Assembly Budget Subcommittee No. 2 on Human Services

Good afternoon, everybody. Thank you for being here. It's great to see you all. We have a hearing today from Subcommitee number three on education Finance, and I'm chair of that Committee, David Alvarez, and we also have Chairman of the Subcommitee number two on human services, Dr. Jackson. Thank you again all for being here today.

Today we are going to have a conversation that's very important to many, many families and I'm so glad to see families here represented in all of you. It is our child care and preschool oversight hearing, which is inclusive of transitional kindergarten, which has become now an option for families in our school system.

And so I want to really thank colleagues and specifically the chair of Subcommitee number three, Dr. Jackson, for this annual Joint Hearing that we think is very important to Californians.

As I said last year, I want this hearing to be an annual opportunity to check in on the process towards our state's master plan on early childhood education, which is really the promise that we need to fulfill for our families.

We will discuss January budget proposals from the Governor in that context of the early childhood education master plan. This year we are going to do a deep dive on the master plan's goals for preschool.

And by preschool, I mean the child care setting parents choose or have choices between for their age for their kids ages 2 to 5 years old while they are at work. Preschool in California serves twin goals, parents working and children learning, both very important for us.

I look forward to hearing how we are doing on expanding these preschool access and choices and the quality of these programs for our families. Today also is a follow up from our February hearing on child care rates and the lack of a current proposal of an alternative methodology in the January budget.

I do not expect to recover those issues today since we are still waiting for updates from the bargaining tables, discussion and conclusions of that, the rate reform workgroup. And hopefully we hope that in the May revision, in a couple of weeks, a few weeks, we will see that.

However, we do have our final panel beginning with a transition plan discussion if the alternative methodology is not ready to provide rate increases in in this budget here. So I look forward to the discussion and I'd like to now turn it over to Dr. Jackson if you'd like to say some opening remarks. Dr. Jackson.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I mean, obviously, obviously I need a booster seat. Obviously it is so important for us to be together on this issue.

As you know, one of the big critiques in regards to many of our systems in California is the fact that we have so many departments and so many programs working in silos even though they serve the same person or the same client.

By us doing this together, ensuring that we're not having discussions in silos, but we are ensuring that we are aiming to have a holistic system that serves the diverse needs of the families of California.

As we do that, it's also important to recognize that our work since the pandemic is not done, we know how essential these preschool programs are to the very functioning of our society, to the very functioning of making sure we have strong economies, to making sure that the full economic opportunities of the household is being able to be expressed and put to work.

And so we are demonstrating, not only today, as we've done, but also in past hearings as well, we will not pause the work on child care, preschool or any other early education program. We can't afford to pause.

We have to find a way to continue to strengthen our workforce, strengthen opportunities to expand slots, and not just slots, but all the various type of slots that are necessary, which includes full day, half day, overnight and any other place that is necessary for parents to be able to do what they do to take care of their families.

So with that, thank you very much, Mr. Chair, and looking forward to taking a deep dive in these discussions.

Thank you again, Dr. Jackson. And as so well stated, an investment in our workforce is an investment in California. It's an investment in our economy. That's what this is about. So thank you so much for all the work you do on a continuous basis. So I'm going to now ask our first panel to please come forward.

If you are with the Department of Social Services, Department of Education, Children Now, Every Child California, California Budget and Policy Center, Parent Voices from Contra Costa and the Legislative Analyst Office, please join us here to provide your testimony, which we are looking forward to.

The panel will provide an update on one key objective in the Master Plan for Early Learning and Care in the context of again the January budget proposal, universal preschool Access for all 4 year olds and Access for all 3 year olds who are experiencing poverty.

So once again, thank you all for making time to be with us to sharing your testimony. And I believe we will kick this off with the Department of Social Services. Welcome.

Thank you. Good afternoon. I'm Dr. Lupe Jaime Milam. I'm the Deputy Director of the Child Care and Development Division. I'm going to speak to the first question that touches on the Master Plan for Early Learning and Care.

So the Master Plan for Early Learning and Care that could be referenced as mpelc, sorry about the Alphabet soup, is California's roadmap to expand and improve California's Early Learning system over a 10 year period. We're approaching the fifth year since its publication of that roadmap.

Working with our partners and supports of historic funding thanks to the Legislator and Governor Newsom, we have made advancements that directly support children, families and the workforce. We celebrate the many goals that the state has achieved or the ongoing process progress that is outlined on the December 21st of 2024 report that we posted.

The report itself is called Update on California's Master Plan for Early Learning and Care. Progress Made and Work to Do. As noted, while great progress has been made, we know there is a lot more that we can continue to do with urgency.

A few examples of those areas includes, for instance goal number two which focuses on the career pathways, CDSs and collaboration with CDE and many of our partners has launched the Equity Centered Quality Rating and Improvement System Advisory Panel which began meeting since August of 2024 and will go through November of 2025.

The panel's charge is to make recommendations for the changes to the California Department Child Care and Development Fund that is federally funded through the qrs operated through cdss with a focus on inclusivity as well as family and community as well as practice.

Another example of where work has become but has not finalized is we'll be talking about this a lot more, but in regards to goal number three, which is unifying funding and that work is the single rate structure that is informed by the cost of care provided to be services.

I think we'll have a whole panel on that so I won't go too much into that. Those are two examples. I will stop there and open for questions. Thank you.

Thank you. We'll do questions after all our panelists. Department of Education please.

Yes, good afternoon Mr. Chairs. Stephen Propheter, Director of the Early Education Division at the California Department of Education. I'd like to start with some excitement. About four years ago our state began the ambitious plan of creating a universal pre kindergarten option for our four year old children.

We know this as a recommendation of the Master Plan or the mpec. We are so excited to share that this upcoming school year California will be fully implementing the recommendation from the Master Plan that all four year olds have universal access to one year of pre kindergarten.

California also continues to expand targeted access to three year old children from low income families and children with disabilities through the California State Preschool Program in line with the Master Plan as well. However, California we need to do more to expand preschool options, particularly in community based settings.

With nearly 900,3 and 4 year old children in the state. California's expanded Pre k options for 3 and 4 year olds provide a strong and early start and support equitable opportunities for school readiness through high quality, joyful, rigorous, developmentally informed and playful Pre K programs. Of the UPK options available this year are preschool options.

Currently, nearly 300,000 children are being served this school year between the transitional kindergarten and the California State preschool program. TK enrollment in particular is up about 25,000 children this school year compared to last in the state preschool program. There is a slight decline in the number of four year old children being served.

Programs have begun to serve more three year old children, children with disabilities and most recently two year old children. In October 2024 of this year, over 40,3 year old children were enrolled in the state preschool program which is a 55% increase from October 2021.

We do think the higher reimbursement rate that the Legislature approved for 3 year old children has been a big support around the success of serving more three year old children. State preschool is also serving more children with disabilities.

Since the requirement for state preschool programs to serve 5% of funded enrollment for children with disabilities, the number of children with disabilities in state preschool has more than doubled from just under 4,000 in October 2021 to over 9,000 in October 2024.

The increase reflects the significant impact of the recent new requirements along with related inclusion investments in the state such as through the Inclusive Early Education Expansion program. Lastly, in October 2024, 848 2 year old children were being served in state preschool and about a quarter of state preschool programs.

We do expect that number to increase, although it may be limited given that the policy itself is limited.

We greatly appreciate the Administration and the Legislature's continuing commitment to education overall and to universal Pre K in particular, because especially at a time with federal uncertainty, it's been reported by the media that the federal Administration is considering a budget proposal that would eliminate funding for federal Head Start.

Just to give you a sense for the impact, at least on the state preschool side, many of our programs layer funding between Head Start and state preschool, so it would have a tremendous impact on programs.

There's 137 Head Start grantees in California that support more than 52,000 children ages 3 to 5, including more than 8,000 children with disabilities and employ about 6,800 lead and assistant teachers. So looking to improvements and what are priorities that the Legislature can consider.

So as we look forward to the full implementation of UPK and the federal uncertainty, there's a few kind of I'll go over just high level a few few options. I know there's we've got a later panel so I'll Reserve some comment there. But the first item is continuation of and extending investments for UPK infrastructure.

So specifically through grants like the UPK Planning and Implementation Grant, the Early Education Teacher Development Grant and the UPK Mixed Delivery Preschool Grant. These grant programs have been instrumental in breaking down silos locally in systems that historically have not spoken to each other very often when we think about local education agencies, community based organizations and local infrastructure.

So I think that so those funds have been have been helpful. Second is supporting inclusion for the California State Preschool program. I mentioned a moment ago that state preschools are required to set aside enrollment for children with disabilities.

So the Inclusive Early Education Expansion Program provides essential support for state preschools both through local grants and for state level systems investment that is critical for that, especially the state level state level funding which reaches which is intended to reach all state preschool programs, not just those who are directly funded through the EAP grant.

Funding based on enrollment. So as we think about funding protections that are expiring this year, programs being funded to being reverting, you know, if there's no change in statute, programs will be funded based on attendance.

So unless there's there's action in in, in statute, we recommend the Legislature adopt language to Fund state preschool and other programs based on on enrollment as this approach addresses the fixed costs for pro that programs have even when children don't show up or don't don't attend.

There's also a need for ongoing funding at systems level for professional development. And finally, I know there's a panel on this later, but we really appreciate the Legislature's attention to I think the elephant in the room and that's rates. So thank you for your time.

I am joined by Virginia Early to assist in any questions at the appropriate time.

Thank you. Children Now please.

Representative Good afternoon chairs and Members of Committee staff and amazing ECE coalition with us. My name is Sara Bachez, Director of Education Policy and Advocacy with Children Now. We're a nonpartisan whole child research, policy and advocacy organization dedicated to promoting children's health, education and well being.

I want to begin by recognizing the leadership in this room, your leadership, the Women's Caucus leadership and this Administration which has provided a first step in our commitment to investing in early learning and care. As generations of children, families and providers carried a significant brunt of the draconian cuts that we made during the Great Recession.

Then they have also had to weather the exacerbated effects from the pandemic wildfires and rising costs and inflation. We know from research that early years are the most critical period of human development.

The Harvard center on the Developing Child reminds us that the early experiences literally shape the architecture of our brain, laying the foundation for lifelong learning, behavior and health.

Nobel Laureate economist James Heckman's work shows that high quality early childhood programs, especially those including well trained and compensated educators offering comprehensive child and family support, yield the greatest return on investment in both human and economic terms.

In California, There are over 3 million children under the age of five and they are one of the most diverse populations in our country. And while we've made meaningful investments, including transitional kindergarten expansion and increased funding for early learning and care, access remains deeply unequal, especially for infant toddlers and three year olds.

Research shows that two years of preschool has significant impacts than more than one year, particularly for children from low income families. Yet far too many Californian children still miss out on this critical opportunity. Stanford University's Professor Dr.

Sean Reardon has shown that most achievement gaps we see in the K12 world were already present when the child entered the school setting. And where states have narrowed those gaps, it's because they've invested heavily in early childhood.

In fact, Head Start and Early Head Start, which include home visiting, health and developmental screenings, and wraparound family services, remains among the most impactful programs, especially for children experiencing poverty.

The California child care and early learning landscape is full of opportunity to strengthen and simplify coordination and streamline and improve how families are served and how providers are supported to meet the full potential of these investments. With a robust state investment, we can ensure the full integration of programs like Head Start into our universal preschool programs.

However, as mentioned, this is one of those programs that we must protect from reductions and elimination at the federal level. Unfortunately, we're still seeing significant challenges with quality and access in our state. California currently ranks 4th in preschool spending, but only 16th in access for 4 year olds and 5th in for 3 year olds.

While the California State Preschool meets 6 of our 10 quality standards, our TK program only meets 3 early learning and development standards, curriculum support and lead teacher with degree, which is very concerning given the importance that quality is driving positive outcomes for our children. Investments in early childhood education aren't just about school readiness.

Their economic infrastructure, a lack of access to childcare such as non traditional hours, full day weekends cost California an estimated $17 billion a year in lost earnings, productivity and tax revenue. When we support families early, we support the entire economy.

As you assess our state's progress on the Master Plan, I urge you to support the adoption of an alternative methodology that ensures we cover the full cost of care based on livable wage standards and to double down on investments that expand access improve quality, especially for infants, toddlers and 3 year olds.

We are far from serving all the children and family who need and want care. And as the Master Plan preamble states, in short, access to quality, early learning and care for children is an effective vehicle to break the cycle of poverty. The time is now.

Thank you so much for your leadership and opportunity to represent our little ones and their families.

Thank you for your testimony. I'd like to hear from Every Child California next.

Thank you so much. Thank you. Chair Jackson, Chair Alvarez, Members of the Committee for the Opportunity to discuss the issue of early care and education and specifically the State of Preschool with you today. My name is Nina Buthee. I'm the Executive Director of Every Child California.

We are a statewide nonprofit organization that supports publicly funded early care and education programs in California, representing over 2,500 agencies. As I start, I would like to extend a heartfelt thanks to the Governor and the Legislature for the continued commitment and investments to early childhood education.

Your leadership and support over the past several years have helped to strengthen our programs, expand access to families and uplift the vital work of early educators across the state, especially since the severe cuts during the Great Recession and the incredible impact from COVID and on behalf of all of the Title V Direct Contracting Centers in California and Every Child California, I would like to answer some of the questions that were outlined on the agenda and present some recommendations on the State of preschool and an update as it relates to the Master Plan.

Currently, the California State Preschool Program is limited to 23 and 4 year old age children. The provision to serve 2 year olds expires in 2027. This the California State Preschool Program, the most age restrictive child care contract in the nation. By its creation, State preschool programs can only serve age eligible children for 36 months.

The window of eligible families is even narrower now that TK has been fully implemented. Currently, 151,4 year olds are served in transitional kindergarten. Additionally, the General Child Care contract operated by CDSS has an age window of birth through school age.

In 2024, 30 3-year olds and 30 4 year olds were served under General Child Care CCTR. This creates an even smaller pool of age eligible children for the State preschool program and has made it even more challenging for contractors to earn their contracts and to compete with other programs.

When we look at the goal of universal preschool Access for all 4 year olds and income eligible 3 year olds, some easy solutions can be implemented that keep program integrity intact while making it much easier for programs to administer and for families to take advantage of these programs.

In order for preschool providers to open more spaces for 2 and 3 year olds in the context of UTK, UPK and to support child development and parental needs, we recommend the following nine actions. First, we recommend combining part day and full day contracts into one preschool contract.

This will allow for far more program flexibility to meet the needs of families and communities as provisions have already been adopted in recent years that would make this possible.

This change would not prohibit any agency from offering the program that they are right now and would still allow offering part day part year program model if that was so chosen by the agency.

This would also ease the administrative burden for agencies who currently manage two contracts simultaneously and need to submit program changes when they want to shift their model. 2. We suggest allowing full day contracts, the ability to wrap with transitional kindergarten to ensure that programs that have the need can offer extended day services.

Currently this rap is only possible for part day programs. 3. We recommend streamlining state preschool eligibility priorities to match that of CDSS programs with CPS at risk children first and then all eligible 2, 3, and 4 year olds. Currently, state preschool has seven priority levels which can be very complicated for programs and families.

We recommend eliminating these barriers and streamlining the standards across programs. 4. We recommend eliminating family fees for any family below 100% of the state median income. When families hear that there is a fee in CSPP they often choose TK without hearing any more information.

The state and the Legislature has done a phenomenal job reducing family fees and programs now typically collect only about $2,000 a year in family fees. The administrative time and burden to collect this amount is obviously more costly than the fees themselves, all while penalizing families who have delinquent fees with a threat of disenrollment. 5.

We recommend eliminating state licensing fees for all subsidized programs. These fees are charged by the state and then are paid back to the state with state contracted dollars. It makes no sense eliminate the fees for subsidized programs. 6. Allow families to self attest their income level.

This is current practice to determine priority whenever requested among all eligibility priorities for the state preschool program minus working families income eligible families are the hardest and most challenging to obtain documentation as you need to talk to their employer and various other elements.

We recommend allowing self attestation for this we also recommend eliminating the need category for full day programs. Currently, families can receive up to 10 hours of care a day and up to 58 hours a week without need. Under the fifth priority level only require an employment, work or school schedule.

If a family needs more care than this 8. We recommend that the provision for serving 2 year old children in CSPP becomes permanent. In rural areas and for smaller agencies, the two year old option has become a lifeline that has kept centers open.

We heard from one agency in the rural north that has so few four year olds because they've all been moved to TK that without the two year old option they would have not been able to keep their state preschool program open.

Being able to serve these two year olds means that they are also able to serve the three year olds that are eligible and if they could not have the two year old provision then they would have to close their program and all those three year olds would also go unserved.

It is also impossible to discuss expanding access to younger children without mentioning the incredible staffing shortage that we are experiencing in the state. Staff requirements for our state preschool program and our Title five centers are even more rigorous than any other programs in the childcare space requiring a child development permit in addition to ECE hours.

This is especially challenging when you're looking to serve younger age children who are most vulnerable. To increase capacity and to build up this important specialty, we recommend that CSPP contract funds can be utilized as stipends to incentivize 2 year old teacher recruitment and retention. They also require specialized training.

Currently, teachers are not incentivized at all to care for these young children. Programs that also have collective bargaining units face additional challenges with serving younger age children as it relates to diapering, toiletry and self help for two year olds. So this stipend would be incredibly helpful.

Lastly, adequate stable funding that reflects the true cost of care to provide high quality services is crucial. We need funding to be based on enrollment. There is no predictable way to know if a child is going to call in sick that day or not. So staffing levels need to remain the same whether or not a child attends.

And so for stability to attract staff and for program integrity, we need cost of care as well as enrollment based funding. These simple changes would support programs and level the universal preschool landscape, allowing preschool providers to open up in spaces for families and making it easier for parents.

This would also help contractors open new programs in childcare deserts. Thank you for the opportunity to provide some context and some recommendations from providers serving these children in the field, and I'm happy to answer any questions whenever the time is appropriate. Thank you.

Thank you. Appreciate your testimony. We'll go on to the California Budget and Policy Center. Please.

Good afternoon Chair Jackson and Chair Alvarez and Members. My name is Erik Saucedo and I'm a Senior Policy Analyst at the California Budget and Policy Center.

We are a nonpartisan research and analysis nonprofit that's committed to advancing policies that improve the lives of Californians, and I'm here today to speak about some of the challenges with California's early care and education system, a system that is foundational for children's development and long term success.

And preschool in particular provides these essential opportunities for 3 and 4 year olds. And California has taken important steps to expand preschool access.

We heard earlier that the Master Plan for Early Learning and Care intended to lay out a vision to prioritize equity and opportunity, and efforts like Universal Pre Kindergarten or UPK continue that emphasis, focusing on inclusion and quality through a mixed delivery system.

And even earlier efforts such as the Blue Ribbon Commission Report also called for system reforms and community rooted access. But despite these visions, there's still no unified strategy for strengthening this complex and often misaligned system. Aside from ongoing efforts to expand transitional kindergarten, what's clear is that families have different needs and priorities.

They rely on diverse settings, reliable locations, extended hours, access to wraparound services, and culturally and linguistically responsive classrooms. In this context, all publicly funded programs, whether it's tk, state preschool, Head Start, a child care center or home based provider are all essential to meeting those needs.

To put this into perspective, consider a family with a four year old child on an income at 75% of the state median income. Technically, they could enroll their child in state preschool TK or utilize a voucher just to give you some examples, but each option offers different levels of access and comes with trade offs.

For example, TK may not offer the full day or fold your schedule a family may need. At the same time, state preschool eligibility requirements beyond income may be difficult to meet. Meanwhile, voucher based programs may have long wait lists and even when families are income eligible, many can't access preschool options that best meet their needs.

And recent enrollment trends as shown in the table that we provided reflect some of these dynamics where non school based settings have seen lower enrollment growth in 4 year olds as compared with 3 year olds.

Specifically, enrollment of 3 year olds in childcare and development programs through the Department of Social Services has increased by 56% from 2021-22 to 2023-24 which is likely driven by slot expansion efforts. In recent years. However, growth in 4 year olds has not been has been more modest at 35%, with some programs experiencing declines.

The slower growth for 4 year old for 4 year olds likely reflects shifts to TK, which makes it even more important to ensure that non TK programs have the resources to adapt. And while growth for three year olds is promising and aligns with the master plan goals, it's still far below need.

Only 21% of eligible 3 year olds were served in 2023-24. Moving on to TK, state preschool and Head Start enrollment also grew from 2021-22 to 2023-24 but again, that's mostly driven by TK. TK enrollment for 4 year olds doubled during this period with the largest gains in high poverty schools.

State preschool saw increases in 3 year olds, especially in full day programs, but 4 year old enrollment declined in part day settings by about 9%. Head Start enrollment for 4 year olds also dropped by nearly 5,000 children, though the program still served nearly 48,000 children in 2023-24.

Underscoring the program's vital role in California system and that level of reach is critical, especially as federal threats to Head Start funding could severely impact access for not only preschoolers but for approximately 80,000 children statewide and beyond.

Access Head Start participation is also linked with meaningful long term benefits, including higher rates of high school and college completion and lower rates of entering foster care or experiencing poor health outcomes.

In closing, while TK has expanded access for families with low incomes, enrollment trends for 3 and 4 year olds show disproportionate investments across the system, which creates challenges for families in accessing preschool programs that best meet their needs.

As we look ahead, the challenge is not only to continue to expand access, but ensuring that it reflects the diverse realities of California families. A truly equitable system must value all delivery settings, support all types of providers, and recognize that no single program works for every family.

That means investing in a coherent, well supported mixed delivery system that gives every child a strong and inclusive start. With that, I want to thank you again for the opportunity to speak today and I'm happy to answer any questions.

Thank you for your testimony. We'll next hear from Parent Voices Contra Costa. Welcome.

Hello, My name is Dina McMahan and I am with Parent Leaders with Parent Voices of Contra Costa County. I have two children. My daughter Nevaeh will be 17 next month and I also have a four year old. His name's Johnny. Thank you for inviting me to come speak with you today.

The last year has been really hard for me and my children. It's just us right now. I just recently left a DV situation a few months ago to get away from my abuser. We are living. We were living in a DV shelter for a while.

We stayed with different family Members, friends of Costa Costa county and so even though it was a transition at my last job my my children were stable. I am in home care working. I also take care of a couple clients in Antioch and my son was still in preschool. He went to Cornerstone Cornerstone Christian School.

Even the days were every day from 8 to 4pm he went there almost a year. The teachers were awesome. It was very structured and it even helped with our routine at home. He really thrived having that routine. I have not got him diagnosed but I suspect my son is adhd.

But they worked with him so well and it helped me work with him also. Honestly, he was doing great even with everything that was going on at home. I finally got my housing in a different county. I don't want to say just where I live just to make sure I'm safe and my kids.

I move there in February. I'm still driving all the way back to Antioch every single day for work for my son's childcare. The commute was long but I need. But I needed to keep working and I didn't want to change Johnny's school to lose his routine. His teachers. His teachers.

It was really good for the both for both him and me to have that. He was doing so great in that preschool. But then my hours were cut down to two days a week.

It just didn't make sense for me to drive all the way to Antioch three days out of the week for him to stay in the same childcare. I started the process to transition my case so we could find full time work in child care closer to home. That was two months ago.

I don't have no childcare even though I was using alternative programs. I really don't understand why it's taking so long for my case to transfer. I just talked to my worker at Coco Kids and she doesn't understand why either.

I cannot get a hold of anyone at the agency over here in my new county and I've been trying for months. This is really frustrating for me.

I have that constant schedule from eight to four every day meant so much to me that my son was safe and had a place to go where he didn't have to deal with what I was going through. Sometimes it's overwhelming now I cannot do anything without childcare. I want to go back to school part time.

I want to work more hours and take, take on more clients. My child, my client understands my situation and he lets me bring my son with me to work. But that's not a solution.

Imagine you are in a grocery store and it's your job to help support an adult with disabilities and you also have a 4 year old kid who's going through a traumatic situation and lost his routine. I'm going back and forth like a yo yo between two of them.

It's not fair to me and especially not fair to my client. I'm starting to have challenges with him at home. I can't really blame him. It's not going, it's not a good situation. And I try now to. We go to the library story time on Wednesdays and we also go to Farmer's Market.

We take advantage of free museum days. I try to do educational things, but I'm not a teacher. I'm not trained and I have my own things I need to deal with. The more time that passes, I'm more worried that he's losing the progress he made. By the time he starts elementary school, he'll have lost even more.

For parents like me who have to move for their own safety and the safety of their children, this process should be automatic. It should not be this hard to transition child care between two different counties. It's my life that has been put on hold without child care. But I can get, I can't get this time back either.

And neither can my son. We have, we have vouchers. Calwork stage 33 hours, a three hour state preschool and tk. If you can go to this program, they won't take your voucher. The program doesn't have the hours you need or if you switch counties, you fall through the cracks.

It should not be this confusing or this connected. And finally, I don't, I don't believe we can expect quality child care if we don't pay our child care providers well. The, the job they do is really hard and it really valuable.

I'm so thankful for the teachers Johnny has had over the years and he really deserves to be getting, they really deserve to be kid. Be getting paid more. It makes me, it makes me wonder, maybe it wouldn't be so hard for me right now if we get paid, if we pay our child care workers more.

We supposed to have universal preschool in California, but universal isn't. Ohshit. I mean, shoot. I'm sorry.

Take. It's okay. Take your time. If you want to finish your comment, that's okay. Don't worry about it.

Please do everything you can to transform how we can pay child care providers so they can get paid true value and we can truly universe preschool in California. Thank you.

Thank you. I want to thank you for. I want to first of all, you did fantastic hearing your testimony and you're doing amazing as a mother.

Thank you.

Thank you for sharing your testimony. Very important for us. We'll come back for questions. We'll just hear lastly from the Legislative Analyst Office and then we'll open up for questions for our Committee. Good morning chairs and Members of the Committee. Edgar Cabral with the Legislative Evidence Office.

I don't have any prepared remarks here, just available if there are any questions. Okay. Thank you very much. Thank you all for sharing your testimony. Each one of you could probably been an entire hearing because you have so much to offer to the conversation.

I'm going to try to be as succinct as possible as I ask a few of you some questions and then obviously ask that our colleagues jump in. And once again maybe just starting off by thanking our Ms. McMahon again, thank you for sharing your story and putting a face to the problem that we are facing in California.

You really just, I think help illuminate exactly what people are going through. And so thank you for doing that. And again, you're doing a wonderful job of taking care of your family. Thank you. And we hope that our work is to help you do even better. And I think that's what this conversation is about today.

So let me start with Dr. Jaime. You mentioned that the panel that's organized since last August will terminate its work in November of this year and there will be a report that will be published.

I'm curious as to what are the are there going to be actionable items in this report and what are the, what should our expectations be from when this report comes out? Are there going to be policy suggestions and changes? Can you walk me through what you think and what the expectation is for the report?

Yeah. So thank you and happy to answer that question. So the work group is charged to provide the Administration and publicly everyone in regards to recommendations for the revamp of the cdss funded child care and development QRS system.

One of the pieces that I will say, for example that we're hearing is the importance of moving from a rating system to a recognition System, which is what we had heard in a couple of the meetings from this.

Can you please help explain exactly what those two differences are?

Happy to provide that too. So CDSS does not provide rating. However, there is a rating component into the current quality rating and improvement system. What that means is there is a matrix that different sites utilize to acquire points based on level of teacher's education, based on group size, curriculum, et cetera. Right.

And so based on that, then there is a rating that is provided and every county may call it five stars. I can speak to Fresno, for example. So if you have enough points, you could say this site is five star rated, etc.

In the last meeting and in quite a few meetings, we've heard the importance of perhaps not utilizing that rating. Since families are really looking at care through a word of mouth acting as well as themselves may not see themselves in that rating system.

Meaning a family may value a lot more the linguistic and culturally appropriate practices, meaning that provider's home language could be very weighed a little bit more heavily than perhaps another element on that matrix.

And so those are the type of examples that the workgroup was going to be providing recommendations to the Administration, to us as well as the legislators and publicly for us to have further dialogue on.

Thank you. Appreciate that. The Every Child California. Remind me how to say your last name correctly. Ms

Buthee

Ms. Buthee. Thank you. You had a lot of recommendations and it was very hard to be very honest to keep track of all of them.

There was a couple that I remember more specifically that I thought made some sense and I wanted to just sort of tease them out a little bit more and hear more than just the recommendation itself, but maybe some of the reasoning behind that and some of the barriers that you currently see.

And then I'd probably ask maybe others here, including the Department of Education, to maybe help illuminate more why that exists. So your first one was on consolidation, and I don't know if you use that term, but that's what I remember of multiple applications into one that's more uniform. Can you talk more about that, please?

Yeah. There are two state preschool contracts. There's a full day, full year contract and it has a minimum days of operation, has a minimum hours per day. And there is, it's 246246 days a year and typically open between 8 to 12 hours a day.

There's also a part day, part year contract which is open a minimum of 180 days and usually three to four hours a day. There is the ability for there were recent changes on how the day is defined. So now you can have a part time family in a full time program.

You can also have a full time program, a full time family in a full time program. And so some of those nuance changes did not exist a number of years ago when these two contracts were created. Because of the changes that were created, we are recommending that these two separate contracts be consolidated into one.

Because with two contracts, you have to do projections for two contracts, audits for two contracts, reporting out on two contracts. And it was some of the streamlining process that this Committee recommended, as well as others that actually made these changes allowable. So now due to some of the programmatic changes, actually having the two contracts is unnecessary.

If you have one contract, any program can operate utilizing any of those models. It does not hinder any program to operate either a part day, part year program and a full day, full year program. What it helps eliminate is the two administrative pieces of managing each of those contracts separately.

So again, it was from some of the positive changes that were recommended from this Committee as well as others that allow this to happen, which again is why we're suggesting the change.

So let me allow departments or LAO, if anybody wants to help provide more insight into why that's challenging or, or why it can't happen or why what it would take for this to happen.

Yeah, I think I'd probably approach it from. It's something we need to look into because. So I've, I've been around long enough from the Jonesville Days where we consolidated five different preschool funding sources into a single preschool contract.

We know that during that transition we blended, we pulled part day and full day into the same and allowed them to operate within the same contract. Right. That was kind of the, the, the notion of that Bill is streamlining and reducing administrative burden.

So I think to the extent that, which, that, that, that is happening, if, if there are programs that maybe, you know, perhaps it happened through expansion. Although I think we've, we've, we have attempted to consolidate, keep the contracts kind of, you know, together so that there's, there's just the one contract.

So I think that's something that we need to go back and unpack and, and maybe do some administrative work around, you know, consolidating.

Okay, appreciate that. The other one, because I don't want to monopolize the time here, but the other one that I remember from the feedback was on the prioritization or the priority levels. I believe that was also you, Ms. Buthee, on trying to reduce those as well.

And I'm curious, I'm sure someone had an excellent reason as to why different priority levels were created. And I'm just wondering today why that may not make sense. And that was one of your recommendations, I believe.

Yes. I think that there is a lot of historical reason on why the priority levels for state preschool program are different. Also, some of the additional requirements in state preschool have also made priority levels different, such as the 5% set aside for special special needs children. That is a priority.

And when state preschool was established, four year olds were a priority first and then three year olds and then two year olds. And so I think that a lot of the priorities that have been put in place were created at a time when transitional kindergarten was not in full implementation.

And so there were many more 4 and 3 year olds. Those priorities were also put into place prior to the state preschool program being able to enroll two year olds. And so now we have seven different priority levels because of all of those additive pieces over the years.

And so can you walk me how practically that works for a program or for a family that has a four year old or a three year old and not a two year old who is prioritized in this seven layer system of priorities?

Zero, I don't have my cheat sheet with me. Do you have your. It's CPS at risk children are the first priority, of course. And then the second priority for state preschool programs would be the special needs children. Special needs set aside. Then you would have income eligible children. And so it would be 4 and 3 year old income eligible children.

And your recommendation. Thank you for walking me through those four. But your recommendation is. What is your recommendation on prioritization?

So our recommendation is after the first priority and the second priority, give all income eligible 2, 3 and 4 year olds the same priority level.

I see.

Instead of which matches the CDSS program. So acknowledging that there is the special needs set aside. So do CPS at risk first, then the special needs set aside and then everyone else income eligibility to 3 and 4 year olds because. And not doing a prioritization within the age brackets.

Okay, thank you. I had questions for everybody else but was really again appreciated and moved by the testimony of falling through the cracks from moving from one county to another. Can someone please provide some more information about why this happens? Why. Why these. This transition is not smoother for someone who's in the similar situation.

Yeah. So I'm happy to provide some information. I would need to know more details.

I don't want about this specific case. Just generally speaking, if someone were to move and they have, you know, current childcare and they move somewhere else because of any number of situations, certainly a situation like the one described here is significant.

One, why it's not as easy as calling your local county and getting authorized in a matter of days, certainly not months.

Yeah. So the procedure is that when a family is eligible for services in certain contracts, they are eligible for services for 24 months. And so what that means with the 24 months is that when you move from one contractor and you go to a different contractor. Right.

Because you leave the county and there's a different contractor, those 24 months follow you. And so at that point, then the transfer occurs and that contractor is working with the previous contractor to gather that information and be able to then provide services right away.

I am going to connect with you afterwards to give you my card so we can look specifically at what's happening. And we are committed to making sure that we're looking at your case.

I would definitely be interested in what is happening because if someone who's testifying before the Legislature can't figure this out, this is probably a problem for many other people. And that's not okay. So I'd like to hear more about that. I am going to pause there and turn it over to chair Dr. Jackson.

Thank you very much. Obviously, still so much to do. I think the idea of how do we continue to break down silos is so important. Right. I hear that within one agency there's some consolidation so that there's not multiple forms and things like that.

But it seems as though there still work to do between from one agency to the next. Right. This is still the same child in many cases, but yet two different agencies, which means two different contracts, two different audits, two different. All that kind of stuff.

How can we continue to work on this to make sure that it doesn't matter whether they sign up through a program through CDE or sign up with a program through cdss that, you know, how do we make this a no wrong door operation for this? Any thoughts about that?

So I'm happy to go first.

Or do you. Or. Or is it what we like to hear, which is introduce a Bill?

Yeah. So. So let me acknowledge that we can always do better. Right. And the intent of these programs is not to experience what you went through. The intent is to ensure that families have the continuous eligibility.

It sounds like we need to take this back and make sure that we are doing further technical assistance with our contractors to not only provide trainings, but Also make sure that our management, our childcare bulletins are in play to make sure that they are followed.

And then of course, when we also do monitoring, we do also check for that type of information too. And so that we're committed to making sure that no family experiences this.

Yeah, I mean, obviously, either way, it is still state or federal money, right? Yeah, I mean, obviously. Which means that it's meant to help folks. And I would just like us to start to really be bold in what we know the 21st century program needs to look like. Right. I mean, I don't.

Most of us know it, you know, it better. Y'all know it better than I do. But how do we just make sure that we begin to have a plan to get there that.

So if you even go to a school campus, that you're not just there for a half day program, but you're being introduced to all the different programs in that community so that you have a. You can choose which one fits your needs. Right. Like, when do we get there? Most importantly, how do we get there?

So it may be a Bill. Zero, you're talking my leg.

Hold on, let me write this down.

Okay, say more. So, you know, I think there's, I mean, there's been efforts to do that. There's been efforts to kind of, I think to like the. My child care plan. Right. As an investment as a community, you know, as a tool for families. And I'll just share that candidly.

I don't know, kind of like the status, the progress, the availability of it, the uptake, you know, it. So others may be able to speak to that. But, you know, I think there's things that, you know, as we have kind of conversations even in our own Department about like, you know, portability of eligibility. Right.

Kind of came up here on this panel having, you know, families that have access to information around all the programs that they're for, which they're eligible for. Right. So that they don't have like the differences in like, you know, this program's got this priority, this program has, you know, has these priorities.

And I kind of slot in here, right. That there is an easier way for the state to kind of articulate what those options are for families. So I think that's, you know, when I say it may be a Bill, that's kind of what I have in mind was. Yeah. Thinking about.

Again, I'm a firm believer of we have got to stop setting things up and expect parents to jump through the hoops. We decide for them to jump through it's time for us to say what is the needs of the community and the parents. And we adapt our programs to meet their needs. Right.

And so we've got to be more service centered. Not that you're not thinking that way, but again, sometimes it's hard for systems to think beyond their own system. Yep, yep. Which are what systems are designed to do. I mean, I, I understand that, but I just think that, you know, we would love to continue to.

Well, I'm past conversations. Let me just. So I was going to say continue a conversation, but I'm not interested in any more conversations. I want to make sure that we begin to produce policies that will get us to that direction. And of course, this is one of those times where we're about to go through an administrative change.

So it begins to, it begins to get me to think about what do we need to begin to do through trailer Bill Language and through other pieces of legislation to begin that continuity of policy so that we continue. We don't have to start this conversation all over again after an election.

But we are just, we've already created a legislative roadmap that the Next Administration is expected to follow or have to fight with us to change it.

If I may, just thinking about trailer Bill Language and things that you could write in, you could write in collaboration. You know, that's, we, So I mentioned a couple of grants. I mentioned some work that's happening.

Are you writing this down?

So one of the things I mentioned is extending the planning and implementation grant, the mixed delivery planning grant we wrote. You know, we don't write law at cde, but we get to provide technical assistance.

And so one of the things that we suggested is tie those two grants together because really we have a, we have funding that went to school districts, charter schools and county offices of education. And we had funding that really went to local infrastructure, County Office of Education. Sometimes, sometimes resource and referral programs.

Sometimes these, these, the individuals operating these programs are right next door to each other. But they don't, but they're, they're, they're, you know, they're kind of their universes don't, you know, intersect. Right. And so. Right.

You could write that into a grant, a policy, a what have, you know, whatever you have, like collaboration with here, you know, and I think it kind of follows along the lines of what gets measured, gets done, you know.

Correct. How, how much of a setback are we? Will it be if Head Start is eliminated?

Yeah. Yeah. So I don't have the dollar amount right up hand, but I know that.

There it's $1.5 billion.

So how many children is that?

52,000.

52,000 children currently serve. It'll set us back 52.

You layered that with preschool slots?

And then CDE commented about it's a layered because they're folded and blended with other programs.

So I want to make sure we're clear on this, that in order to give the richest of the rich a tax break, we are going to be forced to eliminate 55,000 preschool slots in order for rich people to get richer. Another huge transfer of wealth, right?

And we're putting it on the backs of the next generation. So we got to make these things clear. The priority decisions that the Federal Government is making right now, they're not thinking about our children. They're thinking about people's pocketbooks. Am I wrong? Okay. Thank you.

Thank you, Dr. Jackson. We're gonna. I think I'm gonna W. Action Jackson. Action Jackson. Let's get things done. I appreciate always your passion to. We're here to work, to do things, to change things. Very well stated. Thank you to this panel.

We appreciate all of you and the work that you do on a regular basis on this issue. We always welcome you back. But we also, I think, at least I expect a lot of feedback from several of you on more that we can do. Doesn't have to be in this hearing.

You can always, and I hope, reach out after this hearing to get to work. Thank you to this panel. We will move on to the next panel. I ask, please, those who are on issue number two, Chu to please come forward. This is on universal transitional kindergarten.

And we'll hear the governor's January budget proposal to fully implement universal tk. We have also with us the Learning Policy Institute. And we'll hear from the Department of Finance, the Legislative Analyst Office, and the California Department of Education. We have as our order, hearing from the Learning Policy Institute first. So I'd ask you to please kick us off. And welcome.

Great. Thank you. Good afternoon. I'm Hanna Melnick. I'm a senior policy advisor and Director of early learning policy at the Learning Policy Institute. And today I'm going to be sharing research on implementation of transitional kindergarten in California.

The majority of the data I will share today come from a survey of school districts and charter schools from the UPK Planning and Implementation Surve, administered by CDE. And this survey includes data from over 1500 LEAs, representing almost all school districts and two thirds of charter schools. I'm going to refer to these slides that you are.

This handout that you have in your packet, and this information can also be found on LPI's website. So starting on slides 3 and 4, you've already heard about TK enrollment and how quickly it has been increasing. The enrollment doubled between. Erin, do you have. Yeah. Thank you.

So, just covering what we've already talked about today, that the enrollment of TK has doubled between 21-22 and the 23-24 school years, going up to over 151,000 children served. And on the slide 4, you can also see the uptake rate. So how many Children have been participating in TK as a portion of those who are eligible.

Last year, we had about 59% of eligible children participating in TK according to our estimates. That's really good uptake, but it's not as high as we were pre pandemic, when about 72% of eligible children were enrolling. We can also see on slides 5 and 6 that overall TK implementation has been progressing really rapidly.

Most districts participate in TK right now, 96% of school districts and 91% of charters who took the survey do offer TK. So among those who aren't offering TK, the top reasons that they listed for not offering a program were either low and no enrollment, a lack of space for charter schools. TK wasn't in their charter.

And then some Basic Aid Districts in particular said that the issue was funding. We also see that LEAs are beginning to offer TK at more of their elementary school sites. So 85% offer TK at each of their elementary schools. That's up from 81% last year.

And that's important because having TK in your home school makes it more likely that families are going to want to send their child. So now moving to slides 7 and 8, there's the one, that pie chart at the top, and that shows that most LEAs are offering full day Tk. 78% of LEAs offer only full day Tk.

16% offer only part day, and 6% offer both. That's important because a longer school day can be beneficial both for kids learning and for parents. But I do want to clarify that the definition of full day is more than four hours. So we also need to make sure we're looking at expanded learning.

And we do see that among the LEA surveyed, all but 13% have some expanded learning option for TK students. Most of them offer expanded learning on a school on their school site, but there's about 10% that wrap with the state preschool program.

However, we just don't know what percentage of TK students are actually able to participate because we don't have information about wait lists and how many children are able to enroll who want to. We also.

On slide 9, you'll see we conducted a survey of families last summer with the Rapid Early Childhood Project to see about how families are making decisions and the kinds of challenges they're encountering and enrolling in preschool.

And we saw that among families who had an eligible child for TK but didn't choose tk, the top reasons for not choosing TK were not having TK at their elementary school site, not wanting their child to be in school yet not having before or after care, their child wasn't potty trained or they didn't know their child was eligible.

So again, some of these accessibility issues are cropping up, but also questions of information and understanding of what the school district is offering. So I'm going to turn now to staffing and facilities, to the big top issues for LEAs.

On slide 11, you can see that most LEAs reported that they will have they expect to have sufficient space in their LEA for the projected enrollment next year. That's 88% of school districts projecting that they will have enough space. That's up from 82% the prior year.

Those that didn't have enough space think that they'll need about 500 more classrooms by next year. That's actually progress. It's down by half from the previous year when they thought they would need 946 more classrooms. So data look pretty good.

But on the other hand, we see that the staff or facilities are the biggest challenge that LEAs are reporting with TK implementation, especially sufficient and appropriate space. We see that some districts, for example, are having to kick their kindergarten classrooms out of the spaces that they're using because they have bathrooms.

Others are sending kids down long hallways to make sure that they're to be able to use the bathrooms, which is not age appropriate, and taking aids out of the classroom. On slide 13 and 14, you can see some more about the TK lead staffing. We have two really big changes coming up next year.

We have the ratio changing from 12 to 1 to 10 to 1 and also new early childhood credential requirements so that in addition to a teaching credential, TK lead teachers need to have additional units or experience. We're seeing some promising data. We've actually increased the number of TK teachers by quite a bit.

And we have about a 1% vacancy rate at the start of the year in those positions. So this actually looks like staffing is going pretty well. On slide 15, you can see that also most LEAs, 91% expect that they will be able to meet the new lead teacher requirements next year.

91% of LEAs said that in the last school year they actually already had all teachers fully qualified under the new requirements. Specifically, 52% already had other teachers, had 24 units of early childhood, 51% had experience, 38% had a teacher permit or higher, and 29% are head top pre K prior to 2015.

So they're exempt and we're also seeing assistant teacher staffing is increasing and the vacancy rates have really dropped dramatically. So we had 12% of spots in the 2223 school year open at the beginning of the school year and that dropped to a 3% vacancy rate in the following year.

So we don't really know what has supported that assistant teacher staffing. But it'll be really important to continue as the new ratios go into effect. And again, we still see the staffing as continues to be a challenge. The open ended responses from LEAs. This is again a really big thing that keeps coming up.

And one of the issues with staffing is also in CSPP and Head Start on school districts. So I know this is about TK, but the LEAs are experiencing higher vacancy rates in these programs and they're having declining total numbers of staff. So we also have a lot of needs when it comes to professional development.

So just to summarize, some of the TK expansion is happening really quickly. We're seeing some positive data about having enough space, but finding age appropriate spaces is still a challenge. We're hiring more staff and you have fewer vacancies in TK positions.

But there's other staffing issues and making sure that staff are really ready for teaching young children will be kind of the next frontier. Thank you and I'm happy to answer any questions.

Thank you. Come back for questions now. We will go on to our next panelist which is Department of Finance.

All right, Good morning or good afternoon. Chair and Committee Members George Harris with the Department of Finance giving an overview of the Governor's Budget for Transitional Kindergarten. Transitional Kindergarten began its implementation with the budget act of 2021. TK was initially intended to be slowly integrated over five years to include all four year old children as eligible.

The 2025-26 Governor's Budget moves forward with full implementation of TK by allowing universal access to all four year olds, increasing overall program funding to 3.9 billion. Ongoing Proposition 98 General Fund.

The full implementation includes $2.4 billion to expand the eligibility to all children who turn four years old by September 1, providing access to roughly 60,000 additional children in the next budget year.

Furthermore, the Governor's Budget provides an additional $1.5 billion ongoing Proposition 98 General Fund to support further lowering the average student to adult ratio from 12 to 1 to 10 to 1 in every transitional kindergarten classroom. And happy to answer any questions related to the issue.

Thank you very much. We'll have the Legislative Analyst Office, please.

Good afternoon. Edgar Cabral with the Legislative Analyst Office so we have two sets of comments related to the Governor's Budget proposals for transitional kindergarten. First, with regards to the overall assumptions around the number of students being served or the average daily attendance for TK students, we do think the budget year assumptions are optimistic.

The governor's estimated growth is of about 60,000 Ada from 24-25 to 25-26. Our estimates are 20 to 30,000 lower.

Considering the current take up trends that we see and the estimates of the number of 4 year olds in California, the administration's estimates assume kind of a higher take up rate which I think as we have seen as the state has expanded tk, that take up rate has not necessarily increased.

If anything it's decreased as we have a newer pool of families who are eligible who may not be aware of of tk. The the second comments is related to the the additional funding that's proposed to meet the new the staffing ratios that are scheduled to go from 12 to 1 to 10 to 1.

We think the the amount of funding that's included in the Governor's Budget is higher than the cost associated with meeting the 10 to 1 ratio.

We did do some cost estimates using a couple of different approaches of two different ways that we expect LEAs would go about going from their current requirements which are 12 to 1 to 10 to 1 and under either of those estimates our costs are significantly lower than the administration's estimates.

Depending on which of the approaches that you would assume, it's either 200 or $400 million lower than the amount that's included in the Governor's Budget. That concludes my comments. I'm happy to answer any questions.

Thank you very much. Appreciate that. Final Palace Department of Education Good afternoon Chairs and Members.

Stephen Propheter, Director of the Early Education Division at cde, on behalf of State Superintendent Public Instruction Tony Thurman as we shared on the last panel, California's implementation of UPK includes transitional kindergarten, which is the only universal and free option and which will in next school year be available to all four year olds as we've heard on this panel, and it is alongside an array of other preschool options, many of which are eligibility dependent.

So at CDE we appreciate the commitment by the Administration to continue to fully Fund UTK expansion in the upcoming fiscal year. We're also pleased to see the proposed budget funding to reduce the ratio to 1 to 10 in TK classrooms.

Research has shown that smaller class sizes and lower adult to child ratios are associated with better classroom experiences and relationships for children which are tied to immediate and long term outcomes for children enrolled in Pre K programs. We're already hearing a lot from parents about how meaningful their child's TK experiences have been so far.

So to just bring a parent's voice into the room, we have a parent from San Diego, Unified shared After being home for most of his life, our son was craving interaction with other kids. The UTK program has helped him make so many wonderful friends and learn so much about how to treat others and be respectful and responsible.

His teachers are amazing and you could tell how much they care about these kiddos. There is consistent communication and they are understanding of families individual needs. Watching our son blossom this year has been wonderful and we are so grateful for this great program. This year TK is available for all children born between September 2nd and June 2nd.

CDE estimates that estimated enrollment for this year is 25,000 higher than the prior year which was 151,000. We anticipate these numbers will continue to increase as TK programs become more established in their communities and in their practices, and this would currently indicate that we have an uptake rate this year of roughly 55%.

But with significant policy changes, it is plausible that over time we could see the uptake rate increase to 75% of eligible four year old children, which is comparable to what we see in other states that have universal pre K programs.

Based on enrollment patterns in the last few years, we anticipate the number of children enrolled in TK will continue to increase next year, possibly by another 25,000 students as we move to full implementation.

In recent trends with expansions again, it's possible that the eligible children serve in TK will decrease slightly with respect to the eligible population as the final group of birth dates becomes eligible.

After that, we believe the percentage of eligible children enrolled in TK will begin to increase again as TK programs again, as I mentioned, become established in their communities. I won't repeat in detail everything that Ms. Melnick showed in her presentation, but overall we are very happy to see that TK expansion is progressing rapidly.

Most LEA or more LEAs are offering TK at all of their school sites, which is a huge part of access. With schools being in communities, having access to TK at every elementary school site is is critical.

Most are offering TK for a full day and offering expanded learning options to extend the day and that they're hiring more teachers, they've got fewer teacher vacancies and anticipate that most teachers will meet the new teacher requirements in 25-26. So now that I've covered some logistics.

Want to just talk a little bit about some developmentally appropriate learning environments, which is what we want all of our TK environments to do. So key in the implementation has been the three grants the Legislature and the Governor agreed to Fund a few years back.

So the Planning and Implementation Grant, the Early Education Teacher Development Grant and the UPK Mixed Delivery Planning Grant. So a key use of the Planning and Implementation grant I will just highlight is funding UPK coordinators in every county. I spoke on the last panel about breaking down silos.

This is, this is part of that initiative that is assisting with doing that work. So these, some of the work these coordinators do is to organize, coordinate and implement countywide efforts for UPK including establishing mixed delivery preschool system focused on whole child development, aligning programs from preschool to third grade, and supporting UTK implementation.

Of the three grants that I mentioned, we have heard from grantees that they've requested extensions until at least June 302028 to expend the funds they've received due to a ramp up period which include developing relationships between systems that are sometimes siloed and infrastructure development that naturally takes time.

So the extensions will allow the UPK coordinator positions to continue beyond that first full year of universal implementation and ensure that districts and charter schools have resources and support in their counties to support family engagement and time to be thoughtful about instructional practices and other implementation. After the first full years of implementation, it will.

For the Early Education Teacher Development Grant, it will, extending that grant will continue to support TK and state preschool teacher candidates while they complete their required education. An activity which you may not know can only be paid for as a candidate completes their education. So when we think about reimbursement to teachers. Right. And covering those costs.

So without extensions of the early education teacher development expenditure deadline, many teachers in the current pipeline that are working on getting necessary coursework to get their, their permits, their credentials, their degrees, they may not be able to complete that or may, they may kind of abandon altogether.

So as we think about the needs for, for staffing our classrooms and we've heard some of the data right. I think it's a critical, it's critical to extend that funding.

And I think also on the mixed delivery grant, I think extending that also as we think about silos and supporting with workforce development, supporting enrollment of programs or enrollment of children and supporting families enrollment in UPK mixed delivery programs, I think it's critical for that as well.

So just long term, it's important to consider also funding ongoing resources for UPK coordinators at the county level to support the system. And the capacity that these grants have built on these funds have really established a system. They've helped create a system. And systems are key to sustaining many of the gains that we've achieved so far.

So thank you for your time. I'm joined by Virginia Early to assist in answering questions at the appropriate time.

Thank you very much to all of you. And on that last point that the systems have, I think, demonstrated results. You know, LPI's report speaks to that, I believe.

And when it, when it talks about the, what has happened to the vacancy and just the number of TK providers, teachers and, and also the assistant teachers, those numbers have grown and the vacancies have diminished. And so I assume that's partly due in success to those programs that were just mentioned.

But I'd ask the question to LPI on this issue is that where we're seeing, can we identify what is happening, where that workforce is coming from? Is it through mainly these initiatives or are these new college graduates that are pursuing these very specific programs?

I'm sure it's a mix of it, but do you have a better sense of that?

Yeah, we are hoping to learn more about that. We're in the process of getting data from CDE and CTC to look at the TK teacher data. We hear anecdotally that they're filling most of their positions. And from current elementary school teachers, it's popular to want to teach 4 year olds, and so there's interest in teaching younger.

We are hoping that early educators who are already teaching preschool are able to move into those positions. But we know that there are a lot of barriers for them to do that. And so we don't know the quantities, but that's kind of the trends that we're hearing. We hope to have more information soon.

That will be important in order to either continue to invest in the systems that were mentioned by Department of Education or potentially to tweak a little bit to make sure we are accomplishing that goal. So look forward to that information.

The other question that I had just generally, as you did the research, reasons for not offering TK, whether it's at LEAs or at school sites, are there any. And you list the reasons? I'm just, I'm more curious. Are there specific communities in schools where we are seeing these as main reasons?

I thought I heard earlier gentlemen from the California Budget and Policy Center say that we are seeing transitional kindergarten being offered more at school sites with families that need these types of services.

Did you notice anything in the data that you analyze as to any trends into any specific types of communities where this is not being offered currently, and it's deficient higher than in other areas?

So we don't have a good sense of the trends. We do know that almost all of the. The charters and the districts that didn't offer TK were small, with I think, one exception. So small and rural areas might be more likely in Basic Aid Districts. Those are kind of the trends. And then I think in terms of.

I. I don't know if Mr. Salcedo was talking about the uptake or just not offering those programs.

And. And the other question then is, just because an LEA is offering tk, it doesn't mean it's being offered at all schools or in all communities. And so I'm just curious about that.

Is there any further analysis that was done on that?

Right.

Yeah, so we have. We do know that about 85% of LEAs offer it at all their school sites. Now, a lot of those only have one site. So then I think it's.

I would have to get back to you, but I think it's about 2/3 of the districts that have more than one site are offering it at each of their elementary schools that offer kindergarten. So that there's definitely still work to be done.

And I think that as we move toward full implementation, we have more children eligible, we can expect to see the number of schools that are offering it to continue to expand.

Okay. Definitely would be interested in that follow up. Turning now to the issue of the disagreement on the uptick, there's three very respected sources here of how many TK students we can't might see or Nazi. And just.

I want to better understand the methodology everybody used to better determine whether, you know, the figure that the Administration is proposing in the budget is more or so accurate versus the Legislative Analyst Office. And so maybe we'll start with cde.

You mentioned a percentage of uptick, which I did the quick math, and it just didn't equate to either of them. So maybe I want to get some. What are your expectations from your methodology that you use in terms of number of new TK or total TK enrollees?

So we looked at the eligible population as, you know, as kind of our starting. And then just based on what we saw in terms of enrollment initially? I think at the initial outset of expansion, we had pretty projected. And this is years ago, this is like 2021. We had.

We had expected maybe it'll look something like kindergarten, which is about 90%. But what we've seen is it is, it is somewhat less than that. And I think we are, we'd. And you know, again, there is, there's a lot of hedging here with this. Right. For all of the reasons that I think Ms. Melnick went over. Right.

And what we've talked about with regard to, you know, so staffing. Right. The extent to which there is sufficient staffing, the extent to which there are facilities or TK is offered at every elementary school site is the. Think back to a PPIC study when TK Universal TK first started rolling out, identified 60.

The reason, the biggest reason why families did not enroll in TK where it was offered was because it wasn't offered at their elementary school site. Right. So the extent, I think to which we see TK offered at elementary school sites will certainly impact, you know, that growth.

But as of right now, we are, we're anticipating anywhere from 50 to 5459% uptake in. And what's that?

A number of TK. So in number.

So if we look at, if we assume 50% for 2526 that's 202,000. And so this is for next year and then. Happy to share. Yeah.

Let me go then now to the lao. What is the number you're working with? And a little bit of the methodology. Not all the specifics, but yeah.

So I think what we, I think we're looking at the number of. We're looking at the number of 4 year olds based on Department of Finance demographic projections.

And then we have just kind of looked back historically looking at the number of 4 year olds, the actual enrollment in TK and then looking at what that percentage, what that percentage is, and then making projections moving forward. So it is, there is a lot of uncertainty here.

I'll just acknowledge, I think pre pandemic we were about 70%, I believe of 70% of your TK enrollment was 70% of estimated number of eligible 4 year olds at this point, we are now, I believe around 60%. It went down during the pandemic, has gone up.

But under those numbers every year when we start expanding, that percentage has ticked down a little bit. So you can imagine a new cohort of kids are eligible. Families don't know that they're eligible. So over that has been, there's been a slight decrease over the last few years.

So I think our assumption is that that kind of trend continues, that we don't have a higher percentage that's being served.

So you're using a Percentage of all 4 year olds in California that are eligible by September 1st is your calculation, Right? Right. And which is what percentage?

60 or sorry, I don't have the specific numbers here, but I believe it's around 60%. I think we have had conversations with the Department of Finance. I think the biggest difference is just what are our assumptions about what portion of proportion of students who are eligible will be enrolled in the coming year.

That's the main, that's the main difference. Again, I think we would consider ours are more in line with what has happened historically. It could be that things are different.

And for example, I can imagine from a just like a district's marketing perspective it's a little bit hard to say please come enroll in TK but only if you're within this specific window right now. You can say every four year old. Sure, please come. So I think that will help with some of that.

But I think maybe also the main takeaway is, you know, the states. The state is re benching Proposition 98 based on the average daily attendance of the number of TK students. So these numbers will be.

The Prop 98 guarantee will be updated and it will be changed say next year when we come in and we see what the actual Ada is. To the extent that the Ada is lower than what was assumed in the Budget act, that means we will re bench Prop 90 down and it'll, it'll.

And that was going to be my question after I asked Finance for numbers. We re bench anyway. So if it's wrong, and I mean it's always wrong, that sounds like a mistake. You, you can't project. Exactly. So it's going to be off.

I should say so you always re bench to make sure you're once you know the real numbers. So even if we're off this time by I think you mentioned about $400 million that gets re benched next year. Yeah.

The main effect will be so by having a higher number in this current budget. So the re benching, what it means is it doesn't come out of other education programs. That essentially means that it's less money available for non 98 General funds.

So the larger you assume TK is going to expand, the less is available for non programs.

Now let me ask finance on the methodology to get to the. zero, what was the total number then that you have enrollment at TK in the Laos office? I'm sorry, I don't have the specific numbers here, but we can follow up.

And then do you have the total number of enrollment expected enrollment in tk I assume you do.

Yes. George Harris, the Department of Finance. So our methodology just comes from our internal demographics unit who comes in, looks at and analyzes what they the anticipated four year old. Sure. Age range will be for each year.

So we have our TK estimated and estimated enrollment for 25-26 to be around 264,000 and with the uptake rate of about 63%. So a slight increase from 23-24 as well as 24-25 and from a percentage.

Why? To try to be apples to apples as much as possible. From a percentage of 4 year olds enrolled, what is 264,000. Oh, compared to the eligibility in that. So I think you heard how the LAO estimates roughly 60% of all four eligible four year olds is what they think would be the enrollment.

What is 264,000 percentage wise of the four year olds who are eligible by September 1st.

So that would be 62.9%.

Okay, thank you. Appreciate that. I'll turn it over now to Dr. Patel.

Thank you for this presentation. As a former school board trustee in relatively large Unified School District, this is all very interesting to me because I was in real time while we were implementing UTK and we have Head Start schools at our school district. So UPK as well, we had it all. Couple of things. Want to comment? Ms.

Melnick, your report is spot on. With all the things that we have experienced in school districts. The concerns, the struggles, the progress, the optimism, it's all right here. So very consistent. It's nice, it's reassuring that your work is also consistent with what we see and consistent with CSBA's work as well.

So with that in mind, when we're looking at some of the facilities issues, many districts are in a position where they're not going to be able to pass bonds now or if they do, communities are really hard hit. How are we going to address some of the facilities issues that are still going on?

It's not just the potties in the classroom. Right. It's also the playgrounds. There's other aspects of TK facilities. How are we going to address those continuing ongoing facilities needs for this mandate?

I'll just jump in and add, I think to your point, some districts may not be able to if you have local bond issues.

And maybe this is not a solution, but Prop 2 that was just passed as part of the modernization grant within the school facility program that does allow school districts to come in and receive funding that's specifically for building a new building or renovating a new building for Transitional kindergarten.

So that would, that is one element of that program that did not exist prior to Prop 2. Again, does this, it does presume that districts have that bond funding that's available, but that for those that do have that, that would be one way to access some funds.

Yeah. And what about those that don't? Or that it wasn't written into their bond program specifically? So it would be a violation of that bond.

Right. So in those cases I think that would be more of a challenge moving forward. The state has had previously had a grant that was for state preschool TK kindergarten facilities, but has not provided specific funding for that purpose.

And I think my understanding is that part of the changes in Prop 2 are intended to be kind of a, an alternative moving forward.

So what I'm hearing is there's still a donut hole for some school districts and I would love to see a way to help them. These are often the school districts that are going back and forth with trying to fill in gaps and voids.

They're not the basic aid self funded school districts nor are they the, you know, higher need school districts. They tend to be the middle class school districts where you can't bake sale your way into a classroom renovation. So I would love to find a way to help those families get there.

These are communities where they are choosing to keep their kids perhaps in a preschool program that's not UTK because they don't want their kids to experience three different sets of rules in a school day that's hard for a four year old to go from home rules to a UTK classroom to an after school program.

I think also if we can somehow grow the program to being full day, even if it's not full day for the working parent, it's not full day. At least it might align with other siblings so that siblings can stay together and move from one program to another. I would love to see that expansion.

What is the investment requirement to get to full day UTK? What is that going to take from Prop 98 funds, for example?

And just to clarify, full day. You mean like the four and a half? Yeah, the four and a half hour. Yeah, I think so.

That I think not the working parent full day.

Right, right. Trying to clarify because this is also we're talking about childcare where full day is a totally different term in this hearing as well in other cases. So I think that there have been bills related to this issue. I think the, it would be considered a state mandate to add, make that a requirement.

Right now the requirement is only three hours for both TK and kindergarten. So we don't have, I think we've done previous estimates that we can share with you. I don't have it available at the time, but it would require additional, additional funding as a result.

Yeah, I think we might see a better uptake in the program if it was for a longer day. It's three hours. It's a lot of transition for a little kid.

Yeah, I think with expanded learning there is a transition. Either way, there is funding available to cover the full nine hour day for it means for a kindergartner versus a second grader, it's a lot more of that time is in the expanded learning portion and there is funding available.

We have heard some, some concerns at the local level because there are higher staffing ratios around kindergarten that sometimes then they need to make sure they have the staff available. But that is the funding that the state has provided is available for that. And districts are required in every district to serve all low income students.

So there should be for those students some program. But it does still mean that there's a transition at some point.

Yeah. And additionally, I think now we have a situation where there's a fast food minimum wage that could be very tempting for people who are looking at entry level jobs. And that's competing with the ability for school districts to hire additional classroom staff and after school care.

Is there an opportunity within Prop 98 to look at providing a little more resources to our school districts so that they can compensate a little bit more competitively as compared to other entry level jobs?

I know that the constant refrain is, zero well, education is a calling, childcare is a calling, people are going to do it regardless of the salary. And I think that's really unfair to put out there into the universe. It may be a calling, but it needs to be compensated.

And I think those that are taking care of our children, they're doing a really huge service to society. And I really feel strongly that we need to do better to compensate them adequately so they can live in the communities that they serve.

It's heartbreaking for me to see that especially for our children with disabilities, especially for our low income communities.

If I may, Hannah Melnick with the Learning Policy Institute. I think one of the related to staffing and facilities, one of the issue, the ways we do not want to see programs in TK expanding their offerings is by taking classrooms that are currently being used for CSPP and Head Start.

And as we are seeing that they have hard time staffing, they're. They're losing enrollment. They have low enrollment post pandemic. They have challenges with staffing because of low pay. It's maybe the easiest option just to move TK into those classrooms, but they're going to be. It's really important that we maintain that capacity.

And the facilities funding that was available through the state preschool, TK and kindergarten grants might be harder for state preschool programs to access now through Prop 2, where they're competing against other K12 programs. So we want to make sure that we're like maintaining those facilities as much as possible.

I think nobody's intent is to cannibalize the other program, but we are seeing that happening on the ground and we want to make sure that that's not happening. So I would be very open to further discussions on how we can ensure that those essential programs retain their facilities, they retain their staff, and we compensate them adequately.

Thank you.

Thank you very much, Dr. Patel. I'll tell you, those fast food jobs are tempting to me too, for me to make some real money. Thank you so much for this panel. We really appreciate it. And before we start our next panel, we are going to do some public comment for parents.

I hear there's some flights that need to be made. And so we want to provide public comments for parents to come up. Parents and parents, you know who you are. If you would like to make any public comments, it's just two minutes each and you'll say your name and affiliation. Anyone want to make public comment? Correct. Anything?

Any public comment? Yeah. Related to this hearing?

Hello. Good luck.

Hello. My name is Terry Rivers. I'm a child care provider in Long Beach. I've been a child care provider for 20 years.

The most important action for legislators to take this session is to adopt a rate methodology and statute that reflects the actual cost of care as agreed to through the collective bargaining process for. For family child care providers. I also noticed in this meeting that you guys like to deal with a lot of numbers.

So I wanted to explain some numbers. Right now we're being paid like $7.56. And to break that down, if we are, our weekly rate is at getting a child like a toddler, $173 a week. Everything is based on 25 hours for full time. So that 25 hours will come to $6.92 an hour for that child.

And what parent is working full time? And it's 25 hours? They really need 45 hours. So they need 40 hours, but then they need an extra hour a day for Travel, which is 30 hours this way and 30 hours that way.

So if it's $73 a week and it's 45 hours for that week, we're really getting paid $3.83 an hour. We all live in California, and we know inflation is high, our insurance is high, our food is high, we have gas, we offer transportation overnight.

And I start noticing that you guys have a lot of statistics, but there was no statistics that included the parents that come in out of state that need care. There was no statistics that covered the parents that need overnight care, that need evening care, that need weekend care, and that plays a big part.

That means that they need beds, they need bedding. Then our insurance go higher because we offer 24 hour care and we are in charge of our future, our kids. California is the blueprint of a lot of things, and the least we can do is take care of our children. We're all adults here.

If these were children here, then I will understand why we're still bumping heads and everything. But we're adults. We're professionals. We know what to do, we know what is needed, and we know what the kids need. Thank you guys so much.

Name and affiliation, please.

My name is Racine Reese. I am a licensed family child care provider from Victorville for 25 years, and I'm also a Member of Child Care Providers United for the last 22 years. I wrote mine, so I don't. I'll go everywhere.

In 2015, after being in business for 15 years, I was finally able to start saving a little bit for retirement. Because prior to that, due to the instability of this business, low pay and it being my only source of income, I wasn't able to.

Last year I was blessed to buy a home, but the down payment took the majority of that retirement. So now at 57 years old, I am faced with building my retirement all over again. And with a mortgage that is $2,000 a month more than what I was previously paying, that seems impossible.

We are the backbone of the working class and essential to California's economy. It saddens me to see the lack of concern and appreciation that is shown to us. We ask that you continue to support CCPU's effort to maintain and grow our retirement benefit.

We can make up for the decades most providers have served children but been unable to save their retirement for their retirement because of our low pay.

Thank you. Thank you very much. Name and affiliation please.

Greetings Chairman Dr. Jackson and Members of the Committee. My name is Amesha Griffin and I am a licensed provider for over 22 years CCPU Member. When CCPU surveyed Members before beginning bargaining on our first contract, the most important benefit that providers needed the most was health care.

Most providers were on medi Cal or had no medical insurance at all due to low wages. Without the Healthcare Fund, I would not have been able to receive mammograms, yearly physicals, blood pressure treatment or necessary medications which averages for me about $5,000 a year, sometimes a little over.

Without health care, we as providers essential lose access to a good quality of life which benefits not only. Which benefits not only our families but also our parents and children who depend on us.

As we are still in the early stage and building the understanding of how our Fund works, there is no reason to defund the health plan as the state is now proposing. Therefore, we ask that the Legislator continue to support the funding of our health care plan. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Name and affiliation please.

Hi, Tanika Benaheny, located here in Sacramento County. I'm a six year childcare owner and thank you all for having us. The topic that I want to talk about is delinking the subsidy rate from private pay which all pay is already low so that need to be delinked.

They do not need to be have no relationship and I will explain. Under the rules set by the Federal Government, states are encouraged to delink the subsidy rate paid by the state which the rate paid by providers and subsidy families.

Delinking the rate will allow the subsidy rates to reflect the actual cost of care while not putting the additional pressure on on the working class family who already cannot afford child care who are not eligible for subsidies but struggling to pay the cost of child care out of their pockets.

This means providers like me and my counterparts here will receive the full subsidy pay rate, not just a portion of it. And it's heartbreaking because we already impacted and at this time it will help families as we won't feel pressure to raise payment on private pay on families who already can't afford child care out of pocket.

And many subsidies are eligible to ensure we receive our full subsidy amount which we are not receiving it right now. And that's why we are here.

We are asking the Legislator to consider delinking and to delete the status that require the linking so that it will allow for a more accurate a reflection of an actual true cost of care. And thank you.

Thank you very much.

Hello. Hello. I'm Daya Dizon and I'm a provider for 10 years from Orange County and I'm also part of the CCPU and I would like to please ask as a parent to please don't forget about us US parents who was helped by the family daycare who can only help us.

When I was working 12 hours a day they're the ones who can only help me. And now as a provider please don't forget about us. As partners of the parents family child care providers provide most of the non traditional hours and weekend care for families who work different schedules that often change at the whim of our employers.

In order to staff these hours, US providers have to often pay their assistance a premium price to ensure that they can meet the needs of their families or themselves to work hours far beyond a 40 hour work week.

We ask that the Legislature be sure that new rate mythology has sufficient funding to cover the additional costs of these hours and address the crisis that too many families have few options on nights or or weekends because current rates are completely inadequate to keep providers doors open when families need care. Thank you so much.

Thank you very much. Name and affiliation please.

Hi, my name is Fricia Moore. I own two preschool centers title 22 centers not out of my home and I'm here speaking on behalf of center owners. TK is killing our programs. We are also putting our livelihoods on the floor every single day whether I have children in my building or not.

Just in rent alone, I owe $27,000 a month. If TK keeps pulling kids, I'm liable whether these kids are my building or not. And it's happening across the entire state. I see providers that have center based programs that are closing constantly and it's also killing the ability for us to be able to provide care to infants.

It will go away. We're asking for a mixed delivery system. You want 500 classrooms, we have them in our buildings. You need teachers, we have them. That's the answer. We're all here together to provide care and we're asking for a mixed delivery system.

Thank you very much. Name and affiliation, please.

Hi, my name is Gabriela Patiato Rivera. I work at Congo Child Care Center. We are a center based program and we serve 120 children ages 18 months to 8 years old. I also represent every child California right now. We are asking for three things. Rate reform. We need our current rates to be current right now.

They're not based on the true cost of care. And we are asking for a rate system that reimburses providers 100% of the true cost. Second, we request contract earnings that are based on enrollment and no attendance.

It's really hard for our centers to do contract earnings based on attendance because we still have to pay teachers, we still have to pay rent, and based on attendance is unpredictable. It doesn't work for us. The third is slot release. We were promised 200,000 new additional childcare spaces by 2027 and we hope those slots are released.

Thank you.

Thank you very much. Name and affiliation, please.

Hi, Annie Patzold with Educational Enrichment Systems proudly serving over 1100 students in San Diego. I first want to thank you for your continued commitment to California's youngest children and families. As the state continues its vital work in determining the true cost of care.

We are asking you to include a bridge year and allow us to remain held harmless for the upcoming budget year. During this transition without long term solutions, we are watching dedicated educators walk away because they simply can't afford to stay. We need time.

We need stability so we can continue caring for the children who count on us every single day. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Name and affiliation, please.

Hi, I'm Sarah Salazar with Educational Enrichment Systems. It's a nonprofit childcare agency in San Diego and I'm asking for support and consideration in the request of a bridge year.

One more year of held harmless would give providers like us the time to transition smoothly, ensuring the quality and the stability of as we move forward into adopting an alternative methodology. We have a smooth transition for that. So thank you again for giving me the opportunity to voice my concerns and also my recommendations.

And we just ask for one more bridge year while we transfer over and switch over. Thank you so much.

Thank you very much. Name and affiliation, please.

Hello, my name is Alice Tong. I am a child care center provider 22 private based provider and I'm also a Member of California Child Care Center Alliance. I'm here also to speak on behalf of child care centers. What we have witnessed in the field is that the free TK is great benefiting all the parents.

However, it's really killing our private based programs. Earlier there was a very good question about how do we get more facilities for the eligible students. We have facilities. There are age appropriate facilities. There was another question. How can we give true full day service to the children, not just four and a half hours.

We provide 89 hours. We have space for that. So why don't and then the parents also need options. What if they want their two younger kids be in the same facility? What if they prefer play based instead of having all the children sitting in the classroom for four or five hours? They need options as well.

We are a great addition for options and giving parents more choices to fit their busy working days. Why don't we just open up the funding and allow school districts to work with private child care centers, Head Start State Preschool so we can all be providing service for children together.

So really appreciate that you're hearing our voice and hope you consider my request. Thank you.

Thank you. Name and affiliation please.

Yes, Julia Fruden, Senior Policy Analyst at Child Care Law Center. I also have a one year old baby at home, so thank you for letting me get back to her. Childcare providers should be paid fairly and supported for their expertise, skills and experience.

The state's poverty level payments have harmed and taken advantage of child care providers for too long. 43% of all child care providers rely on at least one public assistance program. And right now in California we have this historic opportunity to implement fair pay for child care providers swiftly and justly.

New Mexico increased providers pay and based pay on the true cost of care and As a result the percent of child care providers living in poverty fell from 27.4% in 2020 to 16% in 2024.

We appreciate the Subcommittee's proposed transition plan that prioritizes and fast tracks all necessary activities for implementation as well as increases child care providers pay. It is imperative that we increase pay on July 1st as we wait for the state to fully Fund 100% of the true cost of care.

We also urge the Subcommitee to remove the use of the regional market rate from the transition plan and adopt the use of sorry and adopt the use of the alternative methodology put in statute as soon as possible, which includes putting key structural Components into the law like the federal requirements to pay providers based on enrollment and paying prospectively.

This is how we strengthen California's childcare and create more options for families which will protect our communities during this time of uncertainty and economic threat. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Name and affiliation, please.

Good afternoon. My name is Elia Fernandez and I'm with Parent Voices and I'm here to speak the child care is very important as well as preschool. It will be a great help for all working families and needing child care, especially children with special needs. And that's it. Thank you so much.

Thank you. Name and affiliation, please.

Lourdes Alarcon with Parent Voices. I'm here because I'm a parent, but I'm also an educator and childcare provider. And as Julia was saying, you know, we need like fair pay. I'm in the family network system. Family educator network system. I'm an educator. As I'm as a parent, I need like expenses. I'm the head of the household.

My two children are about to go to college and I need all the support like basically financially and healthcare as well as childcare providers should be paid equally. Thank you so much for holding this and I hope you're going to keep supporting the network for ensure the healthy families like child care and issues that concern to families.

Thank you very much.

Thank you. Name and affiliation, please.

Hi, my name is John Skolnick. I'm the CEO at Family and Child Empowerment Services. We serve hundreds of families every year in San Francisco. I also want to thank you for your time. I can see how attentively you're listening to each and every person who's speaking.

I'm here on behalf of those families we serve, many of whom are essential workers just like our teachers, who work hard 246 days a year to serve our families, to give them a strong start. I'm here because I heard that the state is considering ending Hold Harmless before a new rate structure is in place.

We are making our budget for next year and without having a new rate structure based on the cost of care or extending hold harmless, we will have to make serious cuts to our programs that will affect our most vulnerable families and children, especially children with special needs.

We serve families who live in their car, who work overnight shifts, who care for their own parents. To create a strong economy across the state and to create strong households, they rely on high quality care. And we can't do that without clear guidance on rate reform and having enrollment based reimbursement post pandemic.

It simply doesn't make sense to be thinking about attendance. And even for enrollment, we enroll year round. So it's hard even to be 100% enrolled. That's just the reality of making sure that our costs are still there. We still have to pay teachers every day, even if we're 85% enrolled or 90% enrolled.

We're working hard to get families the care that they need, so when provided with that, our families will feel that they have that security to go to work to support their families. I want to thank you for your commitment to child care and for making sure that families have a strong start across the state. Thank you.

Thank you. Name and affiliation, please.

Hello, my name is Karla Guerra, policy and Advocacy Senior manager at the Unity Council. We operate Head Start and early childhood education programs in Oakland and Contra Costa county with over 609 enrolled children. We are here to strongly urge you to release the additional CCTR funds as outlined in the slots pension plan.

The demand for affordable care is outpacing what we can offer. The Unity Council is ready to serve more children. We also support the whole harmless provision in the 20242025 Budget Act. And with federal delays that we are experiencing in payments in Head Start payments, our programs are being stretched thin.

This provision ensures that no provider receives less than what they have already budget for. This is vital right now for continuity of care. We support the rate reform transition plan as well and the shift to a more equitable cost based rate model. Thank you so much for your leadership.

Thank you very much. Name and affiliation, please.

Hi, my name is Arzu Shahid and I'm nine years old.

What's up?

And hi, my name is Abdul and I'm 7 years old. We are here to support Parent Voice of San Francisco Child care for all.

I'll just hold it. Okay. Hi, my name is April Leung and I'm here with Parent Voice of San Francisco.

And you're 10?

Well, I have that 10 year old and that's what I'm talking about today. So when she was in preschool, she was only allowed to go there for three hours a day. And it was one of the hardest times in my life. She didn't have enough time to build real connections with her teachers or make lasting friendships.

Every morning was a struggle. Drop offs were filled with tears, confusion and heartbreak. It never felt like enough for her or for me. Preschool should be full time and available during school breaks and throughout summer. Children need consistency and routine to feel safe and parents need reliable care to thrive.

I was trying to balance motherhood and college, chasing a future for both of us. But three hours a day just wasn't enough. I couldn't focus, I couldn't plan and eventually I had to drop out. It broke me. I felt like I was failing at everything.

Years later, when she became school age and she was able to get that full time help, I was able to go back to school and earn my degree. But I lost so many years that could have been spent building a better life. Not just for me, but for my family.

All because support for working and studying parents wasn't there when we needed it the most. Lastly, we need a well funded mixed delivery system that avoids disruptions to children and families and to create better facilities.

A quality birth 5 system of early care and learning, supporting choice and flexibility for families and ensuring high quality experiences for children which protects diversity in the provider network. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Name and affiliation please.

Hello, my name is Salam Jaser. I'm a parent of two children. I'm representing Parent Voices San Francisco. Thank you for allowing me to speak today. I have been working as a caregiver for over 10 years.

I love my job and right now I work for private clients and go to the their house to ensure they can remain in the comfort of their own home. The challenge is I'm on call and work on the evening shift. It's very difficult to find child care that's available in the evening.

The providers who are available, they are unable to accept subsidy payments because the rates are too low. Childcare is essential for our family and there's not enough child care centers. Families need full day, full year care. It's very a few hours a day, often shut down for summer and holidays.

That doesn't work for most of families who need real and reliable childcare that matches their schedules. I needed family child care close to home or with shared social and emotional support. We need to find care that's a full time year around and meets the needs of real people, not just school calendar. Thank you for your time.

Thank you very much. Name and affiliation please.

Good afternoon, my name is Maria Lustore and I'm the organizer of Parent Voices San Francisco.

I started this job when I was a parent with two young children who didn't have child care and eventually I got childcare and I feel lucky and I want all children in the state to have the same access to childcare that I did and at different points in their lives, different ages.

I've used different kinds of child care. We've used grandma care, license Exempt care. We've used family child care. They went to a preschool center and then when they were school age they went back to grandma license exam care again. A mixed delivery system is really important even for preschool.

We know that part time childcare do not meet the needs of families because sometimes it also doesn't meet the need of a child because the bonding connection that the child needs the child three hours is not enough.

So we want to make sure that it's full day, full time and that it's also available during summer break and school break. And finally we want to prioritize also paying our providers. Child care workers remain some of the lowest paid workers in our state. We need the state to prioritize investing in our childcare workforce.

Second, we need to keep the promise for spaces. Last year we fought to get back in the final budget a commitment fully Fund an additional 200,000 childcare spaces by 27-28. The state needs to continue making good on that promise. And finally we need to target support for our Los Angeles providers who are victims of fire.

Hundreds of child care providers were forced close because of wildfires in Los Angeles. These providers deserve targeted support to allow them to reopen and continue serving families. Thank you very much.

Thank you very much. Thank you everyone who have participated in public comment. I will now move on to issue number four. Child care and preschool, quality improvement and workforce support. It doesn't look like our participants are changing very much so. zero, I'm. I was supposed to do three. I thought we were already in four. We'll do three.

Decently and in order, as my grandma would say, decently and in order, we'll do issue number three. I was just trying to see the sun. So issue number three. I'm sorry, Issue number three. Child care and preschool funding, rates, oversight. Everyone in the right spot. Is anyone lost? Just. Okay. I get lost all the time.

Then I believe this time Department of Finance will be kicking us off.

You may begin when you're ready. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. Chair and Members Krisan Malhotra, Department of Finance. My comments will address the fiscal questions noted in this area of the agenda. First off, the Governor's Budget reflects current state law which requires an annual cost of living adjustment for all child care and preschool programs.

Noting in recent years, the Legislature and the Administration have reached various agreements as part of the final budget act to repurpose funding associated with the COLA to support child care and preschool programs in various ways. The Administration is open to having a similar conversation this year with the COLA.

Ultimately, the final budget budget act will reflect an agreement between the Administration and the Legislature, and we look forward to working with you all to get there. More broadly, the Administration remains committed to developing child care rates informed by an alternative methodology, and we are actively working towards that goal.

The Governor's Budget maintains funding for policies as they are required by current law, most notably maintaining the rate floor as part of the regular budget process. The Administration will continue to monitor evolving fiscal conditions to inform the May revision to the Governor's Budget and Final Budget Act.

Next, according to agenda I have Mr. Harris, do you have anything to say?

Yes, George Harris, the Department of Finance is giving a brief overview of the California State Preschool program. So the program is a state it's state funded to help support families have access to preschool statewide.

Recent changes from the budget act of 2024 include allowing two year olds to have access California State preschool facilities and the 2025-26 Governor's Budget proposes to provide $2.9 billion towards California State Preschool Program.

Specifically 1.9 billion towards Proposition 98 General Fund and 1 billion towards Non Proposition 98 General Fund and one of the large changes in the Governor's Budget was a restoration of one time savings from the previous fiscal year and this represents 519 million Proposition 98 General Fund and 153 million for Non Proposition 98 General Fund.

California preschool programs will also be receiving a cost of living adjustment or a COLA for 25-26. The Proposition 98 General Fund Preschool programs will be receiving a COLA adjustment of 19 million and non local education agencies or Non Proposition 98 will be receiving a COLA of 10 million. And that concludes all my initial remarks. Happy to answer any questions.

Good afternoon Mr. Chair Dylan Hawksworth-Lutzow with the LAO, we recommend reducing state preschool funding to align with contracted costs. Under the Governor's proposal, state preschool funding would exceed projected costs in 2025-26, consistent with the trend over the last few years where the budgeted amount has exceeded actual costs.

We recommend reducing ongoing state preschool funding by 355 million Proposition 98 General Fund and 71 million non Proposition 98 General Fund to better align funding with anticipated costs. We also want to highlight a few recommendations we make in a recent publication related to child care.

In that report we highlight three child care policies we recommend the Legislature revisit. These policies may no longer align with the Legislature's key priorities given recent changes in child care funding and they are outside the scope of collective bargaining.

First, we recommend repealing a statutory cost of living adjustment that only applies to certain providers that are funded on the standard reimbursement rate. The current policy effectively prioritizes additional funding for providers already receiving rates that are relatively high compared to the private market in their county.

We also recommend the Legislature consider modifying the statutory COLA for voucher based child care programs to better align funding with program costs. The current approach applies a COLA to both components of the program, the portion of portion for operational and administrative costs and also the portion for provider payments.

However, funding for provider payments does not need to receive a COLA adjustment. Since the state already adjusts funding in the state budget to align with changes in rates, the Legislature could continue providing an annual COLA only for operational costs, but no longer apply the COLA to the portion of funding related to provider payments.

Lastly, we also recommend the Legislature allow the reimbursement flexibility for direct contract providers to expire as current scheduled on June 30th of this year. This flexibility was first established during the pandemic and allows direct contractors to receive funding equal to their pre pandemic contract amounts regardless of attendance.

Although this flexibility was really helpful during the pandemic and provided stability to providers, maintaining the policy at this point disconnects funding from the number of children providers currently serve. When these provisions expire, the state would revert to the pre pandemic policy, which takes into account student attendance.

A recent federal rule change does require states to Fund providers based on enrollment rather than attendance. To address this, the state could Fund based on attendance and request a waiver. Alternatively, the state could modify statute to Fund based on enrollment.

We think either option is preferable to extending their reimbursement flexibility because these options connect funding to current program service levels. That concludes our comments. We're happy to answer Questions

Wow Lao. You getting spicy today. DSS

Jackie Barocio, Department of Social Services I'll be responding to the first question regarding the public or the timeline for public vetting the alternative methodology. So just as a reminder, the alternative methodology is that cost of care assessment that will be replacing the regional market rate survey.

There have been a number of public engagement activities to inform the development of that cost model that included cost surveys, RQAP meetings which is the Rate and Quality Advisory Panel focus groups, et cetera.

Excited to announce Last week we held a special rate and Quality Advisory panel meeting where we did share the center based selection points and per child cost outputs resulting from the alternative methodology cost model.

So with regards to the public vetting that has served as our primary vehicle the RQEP meetings for the center based programs also flagging that throughout that presentation the panelists and the public gave us feedback regarding the single rate structure as well that was presented in the April meeting.

Moving forward, we are planning to have a part two to the RQAP meeting.

Just because it's a lot of content we have to break it up into pieces that part two we will be holding an RQAP meeting on Friday, May 9th that will include follow up items related to the alternative methodology cost model inclusive of the selection points for family child care programs which is that second piece and then lastly, of course, all this public engagement leading up to the detailed report that we owe the Administration on Children and Families regarding the alternative methodology cost model, just outlining the methodologies and assumptions.

Hello Chair and Members, Virginia Early with the Early Education Division at CDE on behalf of State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond. In terms of rates, CDE has been closely collaborating with DSS because we administer, as Mr.

Harris shared, the California State Preschool Program which this year is funding over 140,000 spaces throughout the state and it's been important for us to provide our expertise because the new rate structure will apply to the California State Preschool Program.

We've heard for years from our contractors that the low rate in state preschool, especially in our high cost counties, is making it challenging to recruit and retain qualified staff and pay a living wage to a workforce primarily comprised of women of color.

While the one time cost of care plus rates are helpful, contractors have shared that it's challenging for them to increase salaries with funds that are not ongoing. To truly increase salaries, California requires an ongoing commitment to funding increases.

Although we are happy to see the inclusion of a cost of living adjustment in the Governor's proposed budget, this COLA as written will not apply to programs in 12 high cost counties due to the way it's proposed.

While bargaining negotiations are still ongoing and CDE staff are supporting the Administration at the table in this effort, we've also been diving deep into our existing data systems to figure out what we can get started starting July 1st and to determine potential options for how our data systems could be modified to implement a final agreement.

The cost and timeline for these changes is heavily dependent on the extent to which the final agreement would require new data elements to be collected or the data system collection structure to be modified.

We currently have a number of systems at the Department, some antiquated and unable to accommodate system changes and others with a very specific and limited purpose.

We have developed a baseline estimate of the funding we will need ongoing starting July 1, which is about 3.5 million and about 24 positions to begin making the changes we need to make for rate reform and this is an initial estimate.

As we learn more about the final package that is negotiated at the bargaining table, this cost may change, but this is based on the information we have at this time and we anticipate these resources will be used to make modifications to a number of our data systems with primarily making those modifications in our fiscal data system, but their impacts on other data systems and how they need to connect.

Regardless of the outcome of bargaining and the timeline for implementation. If provided adequate resources starting July 1, CDE can begin consolidating our various systems now to prepare for rate reform. Thank you so much. And I'm joined by my colleagues from the Department to help in answering questions at the appropriate time.

Thank you very much. A few things. Number one, obviously Department of Finance LAO raised issues in regards to higher funding levels. Do you have a response to that observation?

George Harris with the Department of Finance in last year's Budget act, similar to what the LAO is noting, there was there were thoughts about potential savings for not for Proposition 98 General Fund preschool and non Proposition 98 General Fund preschool. And when they're during the budget process as those numbers were being calculated, there were identified savings.

So as we go through the process again similar to this year, we will look to see if there are any identified savings and as we find them we will be sweeping them and scoring them similar to previous years. So at this time we have no no updates to share related to that.

Thank you very much. For Administration. You've reported a multi year the Administration has reported a multi year deficit based on the requirements of current law. Does the administration's fiscal assumptions include funding aside over the multi year for the increased cost of child care reimbursement rates that are aligned to an alternative methodology?

Krishan Malhotra, Department of Finance we have no information to share at this time. The Department of Finance is currently developing the May revision which will provide us with a clear picture of the state's fiscal condition. This will be informative as the Administration and the Legislature consider costs related to childcare and all other areas of the state budget.

What about based upon January? We already knew what you were projecting in January. Did that January budget include the proposed or the assumptions that we need to continue to build up higher rates?

The Governor's Budget does include and maintain funding for various rate elements that was kind of discussed earlier including the rate floor like the cost of care plus rates and any other costs related to the current MOU with CCPU. But other than that we have no other comment on a set aside or multi year projections.

Is there any way that I can trick you when making more comments? You don't have to answer that. Moving on. All right, thank this panel very much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Moving on now really to issue number four, DSS. You may begin when you're ready.

So good afternoon Dr. Lupe Jaime Mileham, Deputy Director of the Child Care Development Division at DSS. I will be speaking to the questions on the agenda in regards to issue 4 first question talks about better embedding the professional development for all programs.

CDSS aligns the Professional Development Plan plan to the Federal Child Care and Development Fund which is referenced as CCDF regulations. With that then these regulations are also included in the California CCDF plan where we receive feedback from the field in regards to how to embed those regulations and what is needed for our mixed delivery system.

As the CCDF lead, we are mindful to embed professional development supports into the mixed delivery system of child care and development programs to provide access and primary focus focused on providers funded through the CCDF system. Professional development is built around ECE competencies as well as foundation and frameworks and other and feedback of course from the field itself.

In terms of question number two, it speaks in regards to the professional development but also calls out supporting dual language learner supports and inclusive classroom approaches. MCDSS as mentioned, we aligned with the professional development that is with our federal regulations.

The current plan includes several investments that support children who are multilingual or dual language learners as well as supporting inclusive classroom approaches. I'm going to raise a couple of examples for you. For example, we're currently overseeing an investment that is the language learning project that trains and prepares professionals to support.

In this case the new iteration is home based providers that includes family, friend and neighbor as well as family licensed family child care homes.

Some fun facts in regards to data is that this project as of October 2024 supported 120 trainer of trainers participants which the intent is to be able to then support and train 600 providers throughout the state.

Another example in regards to inclusive classrooms which is the second piece of this question is that we continue to support inclusive practices via different investments. Some investments includes the Infant Early Mental Health Consultation Network as well as the Teaching Pyramid Social Emotional Toolkit that's coming to focus on the reduction of expulsion and suspension as well as others.

Just 1.0 of data in regards to these investments is that in fiscal year 2324 the infant mental health supported 3432 providers. This was important because it was not a one size fits all. It had a help line.

It also had open door sessions, open door consultation sessions as well as community of practice sessions and of course the training and support with that too. Now in terms of question number three, the question is whether the plan is systemic and we would say yes it is.

The quality plan supports the evolution of professional development across research and also within all the early care and learning field which targets both the framework which is built upon for this sector of you know within compliance of the Child care and Development Fund.

The EC foundations and frameworks as mentioned are aligned and embedded into core principles of this plan as well as the master plan for early learning and care. Adjustments to professional development are driven by feedback as well as data that includes both evaluations done at the local level as well as with the contractors and across the entire system.

Question four talks about whether ratings is still needed in a QRS system for the QRS system quality rating and improvement system which is QRS California is not CDSS administrates this particular contract and they're not required for our for our Administration of that CURA system.

But as mentioned previously we have heard from both the field in regards to shifting and the consideration of shifting to a recognition instead of instead of a rating system where it puts it centers families choice and what they find important in regards to this sector.

What's important in regards to this too is again the equity centered QRS advisory panel that will be providing this recommendations as mentioned in a previous panel. So more to come in regards to that too. There was a question in regards to the workforce registry and in light of the expiring funding.

I'm going to speak in regards to our role in regards to that too. We value the benefits of the workforce Registry run by the Los Angeles alliance and funded through the first five California provided to the child care workforce. Giving the expiration of its funding.

CDSS has developed a plan in regards to what are those core functions of the registry. One is the professional development data in terms of us meeting our commitment to submit a data report that is due on the federal.

We have a system that we will leverage and continue to leverage which is the California Early Childhood Online Seco to continue to collect that to ensure that we are in compliance with the federal.

We're also going to work alongside California first five in regards to the grants nine months no cost extension to make sure that participants on the registry are able to download their information to make sure they have access to their data.

And then of course we're also going to continue to promote the importance of utilizing the child Care Consortium, Higher Education California teaching credentialing for degree attainment as well as permit matrix as forms of resources to the field which is something that's available now in terms of the approval, training, posting. That's another component of the registry.

The CDSS will continue to promote Seco and view and view and provide what is available in regards to vetted CDSS funded trainings and professional development and opportunities for the field and that CECO does provide a menu of option both online as well as in person and et cetera.

And then finally the last component of the registry is the stipend modules and so CDSS will continue to provide technical assistance to those contractors that utilize that module to issue those stipends to ensure that they have the necessary supports to transition to either their system they had prior to that, leveraging this or shifting to a new system.

We're reminding contractors that with our Workforce Pathway Grant and our Quality Counts Grant that we administrate that they can use some of those that funding in order to support the shifting to a different component or they may contract with the registry themselves for that service too.

So the next question has to do with the state strengthening the workforce pipeline for the licensed care.