Training institute reduces turnover; improves quality

Contact: Mary Stalker

Director of Communications, Research & Development

518-690-4217 ext 22

mstalker@earlycareandlearning.org

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

1/28/2013

(Albany, New York)  Child care center directors are the gatekeepers of quality in their programs. The position, however, is one that sees a great deal of turnover. Frequent staff turnover can have an adverse affect on a program’s quality, especially when the turnover is in the leadership position. The New Director’s Institute (NDI) addresses the professional development needs of child care center directors and helps them and their staff successfully remain in the field.

In 2006, supported by the New York State Office of Children and Family Services (OCFS), the Management Training Project at the Early Care & Learning Council created the NDI. Armed with 12 years experience providing training and technical assistance to center directors and an acute understanding of their needs, the Management Training Project at the Early Care & Learning Council developed a comprehensive series of workshops to assist new child care center directors in their complex and demanding jobs.

The New Director’s Institute has graduated 65 participants. 87% of surveyed graduates said that they felt NDI had helped them to either retain staff or decrease staff turnover. 78% said that NDI had an effect on their choice to remain in the field. To read the full report, Five Years of New Director’s Institute (NDI), click here.

Quality early childhood education is essential for the healthy development of children and the progress of society in general. Directors are the heart of quality early care and education. Children and families benefit most from the early childhood staff that is stable and consistent. The New Director’s Institute is now in its sixth year and continues to support a high quality system of care in New York State through the professional development of child care center directors.

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Early Care & Learning Council: For more than thirty-five years, the Early Care & Learning Council has been a leading voice for early care and education in New York State.  With its statewide network of child care resource and referral agencies, the Council has successfully fought for increases in funding to support early childhood programs and for the reform of child care laws, regulations and policies to improve safety and quality in child care settings.  The Council was a founder and convener of both the Child Care that Works Campaign and Winning Beginning NY, both statewide advocacy coalitions.  The Council and partners work to increase the quality, affordability and capacity of the early care and learning field and does so through training and technical assistance, data management and advocacy initiatives. For more information, please call (518) 690-4217 or visit www.earlycareandlearning.org. 

Governor Cuomo Releases 2013-2014 Executive Budget

In his budget release, Gov. Andrew Cuomo proposed to increase school aid by 3 percent and allocate additional resources to implement the initiatives he presented in his State of the State address. The total amount pledged to education is about $21.1 billion, up $889 million, or 4.4 percent, from this year.

Some preliminary highlights:

New Education Initiatives

• Full-Day Pre-kindergarten Program ($25 million). The Executive Budget will provide support for a full-day pre-kindergarten program targeted toward higher need students in lower wealth school districts via a competitive process.

• Extended Learning Time ($20 million). In order to provide increased learning opportunities, funding will be prioritized to support high-quality extended school day or extended school year programs, with academically enriched programming. Schools that apply to participate in the program must agree to expand learning time by 25 percent. The grant will cover the full cost of expanding learning time for students.

• Community Schools ($15 million). The Executive Budget will support an innovative program designed to transform schools into community hubs. The community schools will integrate social, health and other services, as well as after-school programming to support students and their families.

• Maintain current funding for Child Care Subsidies

• Raise the minimum wage from $7.25/hour to $8.75/hour.

• Reform Early Intervention Program. The Executive Budget recommends a series of program modifications to expand insurance coverage and streamline eligibility determinations, without impacting services, that provide significant fiscal and administrative mandate relief to counties and generate cumulative local savings totaling more than $60 million over five years.

Preschool Special Education

• Conduct a Large-Scale Audit of Preschool Special Education Providers. The State will select a vendor through a competitive process to audit providers and collect extensive provider data to develop a comprehensive database in order to improve oversight.

• Build Counties’ Capacity to Monitor Providers. The Executive Budget will build county capacity to oversee Preschool Special Education providers through the provision of $1 million in targeted grants to counties and through the development of a fiscal integrity tool to better detect fraud and abuse.

• Empower New York City. Uniquely situated as both the county and the school district, New York City would be authorized to implement a process to select providers for Preschool Special Education services, and to set provider rates within certain State parameters.

Stay tuned for more updates as we continue comb through the details.

Sincerely,

Jessica

Jessica Klos Shapiro

Policy Associate

(518) 690-4217 ex. 32

The State of Our Children

Today I am proud to be a New Yorker. Coming off a national election cycle with little mention, from either party, of our youngest citizens, it was quite refreshing to hear Governor Cuomo’s dedication to our state’s pre-k children. I believe the governor understands the scientifically proven developmental and societal benefits of providing high quality early care and learning to our youngest citizens. Expanding UPK is a first step.

The governor would like New York to have a world-class education system, in part by providing more learning time. This begins by making the most of the learning time that happens before kindergarten. Children who arrive at kindergarten having had high quality early care and learning experiences are less likely to need remedial or special education, repeat grades or drop out high school. Children birth to five who have close relationships with caregivers, who are encouraged to explore, who are read and sung to, and who get lots of play time in safe and stimulating environments come to school ready to succeed.

The governor outlined actions to spur economic growth and create new jobs. We applaud this, and recognize that we cannot talk about bringing new employees to the state without addressing their families’ needs, including child care. Child care is an essential part of our economic infrastructure. As we grow, we need to ensure that the child care options are available and attractive enough for young professionals and their families. Parents too know the importance of high quality programs.

Another part of the governor’s plan for economic growth is to better match training programs to meet the skills required in today’s workforce. We know that most of a person’s personality and intellect are formed in the first three years. We know that skills needed in a 21st century workforce – creativity, problem solving, team work, adaptability, ingenuity – are developed in early childhood. An investment in quality early care and learning nets a much higher return on investment than job training programs that begin in adulthood. As we provide for four year olds today, let us also continue to support our infants and toddlers and three year olds who will be four in the blink of an eye! Let’s invest now to have a creative innovative workforce two decades from now.

We, like the governor, are concerned about public safety. We want our children to grow up feeling secure and want New York to be a place that others want to visit and live. Children who engage in high quality early care and learning are less likely than their peers to be incarnated. Investments in early childhood are an investment in our security. 

We applaud the expansion Universal Pre-K (UPK) time from 2.5 hours to 5 hours and are hopeful that this will provide thousands of 4 year olds with a good pre-k experience. We know New York’s child care resource and referral agencies (CCR&Rs) will be working hard through the transition to help families identify wrap around care that is accessible and affordable. Our network of CCR&Rs will also be particularly interested in how this change affects the children and families in the 60% of UPK programs operating in community based programs like Head Start and child care centers. UPK is currently operating in 67% of school districts so the changes to UPK will reach thousands of New York’s children. There are hundreds of thousands more in early care and learning programs, ages 6 weeks to 6 years, outside of the UPK system who could benefit from quality improvements. The key to addressing the needs of all of New York’s early care and learning programs including pre-k is QUALITYstarsNY.

QUALITYstarsNY is New York’s quality rating and improvement system for early childhood programs including UPK, Head Start, child care centers, preschools and child care family homes. It is a process that assesses and improves the quality of care available to children while supporting the program and staff through the process. It has been proven to work and is currently in place in select communities. To see an impact across the state, to let all New Yorkers enjoy the many long term benefits of a well cared for generation of children, the state also needs full state wide implementation of QUALITYstarsNY.

The Race to the Top (RttT) support in place for the beginning implementation of QUALITYstarsNY shows the State Education Department’s support. The recent Education Reform Commission also made high quality programming an essential piece for the future. Governor Cuomo understands that learning begins early to build New York State’s future. With everyone focused on high quality programs and services, the expansion of Pre-k begins.

The governor has acknowledged, in front of the world, the value of quality early care and learning experiences. I am hopeful. We have just taken the first baby step and in a grand journey towards a state-wide system that supports and values all of our children. It’s a beautiful day in New York.

Marsha Basloe

Executive Director

Early Care & Learning Council

Albany, NY

mbasloe@earlycareandlearning.org

POLICY and ADVOCACY UPDATE

Parents at Symposium

As we begin the new year, it is time to think about our annual trip to Washington, DC for Child Care Aware of America’s Policy Symposium.  This year, it is so important that we impact federal dollars! Last year, the New York State delegation was fortunate to be accompanied by two terrific parents. Each shared their stories about finding and financing quality child care with attendees as well as lawmakers during the Day on the Hill.

Do you know parents with stories like the ones below?

• Heather McShane is the mother of three young daughters in New York. In order to make ends meet, she works three part-time jobs in addition to an internship and going to school full-time. Because of her long hours, Heather needs child care during nontraditional hours. After learning more about the lack of quality care, she now wants to educate other parents about the potential dangers of unlicensed care.

• Saima Akhtar  is a parent leader in New York. She and her husband have a 15-month old son, Russ. When looking for infant child care, Saima was dismayed by the unsafe conditions she saw. Because of her challenges finding safe, quality care, she believes child care policies need to be straightforward and understandable for all parents.

We are hopeful that during your work with parents and providers, you might have come across some potential parents who would be good candidates for the Parents at Symposium program (i.e, they might be interested in joining us in Washington for symposium, participating in some advocacy training, and joining the CCR&Rs from New York on our Congressional hill visits on “Day on the Hill”).

Registration for Child Care Aware® of America’s National Policy Symposium in the spring is now open. Key dates for parents are April  9 - 11, 2013.  This is the fifth year of organizing and training parents as advocacy leaders for affordable, quality child care!  The scholarship to sponsor a parent advocate application is now posted on the Child Care Aware of America  website here. Applications to sponsor a parent advocate at Symposium are due January 25, 2013.

Please contact me as soon as possible if you have a parent in mind and need help completing the application.  I would be happy to provide assistance in the application process.

Sincerely,

Jessica

Jessica Klos Shapiro

Policy Associate

(518) 690-4217 ex. 32