstrate the ability to categorize and see sets of objects? On January 23rd, 41 early educators gathered for three hours of learning about Number Sense. We learned new games (Bears in Cave, Peace Game), new songs, new research and explored ways to use literacy to teach number concepts. Everyone received a copy of the children’s book The Doorbell Rang and props to take back and use the next day. One of the more popular ideas was making long sensory snakes filled with beans, rice or stuffing that can be shaped into numbers and can also be used as a calming weight to help children feel more relaxed.
Mark your calendars for our next CPIN event March 25
th
from 5:00-8:00 pm at HCOE on the Importance of Play in Education.
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