Gov. Inslee signs 2013-15 state operating budget that supports Washington’s youngest learners

It took one regular legislative session and two special “overtime” sessions, but the Legislature has passed and Gov. Jay Inslee has signed a 2013-15 state operating budget that supports school readiness and success for Washington’s youngest learners.

Here are some highlights of the 2013-15 operating budget, with a note on which strategy in our state’s Early Learning Plan the items support:

• Expanding Washington’s state-funded preschool program for low-income 3- and 4-year olds.  The Department of Early Learning (DEL) will add 350 enrollment slots to the Early Childhood Education and Assistance Program (ECEAP) in the upcoming 2013-14 school year, and another 1,350 slots in the 2014-15 school year. Funding is provided to increase the slot rate to $7,500 for all enrollment slots by the end of the biennium, and to enhance program quality and oversight. (Early Learning Plan strategy #12: Expand and enhance ECEAP)

• Supporting vulnerable new families with voluntary home visiting. The budget adds $1 million in state funding to Washington's home visiting system, which offers voluntary support and resources to expectant parents and families with new babies and young children. (Early Learning Plan strategy #5: Make home visiting available to at-risk families)

• Building a strong preschool-3^rd grade continuum. The budget increases state-funded full-day kindergarten from reaching 22 percent to 43 percent of incoming kindergartners. It also adds state funding to support teacher training on the Washington State Kindergarten Inventory of Developing Skills (WaKIDS), our state’s kindergarten readiness assessment. (Early Learning Plan strategy #28: Implement kindergarten readiness assessment (WaKIDS) and Early Learning Plan strategy #29: Implement phased-in full-day kindergarten).

• Enhancing child care subsidies. The budget includes a 2 percent base rate increase for child care providers who offer care that is subsidized by the Working Connections Child Care program. It also boosts subsidy reimbursement by 2 percent for providers who join Early Achievers, our state’s quality rating and improvement system. (Early Learning Plan strategy #33: Improve child care subsidies)

• Enhancing longitudinal data to measure program effectiveness. The budget requires DEL to submit even more program data to the state’s P-20 longitudinal data system to help ensure we are measuring how our investments are impacting school readiness and success. (Early Learning Plan strategy # 36: Expand P-20 longitudinal data system)

• Continue efforts to ensure integrity in subsidy program. The budget continues funding for DEL’s work to build an electronic child care subsidy attendance system by 2015, and supports DEL’s audit team to help ensure that child care subsidy billing is accurate.

View more information on the 2013 legislative session, including DEL’s implementation plans for key bills.

Early Achievers is available in all Washington counties, starting July 1!

Early Achievers, Washington’s voluntary quality rating and improvement system, is now available to all licensed child care providers and families statewide. Starting today, we've completed the three-phase statewide rollout of Early Achievers.

Background
DEL, with our partners Child Care Aware of Washington and the University of Washington, launched the Early Achievers' statewide rollout one year ago, after a successful pilot project with 64 "early adopters." Since then, we have grown to nearly 1,400 participating child care providers, serving more than 34,000 Washington children.

What does this mean for families?


Child Care Check screen shot of an Early Achievers participant

Child care providers demonstrate their commitment to quality simply by participating in Early Achievers.
Parents can find out whether their provider is participating in Early Achievers by looking on Child Care Check, DEL's online licensed child care information system. You can the provider's Early Achievers status by looking for the Early Achievers icon.

Soon, you will be able to see whether your provider is “participating in quality improvement,” which means they are working on being rated or have been rated level 2, or has achieved a “quality level of excellence” which means the provider has been rated level 3, 4 or 5.

You also can ask your provider whether they are participating in Early Achievers and learn more about what they are doing to ensure that the children in their care are ready for success in school and beyond.

Opportunities for child care providers
Early Achievers offers child care providers and their staff access to coaching, professional development, cash incentives, and other resources that support high-quality child care at no cost to providers or families.

One recent professional development opportunity for child care providers and their staff is the Early Achievers Institutes, being held in several Washington locations this summer and fall. The first institute was held in SeaTac last week, June 27-30. The next institute is July 11-14 in Spokane. Participants choose the sessions they want to attend and have an opportunity to meet other Early Achievers participants. Scholarships and translation are available.

Head Start/ECEAP pilot project
We are preparing for participation of Head Start and our state’s Early Childhood Education and Assistance Program, or ECEAP, providers. We recently finished a one-year pilot project with Head Start and ECEAP and as a result, those programs will join at a Level 3 and may serve as“resource hubs,” sharing their training and other resources with child care providers in their community. ECEAP programs must join Early Achievers by 2015, due to House Bill 1723.

For more information

• Read the press release announcing the final phase of the statewide rollout.   
• DEL has videos about Early Achievers for child care providers, families and stakeholders.
• Read more about Early Achievers at www.del.wa.gov/care/qris

Early Achievers is 100 percent supported by the 2011 Race to the Top-Early Learning Challenge federal grant and the federal Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF) ($21 million for fiscal year 2013), for which DEL is the lead state agency.

DEL prepares plan for potential government shut down July 1

State agencies, including the Department of Early Learning (DEL), have prepared and submitted plans to Gov. Jay Inslee in the event the Legislature does not pass the 2013-15 operating budget by July 1. July 1 is when the new fiscal year and biennium begins.

State agencies may not deliver programs and services after July 1 without a final budget, unless those services:

1. Are funded by appropriations in the enacted transportation budget.
2. Do not require an appropriation, (come from non-appropriated funds).
3. Are required by constitutional mandates and federal law.
4. Are necessary for the immediate response to issues of public safety, or to avoid catastrophic loss of state property.

While the work we do at DEL is critical to our state’s vitality and economic success, our programs and services do not meet these legal and constitutional criteria. Therefore, as of July 1, if there is no final budget:

• We will temporarily lay off all staff except two child care licensors, who will be available to respond only to child care licensing emergencies.
• Child care subsidies starting July 1: Child care subsidy payments for care provided in July will cease. This includes Working Connections and seasonal child care subsidies. If child care providers opt to continue caring for children who receive subsidies, the state most likely cannot legally retroactively pay for that care.
• Child care subsidies prior to July: Payments will be made to providers who bill for care that was provided prior to July 1. Those payments may be delayed.
• We will be working with our contractors to suspend or terminate agency contracts. Because home visiting services are non-appropriated until Senate Bill 5809 takes effect on July 28, those services may continue to be delivered until that date. Every other program and service funded by DEL will be suspended.

While a government shutdown is unlikely, we must prepare for this scenario. You can find agencies’ contingency plans on the Governor’s Office of Financial Management website.

Early learning bills passed the Legislature, signed into law--what happens now?

Every year, DEL tracks and weighs in on bills in the Legislature that affect early learning in Washington, and we update bills’ status throughout the session on our website.

But what happens after the bills are signed into law? DEL is posting the implementation plans for the bills that require our action. In some cases, it may be a matter of DEL updating a policy or rule in order to comply with the new law. In other cases, the bill may require DEL to form a work group or to institute changes with partner agencies like the Department of Social and Health Services (DSHS).

Here are a few examples:
House Bill 1203 allows DEL to exempt personal information relating to children from public inspection and copying. That means that when citizens request public records from DEL, we are allowed to redact children’s identifying information from the records before we release them. Previously, we had to ask the requester’s permission and if the requester declined, we attempted to notify the children’s parents or guardians by mail and give them time to file a court injunction (we explained the bill in more detail in this blog post). You can read how DEL plans to implement the new law, which in this case means we will update our policies and procedures and be ready to go on July 28 when the bill takes effect.

Senate Bill 5595, concerning child care reform,  requires DEL and DSHS to train employees who work with families who apply for or receive child care subsidy; change rules, policies and procedures that apply to Working Connections Child Care subsidy program; and participate in a legislative task force that will look at child care improvements. More detail on how we will do that work is in the implementation plan.

You can see all of our 2013 early learning legislation implementation plans on the DEL website. We will continue to post them as they are completed.

Gov. Inslee signs bill that allows DEL to protect children’s privacy

Yesterday, Gov. Jay Inslee signed House Bill 1203 that allows the Department of Early Learning (DEL) to protect the identity of children whose names and other identifying information appear in DEL records. The Public Records Act (PRA) (42.56 RCW) governs how public agencies, including DEL, respond to public records requests. The PRA requires that all public information be disclosed unless it is specifically listed as exempt.  After three years of requesting legislation to specifically allow DEL to exempt children’s identifying information, we

were successful this year with the help of bill sponsor Rep. Jessyn Farrell.

How will this affect people who request public records from DEL?

Starting July 28, DEL will automatically redact children’s identifying information from requested records. Previously, DEL was required to ask requestors’ permission to redact children’s identifying information. If the requestor declined, DEL attempted to notify the children’s parents or guardians and offer instructions for how to seek a court injunction to protect their children’s identities.

• View the bill history.
• View DEL’s public records webpage.

Thank a child care provider today!

Gov. Jay Inslee has proclaimed today Child Care Provider Appreciation Day. The day is also celebrated nationally and is a time to thank child care providers for their hard work in caring for our youngest learners.

Here are some ways you can thank the child care provider in your life:

• Download a certificate of appreciation in English or Spanish to fill out and give to your provider. 
• Write a thank you note or create a thank you card. 
• Share an example with your provider about a time they did something that made a difference in your life or in your child's life. 
• Offer to bring treats or a snack for the provider and children. 
• Have your child make a drawing for your provider.
• Give a favorite children's book to your provider and include a thank you message inside the cover. 
• A simple verbal expression of gratitude is always appreciated any day of the year!

Do you have an example of something you did to thank a child care provider? Share your idea on DEL's Facebook page. 

National preschool rankings find Washington stays the course despite economy

Washington’s commitment to early learning stands out in an annual report issued today about the state of pre-kindergarten (pre-k) education around the nation. 

The State of Preschool 2012 report, issued by the National Institute for Early Education Research (NIEER), noted three nationwide trends:

• State funding for pre-K decreased by more than half a billion dollars, the largest one-year drop ever.
• Enrollment in state-funded pre-K has stalled after a decade of growth.
• State funding per child fell to $3,841, down from the national average of more than $5,000 per child in 2001-02.

Here’s how Washington’s Early Childhood Education and Assistance Program (ECEAP), administered by the state Department of Early Learning (DEL), fared:

• Quality: ECEAP met nine out of 10 benchmarks for program quality. The 10th benchmark would require ECEAP lead teachers to have a bachelor’s degree. DEL currently requires an associate or higher degree with 30 quarter credits of ECE. 
• Access: ECEAP currently has space for 8,391 children to be enrolled at a time. 
• Washington is serving 8 percent of 4-year-olds, ranking 31st in the nation for access.
• Washington is serving 1 percent of 3-year-olds, ranking 19th in the nation for access.
• Resources: Washington ranked seventh in the nation for state per-child funding, at an average of $6,600 per child.

ECEAP has been serving Washington preschoolers for 26 years with education, nutrition, health and family support services. ECEAP serves 3- and 4-year-olds whose families’ incomes are at or below 110 percent of the federal poverty level ($25,355 for a family of four in 2012). Nearly two-thirds of ECEAP families are at or below annual incomes of $17,880 for a family of four. Additional children may be eligible based on developmental risk factors or environmental risk factors (such as child protective services involvement); children qualifying for special education; and children in foster care. 

ECEAP currently serves 8,391 children at a time. Combined with the 10,600 federal Head Start slots going to ECEAP-eligible students, Washington serves 37 percent of ECEAP-eligible children. ECEAP is slated to become a statutory entitlement in school year 2018-19, at which time all eligible preschoolers would be entitled to enroll.

“Washington’s rankings highlight the need to continue serving our state’s most vulnerable families and to increase access to ECEAP,” said DEL Director Bette Hyde. “ECEAP has proven to be a cost-effective way to prepare our youngest learners for success in school and in life. We must continue to fund ECEAP at a per-child cost that allows ECEAP sites to maintain quality while serving more eligible children.”

Gov. Jay Inslee proposed a $35 million increase to ECEAP funding in the 2013-15 operating budget to improve program quality and access. The House of Representatives and Senate currently are negotiating their final 2013-15 state operating budget. Both chambers proposed an increase in state-funded preschool funding.

• View the State of Preschool 2012 report. 
• View the ECEAP caseload forecast.