 So at that point I'm going to turn it over to who's going to lead this discussion. I'll start and we'll go from there. Thank you Betsy. So as many of you may remember, Eric Heller and I would come and visit at least once a year. We go and visit all the state associations just to see how things are going in terms of TA and Eric retired. He is spending a great time with his grandchildren who are for five and under if I remember six and under so he's having a great time. And in the process we have been very fortunate to have a new executive director join us which is Johan, and he'll talk a little bit about his background. I just wanted to remind you guys that you have the TNTA network supporting you and Betsy as you pointed out we have Sharon who is our primary liaison to the Vermont Head Start Association. Sharon Adams she's one of our early childhood specialists and then Elena also she is our grantee specialist as well. I believe Ruthanne is going to be joining the disabilities managers break out later today and she is their early childhood specialist manager. So, Johan, if you want to just talk a little bit about your background and what we've been doing at the Donahue in regards to Head Start and then I would love to hear a little bit of feedback from you guys on what you're looking for in regards to TA. We're going to have some updates for you. So, I think we'll go from there. Sure, thank you Rosario and good morning and it's very nice to meet all of you. I was looking forward to this opportunity to spend some time with you because the work that you do is just so important. And particularly in these times if we cannot provide the families with the type of supports that they need for their babies and their children then we will do our entire society in the service. Now Rosario asked if I sort of share a little bit about my background so I'm still fairly new on the job right I don't think I've hit the six month mark yet so I keep warning people said you know be careful when you listen to what I say because I may still be dangerous I'm still in learning mode and I may not necessarily understand all the finer points of the work yet but I'm working on that but I joined the Institute and in the beginning of August and have been learning a lot about the important work that the Institute is doing. Prior to that for a little while I was running a consulting practice where I was helping executives, mostly figuring out more equitable solutions to skills challenges they were facing either with their employers with their employees or with their with their participant program participants. So what I did after I had returned from Washington DC in summer of 2020. I'd spend almost 12 years and in Washington DC, eight years of which I was a member of the Obama education team started out as a senior strategy advisor and then became deputy assistant secretary and then in the interim ended up having the wonderful opportunity to be one of the six assistant secretaries for education and my portfolio included community colleges secondary and post secondary career and technical education adult education, immigrant integration and opportunity youth so that was sort of my area of responsibility was a wonderful time. Prior to that, I, I spend a lot of time at the state level, working on education issues and Massachusetts and Rhode Island. In my US or in the US part of my career actually started out as a teacher of refugees and immigrants in Boston Chinatown. And I think back on those times. So often, because I was right there, you know, in the trenches, trying to make a real difference in the lives of families who had chosen or were forced to choose. You know, America is their new home. What I bring to the, to my role at the Institute I think is a deep commitment to issues of equity. And for me that is so clear that when I look at all of our head start work, whether that's the National Technical Assistance Center that we're operating or the regional technical assistance for that we're doing I mean, that work is equity work. I mean that is all about creating more opportunities for children and babies and families that they may have otherwise not been able to access. In terms of the other areas of our work, we have started the whole process for looking at equity in our work and make how can we make it more central, both externally facing as well as internally facing taking a closer look at ourselves as an organization and trying to figure out ways how we can become a more open, more diverse, more inclusive, more supportive organization where everyone does not only feel that they belong but that their contributions are valued and wanted. Other than that I, as you can imagine, you know there's a lot to learn about an organization that has been around for 50 years and that's 10 business units and 165 staff who are doing incredible work. But the one emerging theme for me in addition to continuing to lend my full support to this important work in the head start space has to do with how can we leverage the talent that we have at the Institute to do more around coming up with some additional solutions for dealing with issues of intergenerational poverty. And that speaks both to the parents and other family members as well as the issues that children may be facing. So let me pause here and see if people have any comments or questions or reactions. But I'm extremely grateful not only to our team and the work they do in your region but in states, but I'm very very grateful to the leadership that you all are providing as practitioners on a daily basis to make sure that our babies and our children and our families actually have a fair chance at sort of getting getting what they need. Very nice. Thank you. It's really nice to meet you and to have you be part of our team. It is a really important work as you keep saying about the work that we do so it's great to have folks from different backgrounds and different experiences all share their perspectives with us too so thank you. Questions. Okay, one more thing I, when I came to the US I actually lived and studied in Vermont so in Brattleboro so I have a special connection with the state of the state of Vermont I think it's the best kept secret in the United States. Very good thank you. Excellent. I tell this story often because this tells you a little bit about Johann and who he is. I had the pleasure of being on the search committee for the executive director position. And here is this man who's like, I, you know worked in the Obama administration a pretty high up role. And he brought up the China, Chinatown ESL classes, he included that in his resume. So, for me that was really important that he is not far from direct service and for him. And that was a message on how much he values every, all the different levels of work that people are doing in the community so I tell that story often that that was as soon as I read that I was like okay he's one of my first choices. And so very happy that we have him join us because he has totally proven that that's who he is so just wanted to say that I tell that story all the time but Johann I was so impressed, you know. I tell teacher in Chinatown, also working in the Obama administration, you know, putting it on the same resume at equal footing. I was just impressed. So thank you. Very good. So, there's a couple of things that we do usually when we meet with you guys when we come to meet once a year. So what it is, I really want to hear some feedback from you on how we're doing, what you're looking for. And also just give you some updates that we have there's a lot going, going on right now so well, what is it's been three years that can say a lot been going on, and even before then we were saying this but we didn't know we were going to be at this level. I am just amazed every day on what you guys are able to do. I just, it's incredible. And so one of the things that when you, when we were introducing I mentioned that Rebecca Bishop is your representative on the TA advisory committee. And just want to let you know that one of the main things we're doing this spring and the advisory committee, you don't know it's a new initiative through this round of the contract. And every state has a representative. So we also have a collab director that's representing. We have somebody from the New England Head Start Association. Plus we have regional office staff like Marina Donna. And then we have TA leadership as well at the advisory committee and the main goal is really to make sure that we're working together that we're meeting the TA network is meeting needs. That we're hearing from you and able to respond. And what's going on right now is Rebecca actually joined us for a meeting. Well was it Tuesday. It feels like it was, you know, Tuesday afternoon. Yeah, it feels like it was like yesterday afternoon so. One of the other things we just want you to be aware of is that we are beginning to plan for 2022 2023, which our year goes from July 1 to June 30. So, Rebecca may be coming up to you guys either by email or through phone calls asking for some data so that we can. So it can inform the PD plan for the upcoming year. And at the same time, we, we have discussed about some short term, and things that are coming up. And so we're looking into those but I'll talk a little bit more about that later but just, just getting a general field, how are things going with the TNT network. What is there that we could be doing. I know it's, it's, it's, it's hard. You have a lot on your plate. I'm particularly interested in the methodology, like, if you if you're hopeful folks don't have time to attend another webinar. What is it that we could do to provide some support, rather than, you know, spending an hour and a half is there's something that we could be doing that you think would be very beneficial. And so just, there's the question, how are we doing. How can we do better. What is it you would like to see us do. Thank you Rosario. Thoughts, ideas, questions, yep, Jodi. So I just wanted to say, thank you. We have the pleasure of having Sharon Adams and Gladys come and do our program planning and TNT a plans and, you know, we had this conversation earlier this week when when we spoke and I think, you know, to the first part of your question, I feel like the getting the information out of what you're offering. You're doing a great job of that I feel like we're very informed of what's coming what's happening. You know, things on on on the horizon that you're offering. Right now, times are crazy and programs and from from top down to direct services are are exhausted and you know one of the, I think, greatest things that you can offer is just being the support and the ear. You know, we had this meeting planned with Sharon and Gladys and they we spent the time and they just listened. And to have that support really was, I think the, the really the best thing to our Monday was just being heard. It's hard to talk about, you know, we talked about professional development and trainings and webinars and it's just, you know, unfortunately not where any of our staff or, you know, I'll say for myself or at, but to be able to vent and, you know, hear that we're not alone, I think. I just really appreciated that conversation, honestly. Good. Elizabeth. Okay. Hi, Rosario. First of all, I echo that thank you all for all that you do. It is, it is extremely helpful. I also can say that the place that I typically find all of the information is at the end of the Q&Q a or T&TA question and answer with you guys and that summary is helpful. I really like that I like getting that after it happens, even if I wasn't able to be there. And I love seeing what offerings are there at the end of that so that's been really helpful. That's usually my go to just so you know my reference. I agree that webinars and things like that are extremely difficult, specifically for direct service staff, many of our administrators, coordinators they can attend them but you know obviously with staffing shortages and other things it is a little challenging. I would love to see you all do a video series that is recorded that people can access at times when they have office hours or other times outside of set times, because really anything that falls between nine and ten is really difficult for our staff to attend but if there are opportunities like for example any UIC does a ton of trainings online that are, you can just access them whenever. And some of them will have like a verify that you watched it with a short quiz or something like that. I think I think really at least for now and I would say for the near maybe year future that something that's recorded and accessible at any time, you're going to get much more participation than something that has a set time, just simply because our staffing shortage is so significant that even our coordinators and sometimes other admins are going into classes so to expect our teachers to step out is nearly impossible at this point. So just to touch a little bit on what Elizabeth said about that training available at any time. One thing that we should consider, because I do think that that's a great option for staff and their accessibility is making training count on the Northern Lights website. Sometimes we have challenges with we have to get the 15 hours of PD per year but because it's a pre recorded training that can happen at any time when staff submit their certificate to Northern Lights then it doesn't count for their BFIS account. Rosario I'd be happy to look into how we can join the list of pre approved providers because there is accessible on that website. There is the list of online anytime trainings that have been approved that could count and working with the Northern Lights and getting you messed on you TNT added to that list could be a way to make training count and make it work. So I just want to go back to Elizabeth and Rebecca and I also do want to go back to the other points made. So, Elizabeth that's one of the things that were often asked about is the recorded trainings and unfortunately as the EPA network, we're not able to do that, but the National Centers do do that. And so, there is right now a whole individual professional development site on ECLKC where people can go and get the different trainings as throughout. They're not just trainings for teachers but their trainings for all different roles. It also helps you keep track of your training and your hours. And I think you guys are aware that the you must honor you we actually also oversee the National Center on Program Management and Fiscal Operations. We also happen to be on the Training and Technical Assistance Staring Committee, the national one. So one of the things I am going to ask and I see Renee has offered to help out with this. Jan also our system specialist we can look into is how can we make those trainings part of the Northern Lights system so that your folks can get that credit. And those trainings do come up with a certificate and so on. But I understand there's a process to make sure that they're counted towards the requirements for the state. I think there is a way to do, we can't do it ourselves but Elizabeth and Rebecca I think there's definitely a way for us to get that done for you guys. The other thing is you brought up before I move on to that Renee did you want to add something. Renee had a question or a comment. Well, yeah just a comment I wanted to hop in on this discussion and say yes there is so much more work to do. And I have been pushing Northern Lights on this issue for a while so we were successful with getting them to accept the homelessness modules that were developed by the center. And I did have give which felt great. But I know that a lot of their processes really do circle around I think it's is that accreditation. Yeah, I see Johan shaking his head so and I know Collab directors at a national level have had conversations about PD and I said approved trainings and that sort of thing so I think there is some joint work that we can do with the Northern Lights system and that's more short term but also some more long term work, maybe in terms of the center, you know, TA systems and looking at that accreditation or how that works. I'm not sure but this also comes at a really time because I'm in the process of revising or doing the baseline application for the next five year his go strategic plan. And this would be, I think a meaningful priority for me to address underneath PD, if you all are having issues with the system. So, and Rebecca I saw your comment in there so we can definitely keep the conversation going. And in Rosario we can we can stay connected as well and with you know with Jan and and see what we can do. That's excellent. That's, that's, thank you so much. So, the other thing that. So, there we have some action steps we have some next action steps which I love. The other thing was before we leave this topic can I just get a clarifying question, why is it that they can't get recorded when you say you can't do it. Can you explain why, why that happened. Yeah, so the reason that the TNTA networks can't it's because of our contract what happens is that if you're a federal program, you do have to be. I forget what it's called something compliant. So when you are providing anything virtual that's recorded, it has to be accessible to folks. And that means not only do we have to do we get the recording but you have to have the transcript you also have to have the closed captioning you have to have. And that's a bigger, a longer term process that isn't within our capacity, but it is within the National Center's capacity. So that's why it's more about accessibility than anything else. And so people understood that you weren't trying to not do it there were confines. Now, and to be honest with you, these are these are vetted through any recording is actually has to go to central office in Washington DC to be vetted. So it's not something easily done and if every region, which is 12 of us, we're doing that it would be a little harder versus having four national centers, doing those that way. So that's why thank you that's for asking that question, because it's definitely not about us not wanting. It's about the different guidelines we have to, we have to follow. But I think it was, was that you were talking about. One of the reasons you're looking for that was because of the time, the time for trainings and so on. And one of the things I just want you guys to be aware. We can do trainings at many different hours of the day. We can do trainings, you know, before work, the workday at night as well. We do have a couple of groups that we do. You know, family childcare providers, for example, who are can't step away. We do have a group in Connecticut a family childcare providers that meets once twice a month with one of our ECs for some training. So, yep, so Elizabeth by 30 to 730 that would, that would be fine. You know, at first it's a little harder on the weekends, but I'm always willing to figure it out. We're here to figure out how to best support you. So, I wouldn't hesitate to talk with Sharon and Elena or whoever and say, you know, it would really help us to, to do this. And we could figure out how to make it happen. The other thing that we've been looking at is is right now also is there's things like drop in coffee hours or office like drop in things that we could be creating as well so thank you for for giving us that. Helping asking that question because we want you to know that that option is there as well. And I do want to thank whoever said about the summary. Those take me a long time to get done but I'm so happy that they're worth it. It just so happens that the Q&A is done and then all of a sudden three things have changed within the week so I'm, I'm trying to get them in to you guys as soon as possible but it seems like I'm constantly changing it but I'm really glad that those have been helpful. I am in the middle of creating, of writing up the one from last week. So you'll be getting some more information soon. The other thing I don't know if, if Rebecca has had a chance to share this or not but one of the other ways we're trying to help communicate what's coming up in terms of training is we're going we've developed a portal. Where folks will have access to the website and they can then look and see what are the trainings coming up. And also register for some of these workshops and so the reason we're doing that is because we've very we've heard loud and clear. Hey, I need to know sooner rather than later about trainings. You know, we have to plan our year we have to make sure that we have the time and we've scheduled things accordingly. So we have developed this portal, where you'll be able to go in, see what's coming up and register. One of the things that we found out from the TA advisory committee is that directors really want to have to be able to figure out how to introduce the portal to their teams. Some would say, oh, it could be open to anybody others were like managers it would be ideal managers had access to it so they could kind of figure out who would be the best person to attend certain trainings and so on. So what's going to happen in the next month is I'm actually going to have. I'm calling them open houses you can call them coffee hours. I'm going to have three opportunities for directors or their representatives to meet with me. So we can talk about what the portal is what are some things that you might want to consider and introducing the portal, the professional development portal to your team. And part of that will also have to do with a TA come going back out on the road. And what are the, you know, we're going to have some parameters ourselves we know you guys do as as well about having people come into your program and I want to have a chance to be able to let you know what our plan is what what are some of the things we are, you know, how are you pro pro right prioritizing TA in person and so on. So these three open houses are going to be, you know, you're not expected to attend all three it's just going to be an opportunity for you to attend. At least one to find out about these two new initiatives as well. So I just wanted you to be aware of that. The other thing I want you to be aware of is at the TA advisory meeting, not this one that happened just now but in November. What was brought up is how do we provide resources to to staff that aren't like five pages, you know, like somebody's doing something on to a language and they just want something quick. And they're a way to get that access to that resource to to folks. And so we have a subcommittee who's been working on this and we're hoping to have a system in place soon, where people may be able to, you know, will identify the hot topics and health topics in the classroom or in disabilities, and we would create kind of a newsletter that would lead folks to at least to two sources to resources on that hot topic, but they wouldn't be resources that would be written, you know, it would be an hour, it would be a resource like oh here's a video that would might be very helpful that's five minutes, or here's a two page tip sheet that might be helpful. We're trying to do that because we know people are really busy going into ECL KC we all know that is a rabbit hole, right, you go in and even finding the first first piece of information you need is hard. So, we're looking into creating such a system regionally there are a couple programs one in Maine in particular who has been doing this with their managers. This will be mainly the TA team, I'm taking that on. So that's another idea we heard from folks about how we can provide TA. The other thing that's come up for us is, and we've known this. And I kind of feel, I have to say I kind of feel embarrassed that we didn't really grab on to it sooner. We've been focusing a lot on staff wellness, and in particular we've been focusing on staff wellness in the classroom, which I think is totally legitimate. We've been focusing it on staff, we've even provided groups for directors, as well. And one of the things is, what about these health managers. They have stretched them beyond all limits. It's been incredible, you know, health managers have had to step in. We also know that the turnover rate for health managers has been really high. And so the other thing we're exploring is for this spring, to do something that's specifically for them, in terms of them being able to meet with other health managers in the region to share what's going on some strategies they're using but also to have that time to just stop and breathe. And I think, I think someone was saying, Jody, I think it was you, you were saying, just be able to say that, be able to share is so valuable. And so that's the other thing that we're looking to do as well. And this we think we should start sooner rather than later. And to be honest, we should have started a while ago. So those are some of the things that we have coming up. I do want you to know that we do have consultants coming in to do some things that are specific for role for specific roles. One of the things we are doing, which we did last spring, which was really successful is we have a dedicated consultant for fiscal management. And he's going to do a whole bunch of different opportunities. He's going to have question and answer sessions. He's going to have a cohort for new fiscal managers. He's also going to have a teams page to share resources and do some questions and answering and also some training for governing bodies on fiscal management. So he's going to be starting very soon and he'll be with us working actively till June 30. So definitely beyond the look up for that. And there are going to be some other trainings and so on that are specific to roles. Of course, it's for home visitors as well as family engagement staff. So we're trying to make sure that we're catching as many folks as possible. And we're very interested in doing that. So I think that's what I have. Is there questions or anything else that you'd like us to know? So I think that given the amount of people that are on here with a great brain trust and they may have ideas, I'm going to encourage people to use the chat function. If you have trainings that you think that the TTA system, it would be helpful or ideas. Please make sure you use the chat and just put them into the chat so we can forward that to your Rosario. I do want to open it up. I just don't want to miss out on anybody who was thinking, oh, you know, this is something that we really need some help with and just want to list it for you. Or you can reach out to Rebecca. Right, exactly. She's sending, she's bringing everything back to us. So don't hesitate, Rebecca's like, oh my gosh, what did I volunteer for? Rebecca, maybe in the chat function you could put your email in there so everybody has that email too. So why don't you do that too? We, you know, share a list on a regular basis, but they're new people, so make sure everybody's connected. So thoughts or ideas or Rebecca, do you have anything else to add to this conversation? I do. If we could go back to the portal. This group did talk about the portal a few months ago and I did send you the feedback Rosario. And it feels like the couple of things left from that discussion that perhaps the coffee hours could help include would be this group was interested in how partners could access the portal. And one suggestion was perhaps a program code or something that way it could be open for more staff to view, but that way the director would share the code with who they approve to sign up. Thank you for that reminder Rebecca. Did you see there was two things that I just understand. And the first was we do partner with other programs, providing Head Start and Early Head Start services, and how would those partner programs access and be able to use the portal. Okay. Thank you. Others, this is your time to share your ideas on what you think would make good training opportunities or the way that we're setting up trainings. I know within our program, I'll just share that we continue to have staffing issues. Not anything uncommon around the state, but in the process of that, I know that folks are hired, and they're stressed out. And we talk about wellness all the time Rosario and you guys are great at thinking about how we can support our staff. You know, every time we turn around, we think we may be through this and we're not through this. So, you know, I think ways to be able to find ways like your coffee hours or things like that for people just to share. You know, there are thoughts about the work that they're doing so that they can stay engaged. And you know, we're working within our program to kind of think about joy and reconnect with the joy that brought us into this whole program and why we want to do the work that we do. Every day we make a difference, we know that, but it continues to be, you know, hard to recognize that when you're constantly waking up every morning to another COVID call. So, you know, I think I know you are focused on that along with the rest of us but we continue to put that out there and equity issues right so we want to make sure that equity continues to be a conversation diversity and equity work that we're doing. And belonging, you know, I'm big on belonging these days. We all want to feel like we belong and that has a lot of different pieces to it. And how do we continue to feel like I always say once a head starter always a head starter. I, you know, had the opportunity to actually go into another profession for 10 years and I came back. So, you know, and even those that leave us I always say you're always part of our family you're always a head starter. So, that was 15 years for me I started head start left and then came back. Right, so we always felt that we were part of the head start family right. So, but belonging I think is really important for our families and it's hard when we're all on these screens these days to, to feel like you really belong when we're just, you know, kind of a head on a screen. So, I know those are the types of topics that we're spending time about but I'd love to others real quickly if there are hot issues that you want to make sure get thought about from T&TA team. People are what are thinking. Betsy I'm so glad you brought this up because one of the ideas that was thrown around at the TA advisory committee meeting was whether during the QAs we extended that the federal staff comes off and then directors or who would ever like to join can continue to discuss whatever that came up so one for example somebody said, you know, somebody talked about striving and thriving and surviving and I would have loved to have learned more about what that meant, or where are those resources and so we talked about is that something that we would have, you know, so for the next Q&A you have the Q&A but then we have a half an hour afterwards where we just talk about one topic that really specifically was of interest for everybody. And, you know, some of it would be us just facilitating the discussion and some of it some of it would be bringing the resources to you, because it should be an opportunity that's that you own that it's yours. And we would support so I'm wondering is that something that people would be interested in of staying on a little bit longer on the Q&A or not. Yeah, I think that it's always the last five minutes of any meeting that always has more meat to it and you're kind of feeling like I wish you know we had had a little bit more time to discuss that so I think it's great and I also looked to all the managers and disability managers that are on the screen, they have a huge job these days just a huge job and they are really you know sandwiched between the staff and the parents and the kids, and I encourage anyway that we could do support sessions for them to kind of think about ways they can not only support staff but support themselves. I know how stressful it is right now when you have for teachers call out you can't even operate, you know the classroom that you thought you were going to you know was all set so I know that they're all feeling into so I encourage ways that people can share those ideas on ways we can, you know, work together. So we actually have, we are doing teacher huddles that teachers can drop drop in on doing those. I think if those turn out you know that they're working I think we're definitely looking to also extend it to other roles. And so, I do think what you're bringing up Betsy and what we're learning is that maybe less structure, more sharing, more being able to just sit and talk is really what's more helpful rather than a webinar that's just filled with information or activities so. So, definitely will continue to explore those as well. And I know we had in the chat. It was stated that from Linda that our enrollment and staffing issues and clarification on what is expected from home visitors in person or virtual. It still is one of those areas that we more clarity around and to site managers to you know that exactly that you know site managers have a lot on their plate days as they're trying to work with all the staffing issues so yeah I think those huddles those conversations those coffee groups, ever. We put it together. Sound like if people can find time it's worth it. So, other ideas real quickly before we. So Rosario we're about to say something. I just wanted to finish off, finish off because I know we're past the time and I first of all thank you so much for letting us join you. I know your agenda is extremely packed and you have a lot to do. One of the things that I totally forgot about and I apologize is just be aware that in April, we are going to do training for parent leaders policy council. This is, as you guys know New England Head Start Association did not have their leadership conference in December. We have always gone in in December to do policy council training for parents and some other leadership trainings with them. And so they will be happening in April. And I just want to give you a heads up in case you want to start thinking about is this something you'd want your parent leaders to to attend and this will happen. I'll put it in my my follow up Q&A follow up summary because it will be happening in April. Most likely the same days that it would have been the New England Head Start Conference would have occurred in the spring. Though I do understand they are creating something virtual in replacement of the annual conference they have. And I think that's it. I don't want to take more time. Well, and we really do appreciate all the support from the TA system. It's really vital and you know it's great to have a team that all works together so thank you. Last call for anything else. Okay, great. So there is vacations in April. We're aware of that and Rebecca, I know you're on this and Sherry is to around how to work out scheduling for events in April. Due to vacation school vacation schedules. So to be thoughtful about that too because it makes it harder for parents. Okay, good. So we're going to transition into our next agenda item but we hear there's an education question. I'm on the edge of my seat to know what this question is and how we could all answer it together so Sarah I welcome you back to our screen and and I'll let you take it from here. Thank you. And I'm actually going to pass it off to Donna and then I'll do more holos later so that you can discuss this and then allow managers to transition. And I will say that we're pleased to have Donna join us Ruth Ann is here and I see Kelly Roy is here. So I think you know people on the screen but we'll welcome you. Thank you Donna. Thank you so much. It's it's thank you for welcoming us. It's nice to see you all. Donna Brown from the regional office where Sarah is and with Sarah transitioning she'll talk more about that Kelly and I are taking up some more of the responsibilities and working with you on in Vermont. We know, at least I know from Ruth Ann, I think we can got got a question or someone, maybe Ruth Ann supervisors, received a question I'm going to try to summarize it but Ruth Ann correct me. If I get it wrong. It really it's in that general area of disability services. In the LEA, you call them to Professor unions has an IEP in place but maybe is not providing everything on that IEP sound specific to one on one aids for children in the classroom for the a certain number of hours or the hours that maybe are on the IEP so I think you all know this but we'll just say it out loud and sometimes we just need to, you know, say things again or revisit them but it is absolutely an allowable expense for headstart to add additional teachers for an aid, or, you know, other supports that that child may need in the classroom. That's allowed. Again, I think you all are aware of that, but I will just say, some of the thinking behind those various pots of covert relief money was thinking the intention would be G there will be children with additional special needs let's make sure programs have what they need to meet those needs so you can certainly rely on those pots of funding. To add hours to an aid I was going to say to add aids I would imagine it's difficult to find aids but if you have an aid, and you can add hours through your budget. Absolutely that's allowable I will say that. I will also just add. You don't have enough money to do that for every single child so obviously you're evaluating that on a one on one basis, what that child needs. I'll let you all respond but I have been hearing some inklings of perhaps the, the supervisor unions are maybe doing this across the board maybe every child is only getting a certain number of hours with an aid which I will just say does not sound individualized but it's still responsive. So you all would have to tell us more about that but but in, you know, individual cases child to child it's absolutely okay to, you know, give the child more than what was approved by school district, or otherwise so I will I will go ahead and see where there might be additional questions or clarifications to all of that. So I can, I can reach out because I was the one that that raised the question and so there was a there was a couple pieces in this that that we had talked about as disabilities managers. The first was, you know, amount of hours that you know a child can get and it varies greatly by district. We'll have, you know, we have one district where, you know, the early childhood special education says, however long that child is in your program is how long we will provide an aid for. So that includes our full day programs. And there's an aid there, you know, for the full day, as long as the child is there they provide it, absolutely amazing. Whereas there are other districts that only provide 10 hours per week because that is the public pre K amount. So 10 hours per week for a child that needs a one on one so essentially two hours a day. And so it kind of varies and then there are other programs that say we just don't provide one on ones. So that that varies greatly. And we kind of talked of it talked about it as, you know, different head start programs and how different it is in one particular center and then to hear, you know, across the board from everyone just in Vermont. And so the other specific question around, you know, and so appreciate the funding that's coming out that what what we're seeing is. And it obviously it's, it's because you know you look at staffing and finding people to take positions we're struggling, you know, as a program. Early childhood special education programs. So when we have a child that has, you know, global delays needs a one on one and able to to be successful in a classroom, and the, you know, early childhood special education cannot find anyone to fill that position. So what do we do as a program, you know, do we just put this on our teachers that, you know, they have to try and figure this out during the day. Do we say, you know, working with early childhood special education the child can attend if there's the one on one because it's, we can't provide the services. It was more of a specific question with that rather than, you know, finding the funding I think if we could make that work we would it's there just is no one to take those positions so a little bit more clarification on my end. Can I add on something on to that. Yeah, so we recently so we have a couple children in our program that do need that one on one support and we were able to get sad grants for that, and they were approved. So what the challenging part is that you have a limited amount of time to then hire someone for that position, and there are certain requirements like we have a hard enough time finding teachers that are qualified so some of the things like for an aid and a set for the side grant they need to have the same requirement as assistant teacher they need to have at least, you know, fundamentals and early childhood class or things like that and the people that I have applying are like, you know, have a high school diploma and that's a lot of money and so I can't put them in that position. And again it's not it's not even the money like you're like Jodi saying it's not so much that we don't have the funding to hire, say an extra aid to supplement what ECSE is doing but I, if I can't find someone to fill this and especially if I can't find someone within the 45 days or whatever it is, you know, the grant allows so that's a challenge for us as well. Yeah, thank you for for giving more context to that picture. Right, I mean we're we're operating in a crisis situation here with with staffing you know they're really can't find teachers to staff your classroom let alone aids and that and that's where I mean I think we're hearing consistently across our New England states that the aids aren't out there and so you know I don't have a magic answer for you like how do we accommodate this child when there is no aid or or maybe even they need more than just a one on one aid I would just say, you know, reach out to us have a conversation with us I would say one on even if it's just one child we're talking about you know just to strategize about you know what can be done what might work maybe what some other programs have tried even even in another state and I know every state looks a little bit different but I think between regional office staff as well as TA staff we could we would at least want to work with you and strategize around you know a particular case or maybe a couple kids falling into the same difficulties. I just want to pause and see every day I see that you have your hand up so why don't you go ahead and and say what you need to say. Thanks Donna yeah I just wanted to hop in again where I feel like this is really a place where the collab office can do some support with systems building and partnership building. Thank you everybody since I'm off mute to say hi to all the education and disabilities managers and to say thank you for your good work throughout this pandemic because I recognize I'm a couple layers removed from direct service and throughout the pandemic the issue of service provision with kids with disabilities has been the topic, you know, kind of paired with workforce that is just skyrocketed onto my plate so I know that if it's reaching a state systems level. It means that it's probably even worse within communities so I just want to say I recognize all of the challenges you've been dealing with. And, you know, think that this is an area because of the collab offices focus on partnerships with leas and part B. This is an opportunity to move the needle in a positive way. While it's only working on kind of an agreement and a document level I really have been seeing kicking off the revisions to the interagency agreement for serving children with disabilities as an opportunity to bring partners together and maybe work on those relationships, and to help kind of codify best practice and what we expect in terms of, you know, coordinated service provision for these kiddos. COVID has raised a bunch of issues what happens how do you prioritize, you know, if you're short on classrooms and teachers and if you have you know knowing that the leas are also dealing with workforce issues so I think as of right now, we've got representation from Champlain Valley Head Start and Betsy from your program down in Bennington. I think those are, I think those are it those are the two programs who stepped up and said we were interested in this work but if this is an area that's been a tension point for you as an education or a disabilities manager. Please reach out to me via email because I think that your experiences with how difficult this has been will greatly contribute to our work together to make sure that Part B Part C Head Start programs are all on the same page about how do we do this really hard thing, which is ensure that you know with some of the most vulnerable kids have access to the services that they need so that process will not be as successful and that product will not be as relevant without having your experience in the virtual room. And we've got that meeting scheduled for this Friday so even if you can't make it if this is a topic that's burning for you please send me an email and we can figure out a way to loop you in because your experiences matter. And I think that there is a lot of good work that the collab office can do to support some stronger partnerships and some better outcomes for kids and family. Yeah, so we do encourage anybody else to join that committee. This is a document that we have had on our list forever to update, and I think will help us have some pieces in place to have much more of a collaborative nature as I hear Jodi talk about one supervisor union does it one way and other supervisor union does it another way to have everybody have some common understanding to the extent that we can knowing that our AOE system is really community based, which also adds to you know some differences across the spectrum. So, Renee, would you be able to send out to the ed folks when that meeting is if they didn't, you know, weren't able to attend before but they wanted to know. Yeah, I'm not sure how up to date my list is for an disability manager so maybe share I can connect with you to make sure I have the most updated list and send that information out one more time. Yep. Or you can send it to me Renee I'm, I have everyone and kind of facilitate with the state and managers and disabilities so can reach out. Okay, great I will yep I will send that to you Jodi and if you want to add me on your list for when you're beginning with Ed and disability managers. I do often participate with the family service managers and their little monthly get togethers, and would be very happy and excited to join all of you if appropriate and you'd have me. Please, please send on that information so let's connect. Great. Thanks. Thanks Jodi for bringing it up for sure. Okay. Sorry. Yep, please. Sorry. Go right ahead. Sorry, just to wind it out or wrap. I'm not, I don't have the right word there but wrap it up right to wrap that for that. I will say this I think in the immediacy, what we want to focus on is meeting the needs of that child and it does definitely sound like we want to have more conversations with our school districts like you're saying Betsy strive for, you know, consistency with the school districts but in the immediacy if you're talking about an enrolled child, we want to do everything we can to meet that child's needs and if it's a matter of funding, we have resources but be in touch and again strategies be in touch with us. So I just wanted to make sure I said that but it's a really important question, a really important issue and again it's not just for Mon, I think this is our challenge for 2022 how do we really meet the needs of these kids who really need a lot right now more than we would normally see. So, so thank you Betsy I just wanted to make sure I said that. Yeah, thank you. Very good. Okay. So, Sherry through the magic of technology you're going to move us into breakout rooms is that what's going to happen now. Let me just confirm something so in this room. I just want to make sure I have everyone I have Betsy Christie credo you staying in this room are going with the Ed managers. I want to go with the Ed managers please. Thank you. Then Deb Stan in here, Laurie staying in there, Paul staying Renee staying Sandra, Sarah you're staying in this room right. And it did I miss anyone that that's staying in this section before I break off with the Ed managers. Sherry it might make sense for me to stay since Sharon and Rosanne are going to come in the room. Okay, I'm going to take that off. Okay, you're okay. Are you ready. So I gave you 90 minutes. And you should be able to come to the back to the main room if you need to I tried to set it up that way, and I might try to jump into the break room so it hang on here we go. Open all rooms. Okay. Oh, okay, let's see what happens. It takes 60 seconds I believe. Oh, let's. Okay, well this is something. I've never done this. Okay, did I keep the right people and can you guys still talk. I can still talk. I think we're too well done Sherry. You've done something you've never done before. Well, and that's why I'm glad Jodi asked as usually the content managers go to their own zoom, but Jodi asked I said okay I'll try that out and so we tested something it didn't work so. And I did just fix it Betsy so I didn't click the button anyone should be able to share the screen now. So all right, good. Okay, good. I don't think we're missing anybody I'm looking at the screen to see if anybody went where they didn't think they were going. Okay, good. I'm wondering if Donna Brown was punted to the other room. He said she wanted to. I don't know. I was in the other room too. Oh you were. Okay, do you want me to, I think I can bring. Invite her back in I can't remember what zoom allows you to do Sherry. Sherry can you very worse she'll call me into the kitchen so I can grab a snack. As I can move Donna. Let me see. Okay. And as Sherry is figuring out her magic. You know, I do welcome everybody from the regional office, and it really is nice Sarah to see you back again and we know you're in transition, but I'm so glad we got to be able to say hi to you before we got to say bye to you so it's great. Maybe this is a good time to do that while we're waiting for Donna to come back. Exactly. But I know Donna wanted to be present. So, you know, and we welcome Deb, Deb, you joined us into the meeting so we're glad to see you here too. Thank you. Yep. So, Sarah, tell us what's happening. Yeah, I thank you for letting me join you and be a tiny bit of your updates. It's so good to see you all. I've missed you and I've gotten to hear various updates along the way but I was. Sorry, I'm just looking at the note. Oh, it's to Donna. Okay, excuse me. So I had a wonderful temporary experience in our ACF employee experience and wellness division and got to help deploy resources and develop resources for ACF staff, which is wonderful right because we're and I was always saying help your staff be more well so the children and families can be more well and then up cropped this division and ACF. Oh, we need to be well too. So it was really great timing and wonderful opportunity for me to continue to grow and learn and cultivate some of my wellness strategies that I've used a lot outside of work and now that I came back since the beginning of December, I've been able to use some of those wellness strategies. They've been more embraced we could say by my regional colleagues and ACF so I'm helping them move through a journey of wellness to hoping to leave a legacy because you've probably all seen I am leaving at the end of this month. Wow. Just a couple weeks out. But I'm not far because I moved to Vermont three weeks ago. Yeah, so I'm still cold and still quite bundled. Technically, I'm in Ferrisburg, but my mailing address is Regens I guess that's a thing that you all probably already know about. So just south of Burlington a little bit north of Middlebury, and it's beautiful I have a beautiful view of the green mountains, although it's so great but you know the view makes up for it. I'm so happy. Yes, it is a good wellness strategy. Thank you. Oh my goodness. That's huge. Yeah, yeah, it but it's so right. It's so right. You know we didn't think this particular property was going to work and all the other ones we looked at didn't and then we came to this one and I just said, I don't even want to go into the structure. This is the place. It worked out. Yeah. Well, we're always happy when we can take folks from the rest of the world and bring them to Vermont right. You know, so, so welcome. Thank you. That's great. That's excellent. Yeah, yeah. I'll be seeing you around and I'll be tapping into some more of the wellness community in in my future work and stay tuned maybe you'll hear here see my flyers around. So, Sarah, is it fair to say then that you're going to be working independently at this point or are you working with another. I don't know along those lines, but I think the entrepreneur, pernureal spirit will be blossoming. Great. Wonderful. Yeah, yeah, that's great. Maybe making some food and selling it at farmers markets and You're going to be living the dream. Absolutely. That's great. You know, stay up in the northern corner of Vermont though you know you have to make it all the way around all the all the areas right Deb. That's right. That's right. Come around, you know, you know, be a neighbor. Great. Yeah, same to you all and I hope you're all doing well I know that through these months it's been no easier than it was before when we were still working so closely together and I just want to acknowledge that. I just want to acknowledge all your hard work because I've been hearing about it and seeing it and it's been hard to see the emails come through and know what everyone's going through. So just want to honor that and you all are amazing and I've learned so much from you and with you and because of you. So thank you, thank you. Yeah, I know you've been an important part of all of our programs and, you know, your leadership your dedication your perseverance, and you know, we, we know how much you care about our program, because you read every word we wrote. So, and we appreciate that you know I go back to the last, the last millennium where I used to write in for my regional folks you still reading this. But we counted on on you and certainly now on to Kelly and to others to make sure that they understand what we're doing and help us figure it out along the way to so thank you Sarah. Thank you Betsy I appreciate it. Thank you for that to Sarah I this is this is turn about his fair play because you roasted me at my going away from CBO a party that surprise party that Sandra and others orchestrated so I, I just wanted to, you know, do the turn about his fair play and thank you so much and one of the most thorough and responsive program specialists and just really want to thank you for your support and your work, even if I threw little jokes into the grants or documents you know you did read everything very, very thorough really appreciate it. Thank you Sarah and welcome to Vermont. Good move. Thank you. Thanks Paul. Can I can I also hop in on the span wagon and I'm so happy to see you today Sarah because the last time I connected with you was the tea and TA meeting. And I didn't I was like trying to type in the chat box and I couldn't type fast enough but just want to echo what everyone else said you being in your role when I came in as a collab director. You've just been so helpful to me in my overall growth and learning in this role and someone who when my brain was exploding because I'm dealing with state issues and and you know other systems and just kind of at my end you were always a great person to call to strategize with and really did help kind of keep me keep me focused and supported me in any ways that I needed so I just wanted to also take the opportunity to say thank you for your for your time and for this connection Yeah, I'm so stoked that you are now in Vermont and it's so small that when you go and visit places it's like we'll probably bump into each other, you know at at some point in Vermont because it is so incredibly small like that but sad to lose you in this capacity but happy to gain you as as a new Vermonner. Thank you Renee, I appreciate that. Yes at the farmers market will bump into you. You are same from me you certainly you served a couple roles with me and you were my great, you were my program specialist for such a time when I was in the program and it was pretty cool to come over and work with you on the other side so we will miss you. It's been a treat Elena thank you. So, and we look forward to getting something in the mail or in flyers or something like that and your continued growth and, you know, message that you have to share with lots of people which is great. So, in thinking about that from Kelly or Donna or whoever else would like to lead us in the conversation around regional updates what do you have to share what's going on. What do you know. I think Kelly was going to share Kelly you want to go or. Sure. So as far as regional updates go there's not a whole lot, with the exception of the enrollment initiative kind of being on hold right now. And which I know is a giant weight up of all of you and is a giant weight on everyone. So now you actually get the chance to kind of focus on the kids and families that you are currently serving and look to expand you know as time goes on. And then the other update that we had was around. I know some of you have been working with your partners around the vaccine mandate the masking mandate all of those things. So please stay tuned for some of that information. I know that I had, I had a conversation with a couple of you about this and I think I'm meeting with actually the most of you in the next couple of weeks. Just around that they're still fleshing out a lot of things kind of at the OHS level around working with partners. We know it's challenging. We're hoping that everyone can kind of get the information about their partners and how how their partners are kind of reacting to the news. And what their feelings are and just kind of getting that information to us so that we are able to help paint the picture of what's happening in Vermont, in addition to kind of what's happening with the other states as well. And I think that was it Donna I don't know if I missed anything else. Well, well, we were talking about Sarah and reviewing the applications. Sarah was the one who taught me how to review applications so I do read them just just thoroughly as she did. So just so you know if you plant little nuggets in there I will find them. With the caveat that we're in pandemic times right. I'm sorry to interrupt Ruth and is just asking Donna if when you get a moment because you pop back into the breakout room. Yes, I don't know when you get it. Yeah. Help me do that. And in the meantime I would say I think those are the updates unless you all have specific questions and we're still waiting on a budget so you're still waiting on a budget you're still waiting on Cola you're still waiting on any other quality or grants or anything like that that people might be thinking about you're just waiting like we're all waiting. Right. We're all just waiting. Thank you for your patience. Absolutely. And I'll also offer. Sometimes what I've done in the past to share a little bit of regional office updates and so besides me leaving you know, well, I mean that's a big thing. We have someone else that went out on maternity leave and so just for you all to know the capacities shifting quite a bit and Kelly has some promotion so she's now straddling several different roles and gets to work with more of you. So just wanted to share that because I think that that's a big deal for her and for you getting to benefit from what she's learning and how she's growing and all that she's doing. So, is it fair to say that Kelly you're now are our lead to all the programs is that is that where we're at at this point. I think I have just about every program, except for Northeast Kingdom, I think that one's still under Donna. So I've got just about everyone in Vermont, Donna will still serve as kind of a state lead in that capacity, but I'll be kind of popping in and out of these meetings just as I have been, you know, throughout kind of my time and getting to know but I'm definitely getting to know far more of Vermont and it's great it's been interesting to see kind of everyone's different community partnerships different community relationships and how you all are similar but how you're all are very different as well. And Renee, I think it's Donna who will be reviewing the collab grant. Yes that that will be me Renee so reach out with questions. You're like September, right did we just do that one in September. But my, but my, my new baseline will be do I think it's due July, June or July, I have the funkiest cycle date I think in the nation, so. That's quite a distinction. Yes, reach out reach out what we can talk it through. And so, and just remind me focus area one and two reviews was there some notice that went out a while ago we're still on schedule for wherever we're at with focus area one or two. Correct. We are still on schedule. We pause the class. Right, pause class was good. But yes, still on schedule for everyone's in the face of a choose or it's anyone here. I should know that but is anyone scheduled for the spring. Okay, okay. Is it the F a two. No, F a one. Okay, okay, and F a ones are all virtual any because I know that's one of the concerns like the extra people coming into the building for the site so the F a one will be virtual, which is good. Any other question or thought you're new, Deb, you're muted if you wanted to say more. I had my session with my team leader, yesterday. And I want to say in all the years that I've been doing this. This is sounded like so far, the most supportive, friendly, non stressful. Yet. I mean I had my team preparing documents and data, and that's all off the table. These are really conversations by enlarge so yeah, big improvement and this and really important, particularly now is we're struggling with so many other issues. It's good to hear, and that's, I would say consistent from what we've heard from lots and lots of programs so I don't think you're one off I think that's really how they're designed so that's good. Yeah, very good. Any other questions thoughts ideas. Yeah, do you know if they have started scheduling and share with you folks reviews or do you think it would be later in the spring. I wonder, did you say did they start scheduling the. If you were going to be reviewed this fiscal year you would have been notified already. So if you weren't notified about that. Notified I just wondered if they had started notifying, you know, about yes when they're coming. So you'll get it. So 45 day notice, unless are we giving a little bit more time because it's a crazy year, we're sticking with, I think you only get 4545. Yeah, unfortunately, so 45 days before that week, you'll get an email from the probably from the team lead to set up a conversation. So I guess my question is, do you know if programs have started to receive notice of reviews. Yes, because they've been happening all year. I'm sorry. In person, they've been having virtual happening virtually all year but the in person is right starting supposed to be starting in January. I don't know if anybody who's gotten that notice we can ask. So, that's your question you want to know when they're coming. Yeah, let's, let's find out if anyone's gotten that. We can move back with you. Thanks and I'm meeting with Kelly, I think tomorrow so. Okay, we'll try to get something before that. And do I have this. Do I have this straight Donna. So when we have the focus area one, then it's two years until we do focus area to. I would love to tell you yes that is the formula. It honestly depends. I hate use that that answer. We essentially we've got to get it done. Like, before you hit the fourth year of your of your cycle of your five year cycle so it depends on like I don't even know are you in your first year now. I mean year to now. If they were to now it's possible, they would do if they don't quote me on that but they might do f a to next year, and the thinking behind that as well as f a to if there were not compliances that you needed to fix we'd want to have that all cleared up. Well in time before hitting your fifth year so ideally they would wait it to, it depends on when is your your start you say you july start yeah yeah yeah so depends on when your program your starts to sort of. I'll ask more about that to us more about that to we should have more. I'm asking because the reviewer mentioned that yesterday and I didn't you know I didn't respond to that but I was a little surprised by it. Yeah, yeah and I can see Sandra your comment yeah so you had your f a one just last year and now you're so in it, it, it all depends on sort of when things begin for people. But I'll see if we have a better answer than that. Deb I'll talk to the people in CO to see if we just have a standard reply that we can actually just because it's hard to plan when you don't know. I just like that so yeah. That was it from us. I see your hand is up to you. Did you want to share something. Sorry that was from before. Okay, and I didn't go back to that meeting because I don't know how to get back over there. Oh, yeah. To cherry are you back now cherry. Yes. Let me see how I do that hang on. Let's see how do I do oh I'm going to press a button are you ready. If I don't come back it was so nice to see all of you and try to steer me. Now it's not letting me press that button. Huh. Well, let me just keep working on it. I'll just wait. Okay, so I'm looking around my screen Renee. Are you ready to share with us. Yeah, let me turn my camera on and find my mute button and pull up my new. Okay, thank you. I encourage everybody to stand for a minute or stretch you know I keep looking at my clock. So you know feel free to move about for one moment. If you need to move about. Bye everyone. I'm going to head out. Good to see you. Thank you. touch on today. But per usual, if my list doesn't gel with your list, if you have other things that I should be paying attention to, or want more information about, please just interrupt me and ask. That's totally fine. As I alluded to this morning, I'm still I'm preparing for the baseline application, right? So this is kind of a big one for me. Because this is the first time in my position where I'll get to develop the five year strategic plan as opposed to inheriting one. So I'm in the process of collecting information and data to inform the development of that plan. And of course, the biggest piece of data data that I look at is your community needs assessment responses. So folks should have seen an email out from SurveyMonkey. I did instead of emailing you directly, I sent it out through SurveyMonkey, because that way you can go back in and edit your responses. And and the link is really unique to to each of you. So has everyone seen that link? Where is aware that that's out there? I see heads nodding. The hope is to get it in by early February. So I can start really digging into the analysis. I mean, I think you all know I did get to take out a few questions this year. So it's technically a little bit shorter. You know, but with such a large survey, it does take me a good amount of time to do the analysis. So hoping to have everyone's responses in by beginning of February, if that's going to be a hardship for a program. Because I know you're all juggling a lot and dealing with a lot. So I do want to be responsive to your needs. But Betsy, did I see your hand go up? Yeah, thank you. I was just looking at it myself the link. Can we share this with our managers? Is there a way for them to be able to enter in independently? Because obviously they have a lot more information than sometimes I do. So is that possible? Yeah, you can definitely link you can. Yep, yep, it's you can absolutely share it with your managers. I think after the fact, I also sent out a PDF version of the survey. So if you want to distribute it to your staff and have them collect data before folks sit down to do the actual entry, that's that's an option too. But yep, you can certainly share share the link with folks in your program. And is it possible for someone just to enter their information? We'll allow that to just be, you know, or, you know, we can do the PDF and everybody answers it. One person enters it, but I just curious. No, it should have the ability for you to go in, work on it, save it, leave it. So anyone who's accessing it can kind of come and go as they please to enter information. Great. Good. Thank you. And can you reiterate when you would like that back? Complete. I believe I said it's the first Friday of February, which would be the fourth. Yep. Okay, just everybody has that down on their to do list. Thank you. Yeah, but really excited to shape that plan. I've met with family service managers. I think that yeah, that was this month. And had a great conversation with them picking their brains around parent and family engagement. The conversation bled over into other areas. We were talking about the importance of support for dual language learners. The impact of trauma, particularly on immigrant populations. We talked about housing and homelessness and kindergarten transition. So it was a really rich discussion. And I think that the collab office will have a really strong five year plan going forward. Once we get the information from the community needs assessment, I also take into account the strategic priorities of the Vermont Head Start Association, which you've all articulated. So I take those into account if there are other pieces of information or things that you want the Head Start collab office to consider. I'd love, you know, I know we always have full agendas. But if there's a time at a future meeting where we could actually dedicate to walking through the priority areas. So you all could contribute, you know, hey, have you thought about this within PD or this within children with disabilities? You know, the more information I gather from all of you, I think the better the outcome, making sure that whatever I'm working on is relevant for you all. So I do think it's helpful for folks to have a conversation with you along with filling in the survey monkey. So I was pleased to hear that, you know, Jodi was trying to you and Jodi were going to connect with the education group, I think that would be really very helpful. And I think maybe the health managers to certainly have been put through a whole lot this year. And, you know, we're sending out pickups right now for all the tests that are going out for test for TOTS program. So that's a big lift. So maybe joining in with those groups, Renee might be helpful. And I don't know whether or not Sherry Lynn has a schedule when those groups meet. But, you know, it seems like at least with COVID, you could say one thing on a forum today, and it's shifting tomorrow. So, you know, and that's really taught us about pivoting and flexibility. But at the same time, you know, health continues to be a priority for all of our programs, I know, you know, so so that might be the health group has been the most elusive, I think we came together back and we were identifying like who was going to be the lead for each of them. So I've been engaged with family services right along. Jen Fink is really great about that. Happy to finally connect with Jodi today. And yeah, Sherry, I see you're coming off mute. So maybe you have more information about health. Yeah. So we have a different coordinator of that group. And I and I thought it was Becky, but I think it's someone from Champlain Valley, the new health manager or she emailed me, the health manager emailed me from Champlain Valley. But they are planning to come for the first hour in February with this group. And they're still kind of wrapping, you know, their heads around what the topics are going to be. But they historically, I think just meet twice a year, November, and that used to be May. You know, so I don't know, with having a new coordinator, how that's going to work. And they did a lot of email back and forth, like they're in communication a lot in between meeting times. So yeah, if I could get added to their email list, because I think that was part of it is that they weren't meeting as as frequently as like family service managers were. So Sherry, maybe we can connect offline and you can help me make a direct connection to whoever's emerging in that coordinator role. Yeah, I wish I could remember. I thought it was someone from capstone, Christy, but maybe I got the wrong person. Does anybody know who? I didn't think No, it wasn't far. Is there someone named? I want to say Becky, but that's not right either. We used to have a Becky, but not anymore. Yeah, you know, I have it written down somewhere. So yes, offline, Renee, are you talking about the health managers group? Is that what you're asking? I would find out from I would think Melissa Oliver would know I could shoot her an email. Yeah, I have it somewhere, but I'm lost today. So I'll figure it out. Okay, but I do think, Renee, you will capture a lot of good, you know, narrative. And certainly, as we all have recognized health has been, you know, certainly predominant part of our programming these, you know, last year and a half or two years. So Okay, yeah, absolutely. Also, I'll make that note to connect there. But that overall process for that application, like I was picking on Donna, I do usually submit that by the end of June, I believe, because my funding date, get this, you'll all love this. It's 930 to 929. How's that for trying to figure out your your annual year? Yeah. So the hope is to have all the analysis done, because again, the fact that I am a state employee, it will have to be kind of presented to my leadership before we submit it. So the sooner I can get my ideas down on paper and get all of my reasoning, you know, my ducks in a row, that will help that process too. So so that's it with the baseline application. Really, the big piece of work on my plate these days is has been getting ready and coordinating for the work group to support the revision of the interagency agreement for supporting children and families. So I'm hoping the fire this morning kind of will catch on. I've already sent Jody the invitation for that, because I do think the more people that participate, the better the outcome. In addition to Champaign Valley Head Start, and I do think it was just Bennington was the other program. Your staff, so for those two programs also reached out and invited Part C partners from CIS, as well as Part B partners from the LEA and and I think they were successful on both fronts. So if we can get more Head Start folks and more local partners, I'm excited about that opportunity. The work group will also include state level representation from the CIS team. Danielle Howes, even though she's in a different position from EI, she's still holding EI as CDD is hiring that position still. So she'll be involved, as will Jill Pearl, representing Specialized Child Care. And then from the agency of Edside, they tend to operate within a team, but invitations have definitely gone out and attendance should be consistent from Katie McCarthy, who's the Part B coordinator, and Amy Murphy, who's the inclusion coordinator, I believe, is her title at AOE. So first kickoff meeting is Friday. I'll really just be using the time with the group to collect big picture concepts of like what are the key elements that need to be included for a useful interagency agreement, trying to keep the conversation high and the ideas flowing based on our experiences with COVID in the last year. I think there's a lot of work to be done to include the guiding principles, to be thinking about potentially coaching and mentoring supports, but brass tacks when we're talking about workforce shortages, prioritization, because I know that like I mentioned earlier, those are issues that are impacting all of your programs. I feel like I've heard from you in one way or another. So just getting some general big picture ideas on Friday and then I know that it's hard for folks to make this commitment. So I've kind of said, I'll do the wordsmithing and pulling all of the pieces and the information together. We'll reconvene folks quarterly to give their feedback on those revisions, you know, kind of strategize about what areas need more work, but I'm really hoping to be, to do the big lift because you all are so busy and again we know about the shortages, trying to get service services out to kids, especially with disabilities. So I anticipate doing a lot of the lift in-house with the Collab Office. Any questions or comments or things I should be thinking about in terms of the disability piece? Thanks for getting your jump started, Renee. Yeah, it's really been three years in the running, Paul. Geez, Louise. I mean, I thought we were advising a 2012. No, the agreement is 2010 and yeah, I think I've been in this position for four, almost five years now and it's taken this flip and long. So yeah, I'll celebrate the small wins. Yeah, but it is so important, as Jodi and others were sharing, that our children, you know, are, we're dealing with 30 percent, sometimes higher than that within our programs for children on IEPs or IFSPs. You know, I've been attending our local school board meetings. They're facing the same thing. They have 27 to 30 percent, so this is not something that we're doing on our own and so we should all be looking for ways to do this together. I mean, really, they should be rejoicing that we want to come to the table and try and figure this out together because, you know, starting in kindergarten they get all those kids and how are they going to serve them. So also from the SAG grant perspective that Jodi talked about, that 45-day piece does make it very difficult sometimes to hire people at this point. It used to be we always had somebody else. We could move into those positions. Now we don't have somebody else's to move anywhere and having some flexibility around that and I know more money is being looked at for that program. So that's another avenue of help, but we often get folks that need really good training when they take those positions and having them be part of that training piece, especially from our LEA partners is really key. So I just want to jump in and make a note. When Coretta was sharing the struggle, what she didn't add was exactly what you're saying, Betsy. I did reach out, I think Leslie was the person I spoke to. No, it wasn't Leslie. It was Jill with the SAG grant and she did let us extend the 45-day period and also, you know, I made a special request to bring someone on who did not meet the qualifications in terms of needing those specific trainings and there was there was a, you know, some tolerance for that as well. So there is flexibility already happening and there was an awareness and appreciated awareness of our struggles. Yeah, I will just share, you know, Jill is a true ally in this work. Okay. She wants to make it. Oh, Betsy, can you hear me? Yep, yep, keep going. Okay, it was a delay. Yeah, Jill Pearl, true ally in this work. I work very closely with her around these issues and I will say, yeah, if you're having issues in that area please reach out and have a conversation. I think that 45-day requirement really got pulled in more from a bureaucratic perspective because there's a limited amount of SAG funding and having some requirement about like, hey hire someone within this period or you have to send us the money back so we can keep granting the money out because the demand is so high. So I think that was more of a bureaucratic product. But Jill recognizes, you know, right now the workforce issues and so yeah, if you're having any challenges please reach out to her directly in terms of additional funding. That was an official topic on the list of talking points that I got from my supervisor this morning. We do have additional funds, ARPA funds that are going into SAG grants. Oh, you're all going to love this. Sorry, Cherry. Oh, we are still being recorded. So there will be additional monies coming out in ARPA funds that will not necessarily be in the SAG grant pot but will be going to something called inclusion funding which the CDB released an RFP to find one organization that can sub-grant these funds out and manage SAG what we know with SAG grants even though they're saying we're calling them something different. So as if your heads weren't already spinning enough they'll be a different name and a different program but still additional dollars available to support SAG grant type expenditures and I think that's for the next two years. I think it's $500,000 a year for the next two years. So yes, I encourage you all if you're having issues I know Donna was saying yes you can use program funds. I understand the complexities with that because it's like well who's ultimately responsible for providing Part B services it's the LEA and the IDA and we can't just patch holes all the time but there are some additional funds coming into the SAG grant or the inclusion grant program that you all can explore and see if it you know makes sense to apply and try to find the workforce to fill this loss. Great thanks. Okay. While we're talking about disabilities and all that work it does kind of connect to work with the BBF around their visualizations for Part B and Part C. I feel like I've heard from most programs you know something like hey this data looks good or hey there are some inconsistencies Sandra I know I just heard this morning from Sarah there were a few inconsistencies there and there was someone else I can't think of yet. I think it might have been from our program. Yeah it was for your program there were some inconsistencies. Yeah yeah so I'll be meeting with Dora on Friday to talk through that. I mean again we don't hold the data AOE holds the data so we're kind of brokering this back and forth to say to AOE hey these things don't look right they'll have to pull well this is where that comes from you know we're and we're trying to figure out if these are just like issues with one or two if it's a more systems issue so you'll hear more from me and Dora over the coming weeks about making sure we have that information and are portraying it accurately. Thanks to your staff for taking a minute to review that information. Great. And just three more things I'll touch on I think I had until 1205. Okay good good. Test for task. Betsy you've already mentioned that so just wanted to make sure other folks saw that that program and that announcement so there's information there. Workforce just related Elizabeth thank you so much for your question yesterday about whether there were monies and supports for folks involved with the CDA program was a great learning opportunity for me too because there is so much happening within workforce I I don't know the ins and outs of it so I was happy to tag Lynn Robbins in and I learned like how we do have some a good number of supports it seems like for folks pursuing a CDA so just wanted to I'm not sure if other programs have questions about that but I was just happy to get a really clear answer from Lynn and happy to hear that we do have some supports available and then lastly on my list was just a touch and let you all know that I've been working closely with the agency of ed team there's been a lot of planning for a plan those kinds of meetings around build back better I know things have stalled out a little bit but there was a directive from Dan French at the agency of education for the early ed team in partnership with you know us at AHS around Act 166 to be looking at the requirements and build back better and identifying what we already had working in Vermont what you know what we would need to focus on and support what that might look like so that work is happening it is a little challenging because build back better you know trying to plan for something that hasn't come to fruition yet you don't want to dump a bunch of energy into it and have everything changed but you do want to be somewhat prepared so just wanted you all to know I have been engaged in those conversations and really trying to hold the torch for you all about you know full utilization the importance of that piece of this legislation and the workforce issue like we can't spend this money and open up new programs if we can't fill the slots we already have and we already know from all the data we collected in the last six months about the vacancies and head start slots we can't just start planning to open new programs without actually addressing the workforce issue and getting existing programs back up to capacity so as that work evolves I will keep you in the loop there too but those were kind of all my my general happenings that folks I don't know get a couple minutes if folks have questions or there are other areas you're interested in hearing about that I haven't touched on yet open it up we're good is Elizabeth okay okay Renee thank you so much you continue to really hold our torch in a very very fragmented system it feels like these days so continue doing all the great work that you're doing and you know we really do appreciate it sometimes we don't always see each other these days in meetings to give each other a high five but keep keep the fires going Renee thanks Betsy appreciate that thanks to all of you for being such great partners to work with I do miss the opportunities to connect with you all in face-to-face settings and just kind of step away from the the state agency asking for a little bit but thank you for those words and yeah please be in touch if you have ideas of of ways that the club office can continue supporting your work great thanks okay we have exactly 60 seconds for anybody to do a one minute break you know if we we are going right back at 12.05 but if anybody needs a a moment now is your moment and we will have folks come back at in one minute so I am taking a moment here to talk about all of our collaboration efforts and you know we've talked about qualifications and other state matters and also looking at the Vermont AEYC proclamation from the governor's office that was one of the things we wanted to talk about in the week of the young child which is always something to celebrate and it's good that we're putting that down to really plan but let's open it up at first maybe Ali or Janet or Sarah you can tell us about some of the work that you're doing in ways that we can continue to collaborate perfect I'll just say hi and I think Sarah and actually Janet will have the book of the detail that you want from that agenda I just want to sort of say our agenda is completely the same I think we should do a quick update on where things stand with the qualifications you talk about the proclamation piece and Sarah is in the thick of it and I can add some sort of color here and there but with the legislative agenda basically real-time update budget adjustment act stuff so if that sounds like it okay Janet to you it sounds like it's pretty much aligned with what you're hoping for is that all right great good yeah Janet do you want to do the sort of in shovel stuff up front right so yeah and I just got the latest information at the early learning and development committee from child development division so um I see you guys will recall right this the state proposed our emergency rules change um right to address both um sort of um some flexibility in ratios as well as rule changes around staff qualifications you know the ratio ones when we looked at them they looked like they were very actually like very practical ones related to like a five-year-old in an after-school program versus in a you know versus um in a child care program or you know giving a little bit more flexibility in terms of group size for I think two-year-old or you know when you're having a mixed-age classroom that kind of stuff which which those of you guys who are running programs are maybe know that stuff better than I do um so the ratio ones seem fine the teacher qualification ones as like an emergency rule change we um we're really concerned about that right we wrote a letter we all signed it together and sent it off and we kind of heard crickets from to be to be on this um but sort of been working with back panels what we knew is that they decided not to move forward with it as an emergency rule change um so um and what they and so you know the formal update that they gave today was that they are um you know they did decide to move ahead with an expedited variance process which they had already sort of announced as they announced the rule change or as they announced the idea of proposed emergency rule change and they realized that they could potentially meet the need um with this expedited variance process which just means that basically it's like a pre-filled out form if you have somebody that you need to to um you don't want to have in a role that they're not necessarily currently qualified for um so that new information I got today was that so far there have been 62 total programs who have requested one of these variances and of those um 44 programs requested the variance related to ratios and 55 requested a variance related to qualifications um so and I think right now there's about a thousand-ish licensed programs within the state so 55 of a thousand you know it's you know we're looking at five percent is a program that you know decided you know took them took CDD up on this um the it sounds like what the state is planning to do now is to um uh they're going to actually they're going to survey the programs that um took that did apply for the variation to find variance sorry to find out more about whether or not you know what it accomplished for them um so that uh and like you know did it did it actually help them meet their needs are they were you know what did they um how did they I think they're trying to figure out how to ask questions related to what potential impact they felt like that variance had on quality for those programs and you know if because it's probably some programs that requested it sort of eyes wide open knowing that they felt like this you know um and others that might have said actually we decided because we have this this is our most we decided to pair our most senior teacher with that other you know with that person in that role and it's fine you know so they're going to try to and try to get some more information about it to analyze it to try to understand what that is they said that's the first um that's the first piece of information information that they're planning to gather and then um they would use that to um address any potential proposed um changes to licensing regulations in the future made no commitments around timing did make commitments around the fact that if they were going to do even begin to consider licensing changes that there would be a a robust stakeholder input process before changes were made so that was the update that I learned today that or that was the detail I learned today great so it's nice to have the you know up-to-date information so we know exactly where things stand and you know a little bit of a from all of us right yeah can I jump in real quick best so good any questions on that yep please yep so so first a huge thank you and kudos to let's go kids in Vermont AEYC for the advocacy on this so well done I'm delighted and I echo Sarah's few you know with relief around this development so as my question is from what I'm hearing Janet it sounds like CDD has they've backed off the rule change they're allowing for the variance is there is there any communication like I understand it sounds like this was verbal but is there anything that is sort of like conveying this to the field or to stakeholders that we could that we could have and hold and cherish I think that two things one is I think that Nicole DeVue said that CDD is planning to get out one of their like newsletters to the field this week and that she hopes that she would include that update with that because she also had a few other updates for relating to the statistics related to the the ARPA stabilization fund uptake and things like that so she's hoping to get that out and I know that she was also including the updates and writing for that that will be in the ELD meeting notes so I think we will have it soon but we didn't have it right now we're just playing telephone okay and I think Renee knows Renee said that there are talking points going out today and somewhere around noon this afternoon it sounds like there'll be something going out too okay and Renee also asked in the in the chat whether or not there was a breakdown we if we got any more detail around which qualifications the variants was requested for and we just the season that was information wasn't shared I don't think you have it out of fingertips for now okay I just didn't know what the question was asked to at least plant the seed that it would be helpful to have that information I think she indicated that CDD was going to offer a more a more detailed report and analysis and I think the thinking is they want to share that along with the same time of sharing the survey results rather than and have that as be like a a fuller package of information so yeah I mean so yes so anyway so I feel that felt good that we took you know collective and quick action on that I I do I don't know there was a little part of me that I felt like I think the new the new leadership at CDD was actually kind of surprised that we you know that that was consistent and quick we were that consistent and quick all together on that so and made a case that couldn't be refused yeah very good excellent well thank you for you know continuing to hold the torch for that that was very important okay relief relief of that one in that direction and there was just I just there's confusion about process and stuff that was all a part of it so again I think the advocacy and the Swift advocacy from all of us together UL2 was really helpful in the moment because I think like CDD was saying well we just want to gather more data and we were like you can't gather data if you make it to full exemption you know because then you just won't know and so there was like some real like detail pieces back and forth for a while they're swirling but few is right they see Sarah in the chat yes so that's how we feel right now that's great great okay good okay so the next topic we wanted to talk about was any other state matters that we need to know about obviously you guys have been busy I've been on meetings other people have been on meetings so I know you've been busy and trying to be advocates and help us in lots of different ways so there are Janet want to give an update sure yeah why don't I give a little update on the legislative agenda that we're working on and what's happening in the state house right now and then we can move on to the other pieces that Janet had identified to if that makes sense I haven't looked recently but I think many of you have signed on in support of our legislative agenda which is terrific thank you if you have not yet you're welcome to let me just pop a link in the chat to the handout for our legislative agenda and then before we're done here I'll give you the link to sign on folks who want to see it inviting and you most of you have already seen this so as you know we the legislature passed H171 Act 45 last year which is moving this transformation forward and so there are a couple pieces in our legislative agenda that are related to that sort of long-term planning and then many of you are involved in conversations that we were part of this fall around responding to the very urgent workforce crisis so our original legislative agenda was going to be not that big like you know funds a financing study which was one of the pieces of H171 as you'll recall the systems analysis is underway right now and the next step is a financing study that will be led by the joint fiscal office of the legislature and they'll hire a consultant who's going to look at what are the cost estimates for this vision that we've laid out and what are financing options for the state to have the dedicated revenue stream that will fund that system of the future and then if when at some point build back better at the federal level passes factoring in what federal funds will be available and how will that you know offset any potential costs for the state so that work was laid out in the bill that passed last year was not funded so that was sort of the big piece that we need to move forward was making sure that the money is there for that finance move forward for our long-term work and the good news is that so far all the legislators we talked to are totally sold on that there they are in the process of approving some of that funding through the budget adjustment act which is like the mid-year course correction to the budget the bill that happens at the beginning of the session and then they'll be providing the remainder of the funding in the full budget that'll pass later in the legislative session so that piece is moving forward and that was a really key component of our legislative agenda is making sure that we get that data in place for the legislature to make way to be funding the system in the future the other piece that's part of sort of the long-term transformational work is a child care capacity program capacity development program we were calling it like a child care small business development program but then people got really confused because we would obviously be serving non-profit as well and any kind of a child care program so we rechristened it the child care capacity development program and that's essentially some of the work that the kids has been doing through the make way for kids grants some of the work that the community loan fund and others have been doing in terms of loan loans for child care programs being able to create statutory language that will authorize non-profits to do that work using state investments to provide that loan and grant but making to child care programs to start or expand or going and to provide the sort of on the ground small business support some of the technical assistance components that we know are so important for strong child care program so we have been working with a representative who has been about to introduce a bill I think is already filed it just hasn't come out yet that would put that language into statute and that will be hopefully moving forward through the commerce and economic development committee in the house coming up so those are the kind of big picture more long-term thinking components of the agenda and then there's the immediate workforce crisis and so we had worked with a lot of different partners including many of you to come up with a list of ideas for the legislature to consider to leverage one-time funds to be able to support staffing and programs right now the biggest piece of that is workforce retention bonuses and the ARPA stabilization grants that are going out right now to programs do allow programs to use their grant funds to do retention bonuses to staff or or increase pages but it's not enough that we know that even if programs are able to give people you know an extra thousand dollars a month than that it still wouldn't quite be enough for many programs not necessarily has programs for many programs to be able to compete with every other industry right now so what we're advocating for additional workforce retention bonuses we also have identified health insurance premium support as a real need for many people working in the field expanding the loan repayment support program that passed in H171 like 45 so that will be well Janet is actually going to be Janet's and from AYC are going to be running that program it'll be launching some point right in the next few months Janet but that program when we passed it was limited by resources just people who've graduated in the last five years and we really want to expand that so if you've been working you know in the past 20 years if you've gotten you've incurred college debt then we will support you with long repayment and then also looking at providing free child care for folks working in child care in the state so expanding CCFAP eligibility to full full support for anybody who's working in an early childhood program so and then we had this like any other innovative idea that any other legislative committee can come up with to sort of indicate how incredibly valued early childhood educators are so that's the agenda that we rolled out and the house appropriation committee is considering our proposals right now so I'm getting a lot of so as we looked at this whole list of what we what the recruitment and retention initiatives sort of the emergency components of our legislative agenda as you all probably know the legislative session operates January through May and so in January they do this budget investment act bill which commends the current year's budget and then they work for the rest of the session on the state budget for state fiscal year 23 which starts in July we've been making the case that the workforce staffing crisis cannot wait until July when the new state budget starts for a solution that we need some immediate funds leveraged to the field right now so we've been who I think it just passed sorry we're flying from legislators right now so we've been advocating that the budget adjustment act needs to contain funding for workforce and we honed in on one initial round of workforce retention bonuses as an easy thing that we could because this this bill has passed in the first two weeks of the legislature so it had to be something that didn't require a whole lot of legwork to set up that legislators were already familiar with and as you'll recall they did around a workforce stabilization payment at the end of 2020 so there's already a system in place to remove funding out quickly to just get more funds in the hands of folks working so okay we're in so we had asked them to include six million dollars in in workforce retention bonuses in the house budget adjustment act and they literally two minutes ago took about to include that so that's great so congratulations take a moment and celebrate because these are more than you can celebrate well done well done well done well done Sarah everybody Allie you know really you know well done excellent excellent well I saw that you all sent a letter this morning to the Human Services Committee too which was great well Jessica Oskie did on your behalf so that's terrific and definitely helped so we had talked to the Human Services Committee first who made the recommendation to House of Pregrations to go ahead into that and then the other piece that was in the budget adjustment act as you may have heard is that the CCFAP program is under spent right now because they were supposed to launch the new IT system in October and launch all these expansions to CCFAP and that is still delayed and so they haven't done any rate increases or adjusted benefits in any way and so there's an eight hundred and fourteen thousand dollar under spend in the CCFAP program as the source of that and the administration was proposing to just drop back the bottom line and roll it back into other needs and AHS and so we strongly encourage the Human Services Committee to recommend the Appropriations Committee to recommend that that money stay in CCFAP and that the administration get creative and figure out ways to increase rates support families to do something that that money should stay in child care because it's right now so that I know Sarah Fier just yeah is that my funky record anyway I know Sarah meeting we were on earlier we also talked about just to bring it back to these folks around CCFAP funding being available for professional development days more closed days we are really struggling to find relief for our staff and keep them going you know we talked about those February and April breaks that many head start programs do naturally close during that time but like the rest of those that do child care we have to remain open so looking at those weeks and looking at that professional develop we need time that staff can just regroup so I know that we talked about that quite a bit as a creative funding idea yes and I actually took that right into my testimony with the human services committee on Tuesday the days are all falling together right I do because of that conversation that morning I took it straight to the committee and said one of the things that CDD could be doing with this funding is adding more provider closure days interesting side note I then heard later in the day from a program that CDD is currently approving additional closure days but they're not advertising that so you need to reach out to your eligibility specialist I guess and do an application to CDD and then they will approve additional closure days just so all of you know that that is apparently a thing that is happening for programs who happen to know to ask for that I don't I have not had we've not gotten any confirmation from CDD about that I just it was a rumor I heard yesterday but Chris Nelson told us that she had successfully applied for additional closure days and that the folks in her eligibility office told her that they're not advertising it but that if people ask the faith and authorized to the program also for families that have a fee for service payments you know right when we close it's really hard to have you know those families be saddled with those payments because we need the profession exactly so going back to families that would need to have possibly those funds available for other things yes and you're right Paul nothing should just be for those in the know so there are definitely opportunities to be repurposing that funding so that that's the last one of the last things that the House of Appropriations Committee is still trying to figure out in the next 45 minutes about whether they're going to approve the administration's proposal to repurpose that money or insist that the administration keep it in CCFAB so that's the other the last piece that's kind of in motion right now with the budget adjustment act so that the appropriations committee is voting on their proposal today they'll do a final vote tomorrow and it'll go out to the full house and then it will go to the senate and I think they're hoping to get the whole bill out in the next like three weeks so we'll have more advocacy to do once it reaches the senate appropriations committee and health and welfare and now starting next week the House of Appropriations committee will turn their attention to the budget for the state fiscal year starting in July and so we'll have lots more opportunities in the coming months to advocate for other other support for child care for early educators in that budget process and I just saw Renee have put a note in about the $500,000 for business acumen for child care programs and that is we're actually building off of that budget proposal so the bill that we've put in doesn't have any money attached to it it's just putting into statute the authorization for nonprofits to do this work essentially Let's Grow Kids is doing this right now through a partnership with the state but we're going away and we want to have something that's formalized in statute to embed this work moving forward so yes we're hopeful that those $500,000 at CDD have allocated we'll be able to fund that work so I'll end up wonderful Sarah well I just have real-time reports no it's wonderful I want to go I'm going to mute for a minute and respond to some of these texts right go right ahead maybe Jen I should pick it up for Ali from there yeah well I was just going to sort of swoop in with like where do we go from here and like translating the moment a little bit I mean I would say you know as you're hearing from Sarah on the details like what's the summary level of where we are in this movement I would say like the summary is we're in an interesting like middle of the story moment which is like a little bit of a hard moment you know the beginning is easy wait this we have a crisis the end is great rah rah rah pass this bill and it will fix it you know the middle is a little tricky it's like wait for the studies to finish their work like that's not really rallying cry so it's like been a little hard to navigate and yet like we have to have to have to build the machine and mobilize now if we have any chance to pass the big bill next session so it's a it's a little tricky and yet like there's ways for us to navigate our legislative session agenda is a nice example in other words look stay the course stay the course we've never been closer to fixing this systemically so what does that mean you know that means fund the study finish the studies the studies have to be have to go well and then we have to sort of love the recommendations and use them as like you know the rallying cry of here's the final detail and here's what we have to pass so that's one thing the small business you know development center that's not the right word sorry Sarah I know you guys perfected the word I'm not gonna write but that's sort of an example of permanent infrastructure needed like we can't lose sight of those things because we'll just be off track with our timeline so those are the things we feel very confident you know we can get done the session will have to happen they're not it's just just not as sexy right as some of the other things so so that's one sort of component the thing we can do to help throw the needle other than this like stay the course stay the course we're so close get fired up is this acute need right it's this weird moment that we're in where we've never been closer on the policy and you know better than anyone your programs are an acute crisis and like what is this gonna end so shining a light on that workforce crisis and again it's sort of this odd thing of look like lack of support for early educator workforce has always been a challenge now it's untenable in this like prolonged pandemic moment so it's this root cause and it's like an acute thing so we need these immediate supports immediate supports for the crisis so it's like that like one to punch right it's just a little hard to navigate but that's how I would say like where we are right now is let's help child care right now Sarah said a beautifully testimony the other day the government even said we're sitting on a you know pile of bricks and lumber we've got tools let's use them so getting the legislature lawmakers others to believe and know we have to keep putting them to child care programs right now in this moment and have that be a hook for like the longer term thing and all of that in the background that is we need you all we need all of our business partners we need sort of everyone to remember like this year we are building the tidal wave because in January 2023 the questions will be answered through the studies and we got to move to a revenue bill that's going to be a really controversial thing money money money money where's it going to come from and how much that's January right we'll have the tools to do it so we got to somehow build that that huge mobilization through this election to get folks like ready for that moment and so I just want to I'm just sort of like summary of where like sort of the shape of all of this is and just another sort of like beckoning to you all for partnership and in any way you know making sure a lot of you are really part of the workforce excuse me the work group the early childhood policy work group with us we got to make sure you're comfortable with the details as they continue to move forward with Sarah and her crew and we got to make sure like you're helping us advocate sort of as needed on the ground as this all sort of swells and as you well know I think we've got the C4 now which is sort of a tool for the campaign where let's throw kids we have let's rinse action network as a tool in other words like how do we take all this movement and make it happen in the ballot box like elect child care champions make sure as candidates everyone from the governor to you know your local reps are talking about child care are talking about it as a priority are talking about it in a way that they're really saying we're willing we know we're going to be faced with a bold bold vote for a bill that fixes this totally not nibbling around the edges we're going to fix it or you know it's it's the moment where we fix or not right no more nibbling and so like are they going to do that as candidates and as a C4 we have the tools to do that to to work with them as candidates to have those conversations bluntly right and so we're really going to do a lot of our work towards this moment for the November election to get those people in place right and get them sort of like even if it's the same people who are there now you know get them really understanding what we're about to do and what they're going to be asked to do and and in the right mindset for that you know so that's it's just again high level campaign sort of movement stuff but I just really want you all as key key partners to to know that to live it and breathe it with us and to be plugged in any way you feel like you need to be you know to be along as leaders in the ride here so thank you Ali and I do want to make sure that we do let you know that Representative Welch is joining us at two o'clock today and Burke is joining us and Sanders representative I don't remember his name so anyway it's an open meeting if you if anybody wanted to come back and join us at two o'clock it is open to others and to the press so just to make sure that we continue with this advocacy both federally and locally and statewide so perfect example of you all will be amazing voices for that group and just keep the drumbeat going because you know Vermont's too small to do it all on our own right we need to get others you know well in just a moment and Sarah like please please hop in as well you can must for sure I think that the just because we haven't like said it explicitly huge blow that bill back better hasn't passed yet you know we still are getting signs that we shouldn't give up all hope right which is great I hope not to give up all hope like the child care and pre-gate portions of it are certainly you know well regarded and Joe Manchin likes them but that doesn't necessarily mean they're going to go anywhere so anyway it would be a massive another thing I would sort of add to the table of how we can keep partnering as we have been is should that go forward a very swift continued collaboration of all partners including us to make sure the implementation is as smooth as possible and fits into our broader you know goals which it does which is why we're very excited about it it would literally just be money against our policy movement you know so it would be incredible and it's just devastating for it on it it's not over yet Ali you're going to keep talking no it's not and I see Paul's hands up thank you Paul thank you thank you you know I appreciate all of the amazing work that you guys are reporting on you know I I guess I have sort of two questions you know and they one is more sort of nitty gritty detail the other goes to some of Ali's more high level summary the nitty gritty detail I think may go back to Sarah's something that Sarah shared about the money left on the table for CCFAP and the question there is you know you guys are well aware that many in the early ed community would like to see CCFAP shifted to an enrollment basis rather than attendance I'm wondering how this money left on the table might factor into that equation right in other words like would this have covered that gap you know if we were based on enrollment right now so that's sort of one question that's rumbling around for me the other is to Ali's sort of forecast for the future and looking at a year from now you know if if we have the stars as well aligned as we would like what would the ask be like you know like how ambitious are we like just could you give us a broad stroke Ali or others of like what the ask might look like next year sir do you want me to take that one yeah do you want to start to start to or I can just give a quick update about the CCFAP question Paul which is yes it actually that question of an enrollment versus attendance actually just came up this morning representative Jessup was making the case to the the house appropriations committee that that's one thing that CDD could for example be using that extra money for I believe we have heard that CDD the new IT system they really want the new IT system to be online before they attempt anything they have not yet agreed so backing up a step the bill that passed last year required CDD to do an analysis what would be what would entail to do an enrollment based system and that report is not due back until July 1st this year so CDD hasn't issued a report about that yet so the legislature is unlikely to sort of move wholesale in that direction until they get that report back and that CDD said that when they switched to enrollment based early in the pandemic it was an incredible amount of labor for them because they were like they believe literally going in and doing manual entries for every one of those because their IT system is so broken so and given the staffing shortage also at CDD right now I think it will be amazing and the narrative we are definitely all you all are working along with us to keep that narrative alive that that would really make a huge difference for families and programs right in this moment so I think we have to keep that up and I'm honest to be totally kind of not holding my breath for CDD to make a big shift like that right now until the new IT system online but they have said that they are working the IT system is delayed for a few more months maybe and in the meantime they're working on a temporary rate increase that would happen through the current BFIS system so that's what they've told the legislature this week that they are going to do a temporary rate increase to try to make up for the fact that it's been months of not getting that money out the door to people so and Allie do you want to take that bigger sure okay so this is the problem that we have in our messaging right now right we don't know what it will look like as far as the rep I mean the major question is revenue so Sarah and her team you know with you all with this major coalition that's been brewing and building for years I mean like the policy details are just building off of what we've all been saying it's similar to build back better it's this idea of affordability with a slightly scale again all harkens back to the blue room commission Paul really you know affordability for families and wages you know the wage scale for early you know educators and you know Jen and Sarah can can dive into more details on those pieces and where they are in everything too and some need to be legislated and some don't which is really interesting so anyway there are these like very specific policy details that shouldn't be a surprise to you all of the the basic punchline being affordability and you know an early educator minimum compensation scale but then there's the details of the governance of the system which are actively moving forward with the building right features study and they're great consultants and I think many of you are involved that I will just say there's from the best consultants I have worked with they are just you know total experts in their field really understanding the sort of landscape and the hoped for outcomes in Vermont and like sort of knitting it all together so I have a great hope that they're going to come forward with some recommendations that we'll have some more work to do together as a community but that will sort of help us be like you know this is how we sort of the principles by which we govern the new system with some sort of accountability dashboard and some data measures you know that sort of thing those are the themes that are that are coming up and so so those are like I mean the policy details will be something in there with a couple big questions that are in the process of being answered but the big punchline is the money and so for me if I had to just be I mean like please do not take any of this bank and there's like oh my god I can't believe you're going there Ali but like the my back of the envelope right we know the 206 million dollars and likely it will be more than that it could be less it could be more for a variety of reasons but it will likely be more because that's an old estimate and probably the demand has gone up and there are other factors that have changed that will put upward you know pressures on the cost so it will probably more than 206 million you know let's let's just say between two and 300 million dollars ish just as like if we're going to put our heads somewhere and we just don't know that's what the study the financing study is going to say but just sort of like in partners who push push push like me I just say look don't hold me accountable to this they're you're the very rough factors that it's probably more than 200 million you know let's say it's that range and then where's the money going to come from right we also don't know there could be a lot of factors here that change it based on like new revenue streams frankly you know like even there could be a crazy sort of grab bag approach the governor supports that is like new marijuana revenue and you know like finally getting his online tax thing and a grab bag of things that could emerge because he really likes that but the business community and other partners including you all through the think tank have said one single source is the better way to go so if that's sort of the direction there's not very many single sources that are available for this the one that continues to raise you know rise up is a payroll tax you're probably hearing people like you know talk about the payroll tax it's been on the table for a variety of different things over the years and the business community is starting to get their heads around whether that's good or bad like and the beautiful thing for us is a lot of the business community champions are saying this is why a payroll tax makes sense we're not saying it's going to be a payroll tax but it makes sense because it's single source it's completely tied to employment you know and well the economy because you know it wouldn't be totally tied to employment in our thing of universal but you know but it's it's tied to our economy it's tied to workforce development we gain a lot we actually could prove and sort of a business or sectoral level why even a payroll tax being levied on us we'd still have more but we'd still get you know come out in the positive on this because of all the things it would do for our employees and for you know our society so they're a powerful voice in this so we're not a we are I just want to be so clear with you we're not a payroll tax campaign we're not even close we're waiting for this financing study there's a lot of factors here but it's a really good litmus test that's been out there especially in the business community of here's what it could be here's why it makes sense it's sort of like the thing to be and also if you're supporting this and you're willing to say I see a reason why a payroll tax makes sense for this it's a really good litmus test if you're really a champion that understands the value of what we're doing here and how it's going to benefit us does that make sense I mean like I'm answering without really answering you I'm not telling you it's going to be a payroll tax like I want to be clear but it's been a really interesting way to dig into details of the conversation and really like probe support and what the sort of example could be that we're all sort of like thinking about so it's not just like magic you know yeah no that's really helpful Ali thank you and you know it brought to mind a few different things you know one is you know I'm thinking about the great work that Janet and her team did this past fall on the the Vermont AEYC conference bringing in the power to the profession people to talk about the unified framework I'm wondering first if you're going to sort of network with those folks around the legislation that may be proposed a year from now because I think Vermont as usual could be a model for the rest of the nation and could be further out front on this the other is you know in terms of and I'm glad Ali that you're being candid with us about you know sort of the financing challenges and what the revenue stream could look like you know I guess one of the questions I have is I would envision if we could be successful in Vermont at financing a really world class early care and education system we it would be a boon to economic development within the state and I'm wondering if you guys have given any thought or anyone's doing any number crunching around you know if we put in this investment let's look at you know everyone's going to be interested in short-term return right we know that there's long-term return but where where might we realize some of that short-term return that we could sell to the public and and stakeholders you were reading our mail or our minds I love it Paul so maybe Janet has an answer on on the sort of like interaction with that I feel like the rough answer to your first question without me knowing much about about the detail is we are going to need everyone to really like be at some level of understanding of the detail and then pushing for this to really get this done so for sure every every avenue especially our closest partners like from AAC and their network but um there might there's probably maybe more of a detail answer on that from Janet maybe but my main thing is that let's see so to your your second question we have an economic impact report that will be in our hot little hands by tomorrow we hired Heather Cope she's a woman that lives in Louisiana and has done the sort of analysis for Louisiana and others before it was that point Paul where everyone's asking us that question about we actually studied the longitudinal data a little bit and it was through the Vermont dividend remember like that was the companion that we did with the Vermont business roundtable to the Bloomberg commission it was like a lifetime of savings for children and legislators are like blah blah blah like I can't handle that it's too long it's too abstract whatever so the acute kind of like economic stimulus impact is what we're trying to get at that we don't really have in one spot we kept going after an analysis of that and we kept realizing the data is already there it's just not really compiled in one spot so I don't know until I have this in my hands as a draft with our partners the business roundtable again tomorrow what it is where it's not sort of waiting to see it but we're hoping for a very succinct compilation report of all that we know about and with some number crunching like number crunching about the sort of economic impact and if it's good we will use it as engaged with you all and a bunch of folks and then get it out into the world as collateral and use it as a way to convene CEOs and associations and stuff around it too so I would say thank you for the question absolutely I hope this reports amazing I can't I don't know until I see it and we'll share it with you for sure as soon as we can excellent very very good very good lots of things moving which is always you know don't let a crisis go unused and we're using it to the very best we can that's for sure and if anybody ever recognize how important childcare is it certainly is now so that's we're out front and center which is great okay Janet or Sarah do you have any other things you want to share with us I have I have a few things that I'd love to be able to share with you guys I thought so okay so one just responding to a health question around the advancing EC of the profession work that we're doing in Vermont I mean that is continuing to move forward what we've what we're that the task force and other the sort of the team of consultants and staff and early childhood educators are working on this are right now is really thinking about how do we do the outreach again because I think where we landed right is the unifying framework came out in March 2020 right so it came and then COVID hit and so it wasn't a time to talk to anybody who's not deeply engaged with this work about the unifying framework so it's actually you know in reflecting on it the fact that like we've been able to like keep the workforce elements of it with the training and you know the decision site you know looking at each of the elements and developing consensus actions and getting feedback going through COVID it's actually it's pretty great that we've been able to do that and have that level of engagement but it hadn't been a moment to get the get the attention of our legislators maybe to folks that are again are one layer out from like the core early childhood educator folks obviously we know the leadership within state government and CDD has completely changed over during that time so we're now in this moment for advancing where we're like oh okay we we can't keep pausing on the stakeholder outreach and engagement piece of it so that's something that we're we're working on and trying to think of you know how do we do that in parallel with the you know with this legislative agenda and our public commitment so that's something that that is on our minds there I had like oh gosh okay I've got a few things I wanted to to to I guess key up for you guys so about some of the work from money you see is doing that I think is going to interesting for you and overlap to do so one is just I want to is just a pure plug which is that this year actually is Vermont AYC a 50th anniversary and so 2022 is the first conference was back in it was apparently in 1972 so so it's going to be a big year for Vermont AYC so that which is exciting but we are having a what we're calling our like anniversary kickoff next wednesday to sort you know 45 minute sessions again just to sort of introduce people to sort of like the new Vermont AYC and you're oh welcome and we hope you'll you'll spread the word about that and in that we'll be talking about some engagement opportunities for that anybody can take part in the let's see in terms of week of the young child right that happens in April every year we happen there happen to be a volunteer who is really excited about sort of getting started on that this fall Bobby Rosencrest out of who lives in the upper valley and she has got you know pulled together a group to begin drafting a proclamation from the governor around the week of the young child and so we have some draft language for that and to get the governor to do a proclamation you have to have people that serve as your entities that serve as your recommenders or references and so my hope is that my request to Vermont Head Start Association is whether you be willing to serve as one of our references I'm happy to send you guys an email afterwards with the language of the proclamation and just we can get it in writing but I wanted to flag that for you guys and we're also hoping to thinking about for you know we're happy to have Vermont AYC sort of serve as a little bit of a hub for information around the week getting on child this year so if there are local events that are happening we'd love to be able to sort of compile that and share that so that when we're hope would be there's an event with the governor around the proclamation that we're also being able to promote all of the other events so I'll keep in touch with you guys about that the next thing is the annual early childhood education conference and so I just want it just a thank you it was so great to have so many members of the Head Start community be part of the conference and be part of the planning committee and specifically Sarah and Renee who are on this call so really appreciated that for the last fall we have started planning for next year already and I think it may have been elsewhere in your agenda to begin thinking about both where members of the Head Start community are going to be supporting again this year but just wanted to say thank you and I think next year should be great as well and again it'll be this time to it will be the 59th anniversary of our money at EYC the conference is right now we have the Hilton and Burlington books let's hope we can do that and we'll get but we'll get the information to save the dates and things like that sooner than later there and then the one other another opportunity and I kind of made a face when Sarah mentioned the loan repayment program the student loan repayment program and that's because we haven't officially signed the contract with CDD that we've reviewed it so theoretically I'm not supposed to announce it yet but the student loan repayment program it should be contracted very soon and there is going to be a there could be a lot of like policy decisions to be made about that the legislation is great and clear but there's like lots of little stuff around how does it actually play out in terms of who is and so we're going to need to have an advisory council for that and we'd love to have somebody from the Head Start community serve as the advisory council for us as we're setting those policies and procedures and making sure that they reflect the needs of the Head Start community so I wanted to flag that I can send an email that sort of has links at like the official request in there but I wanted to just flag all those things for you guys great thank you Janet you know that's also such important work you know really really is if we can I know these burdens on our staff it's just so much better so great okay we're down to the last couple of minutes so I do want us to support the Vermont AYC week of the young child and I hope everybody else does too so I think that is something that we should certainly join in on and really think about how we can all celebrate that together both locally and statewide it really you know is a wonderful opportunity to highlight the work that we're doing and to get representatives and to visit our programs you know to get people to know what our programs are all about so I'm sure good stuff will come out of that great anything else for many because sorry about that I was saying I sigh because it's exhausting we're in our third year and what you're doing is so important but it's unrelenting and I just don't know how you do it you know I don't have young children I'm not saying I'm not on the front line but you know I think I was like a lot of people to where we went through we put our head down and we really just did those first two years of COVID we got through Delta and whether we were entitled or wise to think that we turned a corner I think most of us did you know and you had that feeling that you had put those blinders on one step at one foot in front of the other stay with it and do what you have to do and then finally you know we've got some relief and then we got hit by Omicron and of course we're right now in the peak and the only thing we can look forward to is the mounting evidence that the peak is here and is going to start going down quickly and but I think what's happened to you know so we hope for that but I'm just I'm speaking myself but I'm really interested in hearing from you because your work is so much more demanding because you're you know you're coping with kids and families that in addition to having all the exhaustion of getting through it there's the incredible stress of the transmission of it and of course anytime a parent gets a call that their child is sick then they thought they had a work plan and suddenly they don't and the incredible stress between that conflict of wanting to do your work and not let folks down who you work with to the obligation that you have to take care of your family it is it is it's exhausting and I think we will get through it you know I do think it's coming down and I think we're adapting but I also think we all have to understand how exhausting it's been and of course the work that you do is so so important and of course you're dealing with people who are really stressed out about their kids don't quite know what to do so in addition to in addition to the you know all your responsibilities you have to contend with the anxieties that the people you work with have so anyway that's all my way of saying thank you so much for everything you've done and and I just want to say as a Vermont citizen I really admire the work that you do you know our work is to try to get resources so that the the programs you have that make such a difference for kids that we can sustain them we can build them and very very very importantly we can pay livable wages to the people who do this really really important work and you know and build back better which we did pass in the house that is on you know hanging on by its fingernails in the Senate because we've got only 50 Democrats in 48 or 49 or for it we need 50 because we don't have a single vote on the other side there's really important legislation in there that finally starts investing in families I mean it's universal pre-k and just you know you guys I don't want to pretend that I'm telling you something you don't know but that early education is so critical for the well-being of kids particularly from low income families but they're going to get that stimulation, that education, that social engagement is so so important and it's a and it's important in parents because it's it's a more daycare it's more the parents are confident that their kids are well taken care of and they they can work the other thing that's so important is the child care you know it's it's really quite shocking that our country is the only major industrialized country that doesn't have it basically a universal the universal system of affordable child care and again you guys know this but a young couple with two kids or just think what it's like if it's a single parent pays 30% of their income that's if it's a couple with two incomes and every the young couple has that discussion about should one of us drop out of the labor force because it'll be less expensive than paying for daycare and you know under a bill back better that 30% would go down to 7% and just just think of what that means to a family who is trying to figure out how to pay the bills at the end of the month and they're short so I regard this is really profoundly important and you know if you're hearing some frustration in my voice it's because there is frustration in my but my voice you know these things that I just mentioned pre-k and in child care you know whether you're a parent who voted for Trump or you voted for Biden really doesn't matter you want your kids to be educated to be safe and to be secure so us committing ourselves to child care is not about what your politics are it's about how all of us love our kids and also in bill back better there's an acknowledgement that you can't have a commitment to the kids without having a commitment to the labor force the folks who do this very important work and that means that we've got to have we've got to get the increasing increase wages to a little wage and that was a commitment in bill back better and you know I know how tough the staffing has been for you all that's true all around but I think it might even be more acute for you and unless we are able to get some additional funding it's going to be tougher and tougher it's as simple as that you can't ask people to do important work for nothing and for less than a little boy who's just not not right so my commitment to you is that I'm going to continue working with Patrick and Bernie to do everything we can to get this long overdue legislation passed because those that those resources that go into educating our kids and that has to include resources to pay for the educators is really important to the well-being of those families at the well-being of our communities and the well-being of our country I believe that and by the way the bill back better is paid for you know this is not put on the deficit we're asking you know if something's really worth doing I think it's worth paying for and we have revenue measures in there largely from the higher income folks in the very well off corporations that have been doing economically quite well even during COVID so we're going to hang in I want you to know that I'm going to do everything I can as your representative in Washington to get this legislation passed and I want to express my gratitude to you for your endurance first of all and the importance of the work that you do thank you very much and I look forward hearing from you and hearing your comments and answering any questions that I that I can help with very good thank you so much and you know you brought up the speaking points that we want to share with you too so I think we were going to turn it over to Paul first Paul Berman who's a friend of Head Start but I past director and Paul I think you wanted to make our first right sure thank you Betsy and welcome congressman Welsh and thank you thank you for your service supporting Vermont supporting our population all the great work that you do we really appreciate you you know as Betsy mentioned I was a Head Start Director in Champlain Valley for many many years now in private consulting and training but I remain on the board for Vermont Head Start Association and you did hit on some of the themes that we wanted to share with you today and we're very fortunate to have a little bit of your time we wanted to talk about workforce which I will lead off with we wanted to talk a little bit about eligibility and who we serve and we also wanted to talk about the big picture of the early care and education system in the United States today so some pretty meaty topics I'll lead us off just with a few quick thoughts on workforce which you referenced and so I think I would begin by saying you know generally speaking Head Start has higher standards around credentialing of the people that serve young children and their families and generally has better wages than other private providers however we have not closed the gap with K through 12 and we'll get to that in terms of our third point around the big picture early care and education system but Head Start as you know is the only fully publicly funded birth to five program throughout the United States and what we'd really like to see is compensation benefits and credentialing for the Head Start workforce on par with K through 12 and in fact I think if we were there we would start to solve a lot of the workforce crisis issues at least within Head Start who as you know are serving the most vulnerable kids and families across the country but we would also set a standard and a direction for the rest of the field and the last thought I would share with you on this is this piece that I'm referring to now around these changes for workforce in Head Start in terms of credentialing and compensation and benefits this in my view this does not require legislation this is within the purview of the administration and specifically the US administration for children and families and the federal office of Head Start I can see some slight restructuring but basically we've got the money within the system we couldn't do this overnight but if we set ourselves a timeline and said over the next several years we're going to get to a place with credentialing and compensation and benefits on par with K through 12 I think we'd be on our way to turning the corner on the workforce crisis issue that makes sense I mean essentially what you're talking about is integrating zero to five into the education system through high school I mean that yeah and of course holly evidence is that the sooner you do it the better the outcome right so no that makes a lot of sense to me yeah absolutely and I'll defer to my colleagues for the next piece but I'll quickly say you know as I said you know when I the third point we wanted to talk about is the early care and education system the big system sort of inclusive of Head Start across the country and the dream of public funding you know for the entirety of the system but this first point is really just about Head Start specifically in other words not looking to necessarily new money or legislation but looking at the existing Head Start system across the country and saying you know with some restructuring we could get to a place of credentialing and wages that is on par with K through 12 within the existing system so Head Start would be the national model and and it really I think it's a little bit of a shame that it we currently don't have that parity with K through 12 within Head Start seeing as to how it is a federally funded and regulated system so that's that's the first sort of ask that we wanted to share with you today okay thank you thank you very much yes thank thank you great thank you Paul next we wanted to turn it over to Deb and Deb is going to make another point around our programming and eligibility thank you and welcome Congressman Walter I echo everything Paul said and his introductory comments it's it's great working with you it has been over the years and we look forward to to doing that into the future so on the idea of Head Start being a comprehensive high quality national program it would be wonderful in my mind if the services and the programming that we deliver could be offered to all families not those who are determined to be income eligible and those that currently qualify for the program under those income eligibility guidelines certainly are the neediest of our needy families but as you can imagine and as you've alluded to there are many families out in our communities now who could certainly use our services and there are some that are just barely over that breakpoint that should be in our program that we're unable to serve because they're not income qualified including sometimes some of our staff you know we're hoping that the services that we deliver that begin when we have a pregnant mother and stay with that family until the time the child enters kindergarten really could be expanded so that we could we could offer that to more you know kind of raise the bar I can speak from my own experience here in Brattleboro that we have classrooms of course of all head start early head start as well so infants and toddlers of children who have a great kneel deal of stress and trauma and they're all in one classroom and it has sort of a cyclone effect and as we begin to look at partnering with other programs with families of other economic you know they have the families are not they're not eligible for our program but certainly they're in a public in a you know private program and we blend those children we're seeing better outcomes for our interesting yeah tedious children and so our ask here is that we could bump that bar up ultimately I'd like to see it removed but that we could begin to raise the bar on the income eligibility requirements well you know I actually do in general favor universality you know there's certain things that are very essential in a society and when they're all shared it's beneficial to all of us so I think that's a very worthwhile goal I mean that's supposedly how it is with elementary and secondary education right so right with pre-k and you know that integration of people is helpful for all of us and starting to understand each other so you know that's a big goal but I think a worthy goal but we could really seriously as Deb is saying really look at our income eligibility and raise it to a minimum of 200% versus 100% that it's at now it's an anti-poor system we know it's an antiquated bar the bar of poverty is not figured at today's rates we know that but really looking at 200 to 300% income eligibility would allow us as we know we've been fortunate during this pandemic to see many people get increases and in compensation which is great but someone who went from $12 an hour to $15 an hour may not be eligible for our programs anymore but they're the same family doing the same job dealing with the same stressors we need to really look at that sooner versus later and at least raise the bar from 200 to 300% income eligibility Ryan I I'm sorry sorry that the I was just going to say you know we we see other federal programs that it seems like typical is 200% of poverty and we're still at 100% of poverty which is just a quite low bar I mean there are a lot of people that are 125% of poverty and really need our service and I know that and you see it and and then where you've got that cutoff it's so painful for those families that are just on the wrong side of the cliff and they need those services desperately so yeah thank you for that advocacy well we're fortunate in Vermont that we have a higher than federal minimum wage here we know that Massachusetts you know many states are going to $15 an hour we're trying to get to $15 an hour but it would be great to use SNAP as an example for our eligibility families and make them automatically eligible so I followed up on that port that point with Deb but I'm going to let Paul finish up our third point here and we just really wanted to make that point very clear so thanks Paul thank you sure thank you and thank you again congressman for all you do for Vermont and for the nation really but the last piece we wanted to touch on which we have referenced here in this conversation is this big picture around the early care and education system in America and I'm going to contrast this momentarily with the first point that was making around the workforce specifically within Head Start where I think we could make enormous strides without legislation by working with ACF and the Office of Head Start and again we would look to you and our congressional delegation for that leadership in making those sorts of changes within the world of Head Start and the workforce for Head Start but the bigger picture is around what you referenced this need for universal publicly funded birth to five services throughout the nation and when I think about it and you mentioned this you know many other industrialized nations first world nations take care of this population from birth to five I don't need to impress upon you this is the most critical age group this is where we're going to get the biggest return on investment is by serving children birth to five and Deb is a big advocate for going to prenatal you know starting before kids are born and I think a lot of the societal problems that we face today I'm just looking at the COVID pandemic right you know resistance to vaccines to masking the this huge campaign of misinformation that people seem to be susceptible to in many different venues there are so many societal problems that we encounter as a result of not having a universal publicly funded birth to five system in this country this will require legislation right this is this is where this is the tougher lift I think but we need to get there as a nation I think we need to get there sooner than later and I think the return on investment ultimately you know for folks who want to see it economically we will be a more globally competitive nation we will be a more highly educated nation we will be a less racist nation a more equitable nation it all begins with this investment in birth to five it is long overdue I've often said to folks can you imagine if if K through 12 was not publicly funded can you imagine right if it was just the wild west of like you got to go find a private provider for your fifth grade child you know if that was our system in America it would be a disaster we have this we have the same kind of disaster but we have failed to fund the absolutely most critical years of the child's development and then we have all these societal problems and we wonder where they came from right so we need to start having this conversation as a nation and we look to you and our delegation for this leadership you're on mute my friend thank I said thank you very much for that I totally agree I mean that's a that's a great analogy you know go find your five-year-old a provider of fifth year fifth grade education oh my god yeah no it's a mate that's great right so what can I say I love being with you all it's tremendous well we are really thankful that you will continue to serve us and represent us and hear us so thank you so much I don't know how much more time you have to give to us but we could continue this conversation I'm just thoughtful about your schedule yeah no I think I have to go now but I think Brooke is going to stay on I will I will stay on Congress and Walsh just need to leave but thank you all for for meeting with him and Peter yeah thank you guys and by the way call me Peter Brooke let's not get too formal with these folks here all right and we do have you know a week of the young child coming up in April we do encourage people to come and visit our centers we hope by then we'll be a little bit more open to the public maybe but we're always happy to do outdoor visits too so stay well Peter let's look into that yeah I'd like to do that and those are always great visits yeah yeah so stay well and we really appreciate your time and I appreciate your time and your work thank you and hang in hang in bye bye bye bye bye Peter okay great so um I see that we also have Nikhil is that how you pronounce your name yes hi Nikhil from Senator Sanders office also joining us to continue this conversation so um so thank you very much for spending time with us today so it was really nice to hear from Congressman Walsh that he agrees with a lot of the platform pieces that we're here to talk about and if we want to kind of dig into them a little bit we can dig into them a little bit more with both of you or if you have things you would like to share with us as far as the build back better you know where that is at right now and how we can support and advocate for its passage which we all agree would make a big big difference to Vermont you know Vermont has made up of 600,000 neighbors right we all eventually run into each other or see each other here or there or anywhere and at the same time we are all trying hard to do the very best we can and um you know we know we need that federal support that federal support is key and very important to the work that we do and so so great Brooke or Nikhil would you like to share any of your input sure yeah I can give a little bit of update on our end and happy to also answer any questions and go into anything you'd like just a quick introduction my name is Nikhil Goyal senior policy advisor on education children for Senator Sanders some of you may have been in touch with our former outreach representative Katerina over the years and since left the office but I've been helping as well as Beth Stern so you can feel free to reach out to either of us for Senator Sanders I I've been a lot a lot of my work has been in the field of public education actually went to Goddard College for undergrad a number of years ago and I've done a lot of work in the progressive education space over the years and have also taught in the NYU prison education program as well and so I think probably just to give a little bit of an update on Build Back Better and what we were working on so you're aware of some of our advocacy on the hill you know the senator put out a $6 trillion reconciliation framework back in June and and we would argue that that would be perhaps the most transformative piece of legislation since the New Deal or the Great Society and you know that was encompassed a lot of key priorities and I know folks across the country have been advocating for for many years and unfortunately you know $6 trillion did not have the support of the full Democratic caucus you know roughly 40 senators were behind that and so that figure was negotiated down to $3.5 trillion but we still did not have 50 votes for that bill we had two remaining senators, Senator Sinema and Senator Manchin who did not support $3.5 trillion and so that $3.5 was negotiated down even further to $1.75 and as you sure you saw Senator Manchin as indicated he does not support the current version of Build Back Better and so it's not dead yet it's still you know it's still alive in some form we're still fighting for it we should have some better sense of what that looks like in the coming weeks but it's you know we are still very committed to seeing the major provisions of this bill enacted and I don't need to explain it to all of you but you know that this would be transformative for for children for families for communities across Vermont and the rest of the country but I you know I represented Welch and talked a little bit about some of the aspects of it but you know the areas that I've been focusing on first and foremost have been around early child care and pre-k as well as some of the early childhood provisions as well as helping out on the child tax credit rollout and the structure of it but I would say that you know the challenge that we faced when during negotiations is that we had to try to fit this these two massive programs child care and pre-k within a limited budget allocation and so we originally had them both running for a 10-year permanent basis in our 3.5 trillion plan but then had to cut it down to six years in our 1.75 trillion dollar plan because of center mansions and center sentiment demands now there is some talk around running all these programs or some of the programs at a permanent basis that is still yet to be seen I know center mansion has indicated some of that that he'd like to see permanent programs and and fortunately he you know we haven't seen too many concerns around child care and pre-k and so we're hopeful that those will be something that will end up in a final version but you know we'll have to certainly see on that the good thing is that West Virginia has a very robust pre-k program it has it reaches almost every eligible four-year-old and almost and trying to increase the number of three-year-olds and so I think that's part of the motivation that he has of why he's been supportive of that program and Congressman Welch had also mentioned the the head start wage compensation in the bill and so there's a roughly 2.5 billion dollars that we've been pushing for from fiscal year 22 to fiscal year 27 that would increase the wages of head start workers and educators and so it is our you know goal that that remains in our in the legislation and hopefully can increase in the future as well and the other aspect in terms of head start is that it's not so much with Vermont but it states that don't opt in to the childcare slash pre-k programs there is some money to expand head start in in certain communities as well and so that is something that you know we are certainly committed to the challenge is because of the limited allocation as much as we would like to do it in every state we have to focus on the states that aren't going to get any of the benefits of the two programs in the first place and so the other challenge is around the state opt in because as you can imagine a lot of states are not going to participate in this program and you know the wonderful thing about head start is the direct federal to local I think that to me is a really amazing approach because it actually ensures that children are not left children families are not left out due to the winds of leadership at the state level every every child eligible child can potentially participate with the resources so so those are those are just a couple of the issues that we've been working on and I you know I've spoken with a number of folks about the limited cost of living increased over the past year I know that's been a major concern and and something that we are closely tracking for the upcoming fiscal year and so please keep us in the loop on how that develops because I you know I know those are with rising inflation that can really eat into into costs and wages as well but I you know I think our philosophy is always is the idea of a cradle to grave agenda how do we address and provide the critical supports for families children seniors and communities from all the way from pre-birth to end of life and so that is our that is our mission whether it's expanding medicare to include dental vision and hearing or providing childcare to every child in America to me it's a very holistic vision as well so and we you know we are we I certainly I think the senator shares your support your ideas around universality he always you know has been a leader on on universal programs I think they you know not just from a from simply a a human human point of view it's also beneficial on the administrator point of view so you're not to deal with all the paperwork and the and the forms and the eligibility standards I know that can be extremely burdensome and and and hassling to to families and providers so that is something that we are certainly supportive of and I did appreciate the idea that someone mentioned around if snap eligibility can be one of the metrics to get into head start you know interestingly enough we were actually looking at that for child care because the way the unfortunate thing is that there are some very punitive work requirements around the child care program and we were trying to see if we can amend that so that say you receive WIC or you receive SNAP or TANF can you also automatically be eligible for the child care benefit and so I see some transferability of that idea to head start as well so if there's any other ideas on that on that wavelength you know let us know I'd love to learn a little bit more about that so I'll stop there and happy to answer any any any questions or great thoughts so I see Paul Paul wants to get in on this super super quick response and the kill within the head start world in in the statute the head start act as well as in the regulations there is language that provides the authority to the office of head start to interpret eligibility based on receipt of other public assistance the office of head start central office in Washington DC has decided to interpret that clause very narrowly to limit the population that is eligible for head start specifically based on TANF eligibility but we have argued for many years that if a family is eligible for other types of public assistance outside of TANF funded benefits they should absolutely qualify for head start to date I have not seen the office of head start look at that existing language and say there's a mechanism here for expanding eligibility it already exists it just takes the will so you know this would not apply to the rest of you know to programs outside of head start but that mechanism exists within head start today so you're saying currently TANF recipients have that is how head start nationally is operating the program well no TANF eligibility is one of sorry it's one of the metrics one of the metrics right so you can either qualify strictly based on income you can qualify based on foster care status receipt of public assistance which OHS has defined very very narrowly right or homelessness right so those are essentially the four different bases you know upon which families can be eligible but we have argued for years advocated that OHS in DC should look at this public assistance clause and not define it so narrowly in fact years ago in Vermont we had a we had an agreement you know with OHS locally in Boston that if families were eligible for child care subsidy what's what today is the child care financial assistance program in Vermont they would be automatically eligible for head start the Boston regional office of head start for years honored that and then they backtracked on it and said well no that's not the way DC is interpreting it these days so again this exists today you know if our if if you know if if Senator Sanders and our delegation congressman Welch and Leahy you know can can advocate to OHS this could really make a huge difference you know in terms of services for kids and families now I really appreciate that so you know I'm happy to talk with with Brooke and our colleagues about any ideas around that I know we were certainly exploring that for child care this child care program and build back better and so I'm sure there's definitely some opportunity there to to weigh in and I think you know the I'm curious do you know if that if in previous years before TANF if that included AFDC if that was on the books that if that was a metric yeah I couldn't I couldn't tell you that Nikhil I you know I know TANF I think is mentioned specifically but I don't know that I've seen reference to AFDC okay yeah I'm gonna I'm looking for the citation right now just so you'll have it oh yeah yeah I'll put my email in the chat as well so you know feel free you have anything excellent very good thank you for your thoughts and your follow-up on that and really good conversation around eligibility so wonderful Brooke did you have anything else that you wanted to add to the conversation I think Nikhil did a great job that was covered pretty much every base that I wanted to touch on as well and I just wanted to reiterate what our office is really concerned about as well and what Congress and well should mention too is just the universality of universal pre-k and head start and the eligibility as well I think that is huge and that is definitely something that we'll continue to look look at and I I'm sure Nikhil and I will continue this conversation as well and with our offices but no I think I think so one of the points I wanted to make sure that we were great one of the points that I wanted to make sure that we were clear about is that every few years you get this push and pull between Department of Education and HHS about who should be overseeing head start or how head start should be fit into the system you know we feel strongly that under HHS we have good support for the broad comprehensive services that we do we want parity with salaries compensation benefits you know I wanted to make sure that we were you know saying that we wanted to become part of that you know Department of Education system per se to get there but we really need to look at salaries and compensation for our staff there's lots of reasons why aren't people coming to work these days but the number one reason for our staff is that they can find jobs in the public schools they can find jobs lots of other places that are paying them more and they have to consider that when they're deciding to you know go back to work or stay at work so we need to make sure that they are compensated at the professional level that we all know that they are working at so good other points anybody else wanting to make just one quick point just because I know just so you're aware of what we were advocating as well we did try to see if we could get some of the head start performance standards especially around the health screenings and wraparound services and parental and community engagement within the pre-K system and so the issue as you surely know is that the costs of those services and programs is quite extensive and so that was we we were trying to see if that could be applied within Build Back Better but the CBO school I think would be quite too high for our two senators from West Virginia and Arizona so but I you know I just just to say that we are very supportive of those programs and recognize that that those really make a big difference at the early ages excellent well thank you so much for your time today it really makes a difference your advocacy really makes a difference it's really you know continues to be I know we are filled with pride with our representation on the national level and thank you for the work that you do locally to help us get our message across to everybody so we are fingers and toes crossed and excited for Peter to become our next senator I know that so so very good and and thanks for having having me and I I would love to chat with some of you individually and learn a little bit more about your programs as well and so I may reach out or again you have my email as well so yeah please do and then Sherry has all of our contact information and can share it with you too yeah I would reiterate that same sentiment as well I think I've been in touch with most of you but I would love to hear you know revamp those meetings again and hear from what you all have and thank you for having us and thank you for meeting with Representative Welch I know he was really looking forward to this and he likes checking in with with you guys and visiting the Head Start Centers and and just learning more about what you do on the ground level and and kind of what you're doing on a higher level as well great well thank you let's all stay well and we look forward to seeing you again in the near future great thanks