 Thank you and welcome. We are here, the House Education and the House Human Services Committees, to hear the report done by EDC. And we are very interested in hearing your help decide. So for the record, could you tell us your name? Hi. Thank you for having me back. My name is Clara Irwin and I work for Education Development Center as a research scientist. We led the Act 11 pre-kindergarten study that was conducted last year. And I'm here to present on the final report that was submitted in July of 2019. So thank you again for having me. So just briefly to go over the agenda. I'll briefly go over the study background and the overview of the study. I know that many of you are very familiar but I want to make sure that we're on the same page and make no assumptions. And then we'll spend a bulk of the time talking about the key findings, as well as some of the undesirable outcomes and possible solutions that we identified as part of the report. Please do jump in at any time questions unless you prefer to wait. How are we going to hold the questions? So write them down. We have quite a bit to go through and I want to make sure that we get the testimony first. Sounds great. So just a really brief study background as you all know Act 166 passed in 2014 and was fully implemented in the 2016-17 school year. And as of the last near state of pre-k report back in 2019, we had about 76% of four-year-olds in Vermont attending pre-k and 62% of three-year-olds. So that is quite high for the nation, one at the top. So as we know pre-k is provided in multiple settings including public schools, private centers, family, child care homes and head start. And caregivers or parents may choose from any pre-qualified pre-k program in the state with some limitations obviously. And regardless of the setting type, pre-k programs must meet and maintain specific quality standards. So Act 11 established a pre-k study to evaluate the current universal pre-k system in Vermont and how it could be more effective and efficient. So the contract was awarded in October of 2018. We presented an interim report that had been submitted in March of 2019. And then the final report was submitted in July of 2018. So the key areas that were of interest to and were dictated by Act 11 to be covered in the evaluation were whether the current delivery and funding models are working effectively to provide pre-k education services and if not the issues with the current models and recommendations to enhance the quality and effectiveness of these models. Health Vermont families are making early care and education arrangements for their children under six including what factors may constrain parental choices. How well the pre-k system is operating to provide pre-k education to all eligible Vermont children and how to provide equitable access to pre-k education for children from economically deprived backgrounds in particular. How to identify ways that the pre-k education system may create undesirable outcomes for pre-k students, their parents or guardians or providers of pre-k education services or child care services and steps to mitigate them. Finally, how to simplify regulatory oversight and administration of pre-k education. So a quick overview of the study. We did what's considered a mixed methods study. So that's where we use a mix of qualitative and quantitative data and analysis methods. So for our qualitative data analysis, we first conducted 13 semi-structured interviews with a convenient sample of state level stakeholders. So that included legislators, high level staff from the agency of education and services, building bright futures, University of Vermont, the Vermont School Board's Association and the Vermont Superintendent's Association. Semi-structured interviews just to be clear include a consistent set of questions that are asked to all interviewees but throughout the interview you may, based on something someone says, you may go off script. Those interviews were conducted, they were transcribed, they were systematically coded and analyzed and then we summarized the findings. We also conducted 28 semi-structured interviews with a representative, a randomly selected representative sample of pre-k programs across the state. A detailed description of the sampling methodology is in the final report on pages 8 to 10. So we wanted to make sure we had a representative sample that represented all of the counties, that represented private and public programs equally, that represented 3, 4 and 5 star programs and also included some family child care. It's a quite detailed description of how we did that sampling so I wasn't going to review it now but please do feel free to take a look at that. And then as we presented on in April we did a detailed systematic literature review that was part of the interim report and it's in the final report but it's towards the end. So for a quantitative analysis we did a survey of families who had children who were attending the 28 randomly selected programs. Family surveys are traditionally very difficult to do and so what we did was we had representatives from those 28 programs administer the survey that we developed in collaboration with AOE and AHS to their families. They had the option of doing it online or a paper and pencil version. The majority of the parents did choose to do the online. We received 107 survey responses, 99 of those responses across 21 of those programs. So that was a pretty good representation. The sample size is not huge, that's one of the limitations of the study and in general limitations of using parent surveys. It's not an easy thing to do. We also did secondary data analysis of pre-kindergarten and kindergarten data that we received from the Agency of Education and this was for the 2017-18 school year. We conducted descriptive analysis, so means standard deviations, frequencies were appropriate, logistic regression, and hierarchical linear modeling. That's another type of correlational regression analysis where you're able to account for clustering of kids within souls. So it makes your outcomes more reliable. So the family surveys, and I left the table numbers not to confuse folks in the presentation but I left them the same as the table numbers within the report so that you could easily go back and reference them. They might look slightly different, different coloring, it looks nicer in the blue on here. So we can see that this is the percent of survey respondents with children enrolled in each program type so this is for the family surveys. So we can see that we have representatives across both the public and private, Head Start and Family Child Care actually seem to reflect similar to the full sample and then we did have a representative, we had families who responded across all three, four, and five stars. In terms of their demographic characteristics, parents or families, I'm using that interchangeably, I know that that's not always the case but here I am using them interchangeably, that we did have representation across all income levels as we kind of bucketed them, the zero to 45,000, 45 to 90 and 90 plus. We do see that we have quite an educated sample which is not necessarily a large surprise. They might have a larger preponderance to respond to surveys. So 32% with a graduate or professional degree I think would be a little higher than you might expect to see in the population. But we did see that 78% had no full time caregiver in the household and I think that's fairly close to what we know to be the case in terms of Vermont families and two parents in the workforce. So in terms of the student data from the Agency of Education for the 17-18 school year it just shows you the breakdown of the child characteristics for the analysis sample. You'll see some two-year-olds in there and you see that we say five plus years so of course there are a handful of six-year-olds that sneak in there are a handful of two-year-olds that sneak in. When we say they're two, three, or four that's as of September 1, 2017. So we made that cut-off date. You'll see that we have some more boys and girls. The race ethnicity mirrors pretty much what we see in Vermont. Eligibility for free or reduced-place lunch. We have about 68, 69% who are not eligible and 32% who are and then about 14% who are eligible for special education services or have an IEP. So I was going to pause for questions there but would you prefer I keep going? Just a clarifying question looks to those but it's not too totally into the content. So we'll start with the key findings related to the delivery system or the current mixed delivery system. So interview data suggests that public and private programs are generally working together effectively to share information and resources to support pre-pay education while strong, cross-set and collaborative relationships appear to be common. They are not universal. Systems to promote relationships between public and private programs seem to vary by region and are stronger in some locations than in others. Several programs called for greater efforts to learn from and systematically scale up some of the local innovations that have led to strong public-private partnerships. Some positives from the interviews include, and you can see them listed here, joint professional development. So there are some places where there's joint professional development which is wonderful. Sharing student data, coordinating resources for students with special needs. There is an initiative called the same-page initiative, another one, the unqualified partnership agreements, and then targeted student supports. In those three, I think we have more information in that section in case you're curious about what those actually mean. And then in some places there are regional pre-pay coordinators. Some challenges that were cited included concerns from private providers about what will happen to their program when public schools start offering more than 10 hours per week of pre-pay at no additional cost. There was cross-sector criticism and mistrust that does exist in places, including among those prefer that public pre-pay funds be available to public programs only. And there was concern expressed by some over the quality in partner programs. And then again, just as a reminder, these are from the interviews with the program, the Statewide program. Qualitative findings from program interviews suggest that public pre-pay programs have a marked advantage in hiring AOE early childhood and early childhood special education licensed pre-pay teachers. Both public and private programs perceived that public programs tend to drop higher quality teachers than do private programs due to their ability to offer substantially higher salaries, benefits, and working conditions. In contrast, private programs struggle to attract, excuse me, AOE licensed educators. This finding aligns with predictions from early childhood education researchers who have warned that over time such disparities in wages and environments might result in a concentration of the highest quality pre-pay classrooms in public schools. To be clear, we did not evaluate the quality of the pre-school classrooms between the private and the public. These are concerns that were raised in the research literature and also by the interviewees. Many pre-pay programs emphasize the importance of aligning teacher qualifications with the financial resources and compensation available in each setting. These participants often express strong agreement with the idea of maintaining high standards for pre-pay teachers, but also believe the realities of the labor market and available wages need to be considered when setting qualifications for pre-pay teachers. And so you can just see on the screen one of the quotes that we pulled out in the report. Part of the problem is that while we're expecting teachers to be licensed, the pay scale is not commensurate with those expectations like it is in the public schools. And that came from a private, excuse me, pre-pay interviewee. So in the 2017-18 school year, the majority of children were enrolled in five-star programs and over 90% of children were enrolled in four or five-star programs. This suggests that the majority of children enrolled in publicly funded pre-pay are enrolled in the highest quality programs, as rated by Vermont's Quality Rating System, the STAR System. In addition, 83% approximately are enrolled within their supervisory union. And do you want to note that last year we also came and presented on the Regional Educational Laboratory Northeast in Islands. That's a mouthful. The study that we did, that was very similar to this study in terms of the quantitative analysis we did. It was for the 16-17 school year. These results and most of the quantitative results we present actually really mirror the results we found there. So in science, that's a good thing, right? We're seeing replication in terms of having confidence in what we're finding. So our key findings related to funding and contracting. Interview data suggests that the current system of local contracting has increased administrative demands for pre-pay programs and their staff. The lack of universal processes and paperwork forms contributes to this burden, especially for private programs. In response to the inefficiencies created by districts assorted paperwork requirements, many programs, both public and private, recommended Vermont develop and implement universal invoicing forms, systems for tracking attendance, and payment scales. So again, we just pulled out a quote. But there's no universal invoice that's used. The other thing with invoicing is that the public schools are all on different time schedules. So some of them will do four times a year. Some of them will do three times a year. If it were more universal, I think it would be easier for everybody to understand, and it wouldn't be a different method for a different school district like it is with me. Despite programs' request for greater consistency in invoicing and contracting across districts, interviewees express mixed opinions about the possibility of moving to state-level contracting. While many acknowledge that it would likely be less time consuming for programs if the state-managed contracting, some programs are concerned about the state's capacity to provide timely, personalized support. Interviewees suggested that any shift to state-level contracting should be accompanied by agency-level points of contact who could dedicate sufficient time to communicating with programs, checking paperwork submissions for accuracy, and providing prompt response to inquiries. Analysis of interview data also indicated that some providers perceive a sense of competition for pre-K students and the funds that accompany their enrollment. Some public programs conveyed the sense that pre-K tuition payments amounted to giving the district's money away to other non-district programs. While this may not accurately reflect the way the funding formula works, it is a perception held by some. Of course, we want to be clear that interviewees may or may not have a full understanding of how the funding formula works, but these are their perceptions that they're feeling. So, quote here, in terms of the funding, in terms of if the funding went statewide, I think our partners would suffer because when there's a problem, they wouldn't have a direct line to fix it. We also give them preventative technical support and make sure that we're double-checking their work. We use that as our lens to make sure that our children who have attendance issues starting in pre-K go through the process and get support. So we could kind of lose that lens. So I think it would be, as much as it's a lot of work, it benefits the children and the partners to have the local billing. So that's a public pre-K interviewee. So key findings for equity. Programs identified limited transportation resources and registration requirements as possible barriers to pre-K access. Some also predicted that absent and increased in licensed teachers who seek work with private centers and family child care homes. Some private programs may not be able to offer universal pre-K, thereby reducing enrollment capacity. Some additional concerns brought up by the program interviewees include working with parents. Working parents can't transport children from program to program. So if you have a part-day program, it's harder for working parents to get them to that part-day program and then to child care. That then allows them to work the rest of the day. Low-income families may have unreliable access to transportation, so it may be difficult for them to get children to their pre-K setting. Regulations of bus companies, so for some bus companies are age restrictions. They won't actually allow pre-K children on the bus. Complex registration process requiring substantial documentation. So what was brought up is this might pose an extra burden on homeless families or other families who have trouble coming up with documentation in terms of their residency and so forth. Online registration and limited internet availability. So I imagine in some places there is online registration for pre-K and some families may not have adequate access to internet. However, our quantitative analyses have shown that some of our high-needs children do have access to high-quality pre-K through the system now. So children with individualized education programs, so special education children, and those eligible for free or reduced-price lunch, do enroll in high-quality programs and public school programs at higher rates than their counterparts. This suggests that vulnerable children or high-needs children have access to high-quality pre-K through the current system of publicly funded pre-K in Vermont. So just to note here, there were 6,775 children in the sample and there were 963 on an individual special education children and 2,131 who are eligible for free or reduced-price lunch. However, interviewees still share concerns about equitable access to universal pre-K for students with special needs. So this was in the interviews. Well, Act 166 was designed to offer parents flexibility in choosing from among any pre-qualified program in the state. Parents of children with special needs who want to ensure their child receives individualized education program support may be limited to their local districts program. I do want to note that when we get to the parent survey results, there is a slide that talks about the parent perceptions, at least the parents who took the survey. And whether or not they've had limited their kids, their special needs children are limited in this regard. So this was for the interviewees. So a couple of quotes. We had children from different districts who were utilizing our Act 166 program but they couldn't get the services that they needed unless the parent could transport them because they were out of district. In that case, I don't see it as universal. My program's children have access to, for example, an early childhood special educator and they have access to speech and language pathologists and all of that. The private programs don't have these abilities. So of course these are two different flips of the coin depending on the different interviewee and where they sit in the system. The majority of kindergartners in the 1718 school year enrolled in publicly funded pre-K in the 1617 school year. So 74%. So this is looking at the kindergarten data. This suggests that Vermont's pre-K system is providing early education access to most of its population of young children through Act 166. It also mirrors the statistics I gave you earlier from the near report, which is that national report on pre-K every year. Kindergarten children with individualized education programs, so special education kindergartners, were more likely to have enrolled in publicly funded pre-K a year before kindergarten than those without. This suggests that special education children have good access to publicly funded pre-K. I know it's a little difficult to see up there but when you see an asterisk that means that that's a statistically significant difference. Kindergarten children identified as English learners were less likely to have been enrolled in publicly funded pre-K a year prior to kindergarten. This suggests that English learners may not have access to pre-K at similar rates as their peers, or that outreach to families of English learners could be increased to increase their pre-K enrollment rates. So again, this is also statistically significant. It's just in the opposite direction. So logistic regressions, just to clarify, were done to get the epistatistical significance, and that gives you an idea of the likelihood. Difference in likelihood. eligible for free or reduced price lunch had on average fewer pre-qualified pre-K programs within the geographic boundaries of their supervisory union. This suggests that having access to pre-K programs outside of their supervisory union may increase equity for these children. So you can see that... I put it in the bubble there. So they have an average of 8.8 programs within their supervisory union compared to an average of 10.2 programs within the supervisory union for children without free or reduced price lunch. Children attending three-star programs also had on average fewer pre-K programs within their supervisory union. This suggests that children may be enrolling in lower-quality programs when higher-quality programs are not close to their homes. So you can see they have an average of 8.4. I will also point out that I didn't highlight it in red, but children who attended public programs had on average fewer programs within their supervisory union at 7.8 compared to those who enrolled in private programs, which is 11.4 on average. That might be due to, if you have more choice within your district, you may make different decisions about where you send your children. While most children were enrolled within the geographic boundaries of the supervisory union, as we noted, about 83 percent, children with individualized education programs and those eligible for free or reduced lunch were more likely to do so. So you can see here around 92 percent of those with special education services and 91 percent of those receiving free or reduced lunch. This suggests that these children may or may not be able to take advantage of the portability of Act 166 to the same degree as their peers. One note about free or reduced price lunch data is that free kindergarten, it's not as reliable as the data once we get to the K-12. Fewer families may be completing the free or reduced price lunch eligibility forms, especially those who might be in private programs, for example. So that's just always a caveat to keep in mind when we're thinking about that data. So the key findings related to regulatory oversight and administration. The vast majority of public school programs have found it redundant and inefficient to ensure that their pre-K programs comply with two sets of regulations, those required by the public school system and the state's child care licensing regulations. Regulatory oversight might be simplified by developing a separate set of regulations that would apply only to public pre-K programs and by streamlining reporting requirements. Public interviewees reported more challenges with the dual regulations than private programs did. Some particular sticking points included, again, we already said more challenges, repetition of tasks. So, for example, providing proof of fire drills, contradictory regulations, the duplication of background checks, issues with public pre-K substitutes. And then there was one individual who indicated she's the only one in the building that she can't leave the classroom to do other things that she might need to do throughout the day. Public administrators' knowledge of child development division regulations and a lack of control over facilities and procedures in public settings. So within the school, you might have a limited ability within that particular building to change any regulations that might be set by the school district. Some public pre-K providers expressed a need for more robust monitoring and accountability systems, these programs seemed surprised by the lack of on-the-ground accountability and recommended the state increase the rigor of oversight by incorporating site visits to pre-qualified programs and requiring documentation of alignment between the pre-K curriculum and Vermont's early learning standards. I do want to make sure I mention that since we've done these interviews, the state has been developing a monitoring system as you may be aware of and is currently implementing that. And if you have questions related to that, you can direct them to the agency of education, folks who are in the room. But the quote that we pulled out here, the tricky piece is when we have the partnership agreement and it says, for example, you need to do such and such, no one is really going in and telling them. And someone who is not really a supervisor of the partner programs, it's hard for me to do that, even though we have this contract. There needs to be a monitoring system where if they don't do it, that's coming from someone other than me as a person that does the partnership agreement. And that came from a public pre-K interview. In general, program suggestions regarding joint versus single agency administration were mixed, although several public programs favored single agency administration through the agency of education. Among private programs, some felt it was important to retain the different perspectives and strengths that the agency brings to Act 166 implementation. Others believed the goal of simplification could be best achieved through a single agency oversight with several suggesting AHS as the lead agency. So about half of the interviewed private programs knew about the joint administration, half did not. Most who didn't know assumed that AOE was actually the sole administrator. Among the state-level interviewees, many but not all supported the idea of administering Act 166 through a single agency. Private pre-K programs, among them no consensus really regarding whether it would be preferable to continue a joint administration or a single shift, excuse me, to a single agency. And public pre-K programs were not unanimous in the recommendations. However, many did suggest that AOE should be the agency to oversee. Private programs that suggested administering Act 166 under one agency felt that AHS was best suited for the role. These programs pointed out that AHS brings valuable experience with early childhood education environments and with the family's role in supporting child outcomes. A quote that I have here, AHS is more capable and conversant and informed about how important it is to provide support to the entire family along with educating the child in order to promote the best possible outcomes for that child. Public programs offered several reasons for preparing AOE oversight. Some interviewees pointed out that AOE understands how public schools run, that is in quotation marks, and would thus avoid implementing pre-K in a way that conflicted with existing public school systems. One public pre-K program interviewee reasoned that if the goal of universal pre-K is to prepare students for kindergarten entry, then it makes sense to house pre-K in the same agency responsible for kindergarten. Another one hoped that administering pre-K under AOE would help to professionalize the field of early childhood education by systematically connecting pre-K with K-12. A smaller number of public pre-K programs were less confident about shifting pre-K administration solely to AOE. One interviewee questioned whether either agency's staffing capacity would be sufficient to administer pre-K alone. A couple of programs also expressed concern that without AHS involvement, universal pre-K could lack emphasis on social development and developmentally appropriate practices. Some public programs suggested that Vermont Consider Divide Act 166 oversight by setting would be AOE responsible for public programs and AHS responsible for private programs. Interviewees with this viewpoint believed it would be more efficient for each agency to focus on implementing pre-K in the settings with which it is most familiar. In particular, public programs thought that redundancy in background checks and other regulations would be limited under AOE oversight. I know that was a lot to chew on, but I know that it was important to cover, so thank you for bearing with me on that one. So the key findings related to parent feedback and choice. So this was from the parent surveys. So this first bullet here points you to the handout that I think I put at everyone's place. It is, for those of you who have the report, it's literally just a printout from Figure 1 on page 25, but I didn't want to make everyone feel like they couldn't see by putting it up there. For those of you that are there, there are handouts over there to take a look. So from the surveys it's clear that parents consider many factors when choosing a pre-K program for their child. The factors that parents rated as most important were program safety, followed by having a warm and nurturing environment, teacher education or qualifications, the curriculum, the program philosophy, and cost. 12 out of the 18 factors were rated on average as being moderately important, very important, or extremely important. And you can see in the figure all of the factors that were available to be rated. Parents also wrote in additional considerations, not included in the survey, such as provision of food or a nutrition program, provision of safe outdoor time, provision of enrichment activities, for example, gardening, music and arts, and being located in the local elementary school where siblings attend and the child will later attend. The factor that was rated on average as being the least important was provision of transportation. This is likely not highly considered as a distinguishing factor as parents chose a program because few programs provide this service, it might mean that transportation is not as important as people think, but it could also mean that it's just not a factor that people have access to. So it's not going to be a factor in your decision making process if no one's giving you transportation. So there's a caveat there. Only 7% of parents reported that their child rode a school bus to and from their pre-K program. So the vast majority, of parents reported that their child was currently attending a program that was their top choice. And on average, parents rated the process of finding publicly funded pre-K program as easy. For the few parents whose children were not attending their top choice, they reported that the preferred options had better teacher qualifications, curriculum or program philosophy, but explained that they chose their current program because of lower cost, closer distance to home and more opportunities for socialization. However, because only three parents reported their children were not attending their top choice, they might not be representative. We did want to include those even though they might not be representative because we found that it is potentially something that other parents would have done. Based on the literature, there is some evidence to suggest that factors such as proximity to the home are a large weight in terms of where families choose child care. No parents indicated that their child's placement at their current pre-K program was a barrier to receiving special education services. Furthermore, children eligible for special education services did not travel significantly farther to their pre-K program compared to ineligible children. 29% of parents reported that their child was eligible for special education services, which as you could see from the data, that's actually quite a larger percentage than in the ALE data that we received. About 14% were eligible. Among these eligible children, 62% were receiving special education services at their current pre-K program and 39% were not. For eligible children not receiving services, parents were asked to explain why. The majority indicated that their child did not need special education services at this time. Again, no parents indicated that their child's placement at their current pre-K program was a barrier to receiving special education services. And among the respondents, exactly half of the children eligible for special ed were in public programs and half were in private. When asked what they would do if publicly funded pre-K were not available, about 40 parents reported that this would not affect the early education arrangements excuse me. Another third would send their child to a different program or for fewer hours. And another third would not send their child to an early education or child care program at all. This alternative of not sending a child to any early education program was significantly more common for households with a full-time caregiver, so 50% of those households indicated that they wouldn't send their child to care, so they have at least one caregiver who's in the home. And for low and mid-income families so 48% and 41% respectively. So the graph that's up here is by income, so you can see not the bottom or the other, but right above that I would not have sent my child to an early education and care program. The low, almost 50% mid, about 40% and the high income probably about 15% said that they wouldn't have sent their children to an early care program at all. This suggests that for some children, access to Vermont's publicly funded pre-K is the only exposure. They have to high quality early learning environments prior to kindergarten entry and more importantly they may go without an early education without Act 166. A handful of parents wrote in other scenarios, so 7% of the sample, including that they would have made sacrifices to their careers in order to stay home, potentially not have been able to find an affordable program or relied on family for child care needs or have home schooled. Parents responses to what they would have done without publicly funded pre-K very notably based on factors. It's just another thing to note. Okay, I promise we're getting there. Overall parents reported that they had very positive feelings about Vermont's publicly funded universal pre-K system and that they were very satisfied with the quality of education that their children were receiving, so we can see here that 81% reported very positive feelings about universal pre-K and only 2% said that they had somewhat negative or very negative so that's going to be around two people, this is around another people survey. 91% reported that they were very satisfied with the quality of education and again only 2% were somewhat dissatisfied or very dissatisfied. Would you like me to pause here or jump right in to the undesirable outcomes? Let's jump right in. Okay, so in terms of the mixed delivery system many of these are just reiterating kind of what we've gone through but just to kind of post the book on them. Other level of compensation for pre-K teachers may be attracting the highest quality teachers to public school settings hindering private programs from hiring teachers of equally high quality. Those are, that's a potential challenge based on the interviews that we conducted. Another challenge, opportunities for private programs to collaborate, receive cross sector support or participate in joint professional development varies by region. Another solution to that is to provide state level professional development on priority topics. Funding and contracting, a challenge the current system of local contracting has increased administrative demands for pre-K programs and their staff. So two possible solutions one, develop and require or incentivize public districts to use universal systems and forms for pre-K contracting. You could also transfer responsibility for pre-K invoicing to the state transporting children to and from pre-K may be a barrier to participation for some parents, especially in a 10 hour a week program. Possible solutions require, incentivize, encourage programs to consolidate their pre-K hours into a smaller number of days and then also bus transportation. Another challenge parents with children of special needs may be limited in their ability to choose from any pre-qualified program in the state without risking their ability to receive special education services. Regulatory oversight and administration one of the challenges, public school programs in particular find it burdensome and inefficient to comply with two sets of health and safety standards with childcare licensing regulations and existing public school standards. A couple of possible solutions develop a separate set of health and safety regulations that would apply to pre-K programs. Also you can streamline recording and documentation requirements for public schools. Another challenge related to regulatory oversight and administration, current monitoring systems may not be sufficiently robust to ensure accountability and provide programs with timely feedback and guidance. We have these two possible solutions. Again, I'm just going to say that this date has since implemented a monitoring system that I do believe is the best way to prevent sports. I'll tell you our potential solutions increase the frequency of site visit observations and opportunities for programs to receive feedback about their programs and clarify the expectations for the role, if any, of public programs in monitoring their program. The parent feedback, there were some suggestions that we had received as part of the survey. 86% think that funding for universal pre-K should be increased. Full day or after school would be great for working parents. There's a challenge to drop off and pick up for a two-hour day as we've mentioned before. Increase funding could support transportation that might mitigate some of the challenges in terms of picking up and dropping off for the shorter day. Increasing pay and benefits for teachers, particularly private providers. More access for low income and rural families. So there are pockets of the state where there aren't as many pre-qualified programs as you might imagine. Center-based programs should not be allowed to increase prices for pre-K students. So that was something that was brought up by a parent survey. And better communication from school districts. So these are parents saying that they would like to increase communication from the school districts. Thank you. Thank you. We're going to hear from the agency of education. We're going to be hearing from Building Right Futures that we're going to be hearing from Department of Children and Families. Are there questions right now? This or do we want to just keep going? It is just in. Do you think you can wait? Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. But if you could stay. Oh yeah, I'm not going to start. I wouldn't miss that. Okay. Dr. Boucher. It seems to be a bit of a miscommunication because our understanding is that we are here to answer questions. I don't have a formal presentation today. But I certainly can say a few words about some updates and some things that might be of interest. Certainly is of interest to us. We'll probably be of interest to the joint committees. Maybe in terms of monitoring what we help with. Yes. And I will speak to that in just a sec. So I first wanted to express our appreciation and gratitude for the General Assembly for commissioning this study because I think it's very informative of using data to actually inform how we want to move forward with the policy and it's the kind of work we're all I think trying to achieve and we certainly are at the agency of education. So I wanted to congratulate us and thank us all for this work. One of the pieces I wanted to update the committee on is over the summer there was the federal government has a variety of different technical assistance entities for state agencies of education and one of these there are several different types. One of these is called a comprehensive education center which free I mean we all pay for those taxpayers but it's free actually to our state free our agency. They will actually do work similar to what we're talking about today on behalf of the agency to figure out some key questions of interest. And so one of the things that we're actually planning is to use the comprehensive center for Northeast to do some geospatial mapping for us to really look at what are the regional variabilities and these were hinted at of course in the first step of our results here but we really want to dig deeply. So one of the key questions I think we have is whether some of the variability some of the patterns that we're seeing are they're showing up in pre-K but they're really indicative of some underlying regional poverty some underlying regional infrastructure challenges that we know we see in other areas. Some of these findings are replicated in other areas in our education system as well in terms of public private access in terms of conversations and once that work continues and gets we actually have a proposal we can actually show you we'd be really happy to come back in and talk about that and we'd appreciate feedback from the General Assembly on that. We have mentioned today monitoring a few times and certainly it's a critical piece of the report. Monitoring is really critical for this endeavor it's really important that we get it right and what I'm going to recommend is that we come back and actually have a whole session on monitoring if that's amenable where we would both present that. As an update though clear is correct in that we actually as primarily as part of our PDG our preschool development grant which is not funded through this mechanism it's actually a federal grant that we've had we did launch a pretty robust monitoring system for those particular programs that applied and got PDG funding and I'm sure what we come back and we'll talk more in depth about that it would make sense that we're using some of those principles when we're talking about our fuller statewide monitoring system that PDG monitoring has the full gamut of what we call desk auditing which is sort of the first layer of monitoring you really pull records you kind of look at is there something there for us to that looks a little wonky or that we're concerned about all the way up to an onsite visit and so we are collectively very steeped in monitoring I also think as we all know there are some structural aspects of the entire program that we're also getting discussed a lot last year and it certainly makes sense for us to perhaps make some progress with what it's actually going to look like in terms of the overall structure and overall oversight before we finalize what our monitoring program is because it could look pretty different depending on who's actually retaining oversight we have no additional policy recommendations at this time you may recall that jointly AHS and AOE with the General Assembly worked on a bill S10 last year that was our best attempt to try to address some of the challenges and so we don't have additional policy recommendations at that point that was our best effort at that time but we're very happy to continue working on this and get move forward all together great and it would be great to get you into really respond to the recommendations that I think might be a little beyond what we can do right now in a short period of time yes and also we are looking at I've pulled out S10 we're going to start, we will start a committee bill in house education starting with some of the language in there not taking all of it but we'll start there and then build and then send it to you Deputy Commissioner I have a question just as you talk about the we who is we is it we staff within the agency of education or is the we since some of these are private providers who also are under the jurisdiction of AHS so as you're talking about monitoring are you collaborating and discussing I mean so who is the we sure sure so well and I think the the context that we're all in is we can see actually from the folks who are actually in the field that they have different views and ideas of what the purpose of pre-K is so I think I don't want to give the I think the we is the collective we I think we are actually sharing everything we do with CDD and likewise they're sharing everything we do so I just want to clarify that the we is the collective we certainly the PDG is something that we all wrote together and so the monitoring that has resulted as a result of that is a collaborative endeavor S10 would change that because it would actually you could you could call it tighten up or shore up it would really create two different systems of pre-K services chopper services but I think that you know we're following the law and so we're working very closely together despite the fact that as we know there are some really different conceptions of the purpose of pre-K I think we're all similarly and passionately committed to equity in pre-K services whether they're in the private sector or whether they're public we're all concerned about transportation issues I'm really curious about why that's not showing up with parents and I haven't had a chance to talk with Claire about that but I'm curious so I think we're in a good place and again I think we were trying to address those challenges in S10 but we're also you know we're happy to look at some other alternatives just because I'm concrete so while S10 proposes two separate monitoring system it proposes two whole separate systems what I'm hearing you say is that you IEV administration is open to other responses I think so I mean I think if there had been a wealth of appetite for that particular bill last year we would have seen some action on it so that is still our best representation of how to meet the challenges here but yes we're open to other discussions we're open to working with the general assembly if there's not a shared appetite for that among your body I would say that S10 is not what Secretary Gaube and Secretary Holt can put together the years no it's actually from last session so it's what at the time Secretary Gaube and Secretary French we'll just be at starting point chances that we're going to end up there are probably zero which is kind of what we're assuming as well and we'll just end of course later on and then we'll do yes excuse me on page 13 of the report I don't have it in front of me so You don't have to have it in front of me I don't have it in front of me so That's all right The talks about one agency overseeing the administration and it gives the outline of how public and private felt about that My question is, how does the administration feel about that? What conclusion do you draw from that? I think we still stand with our proposal as what's in S10, which is that the administrative oversight, the contracts, the nitty gritty would actually go to the agency of education. And collectively, the R2 agencies agreed on that. Thank you. We will be talking to you again, if yes. There's certainly a lot of questions that we have with these recommendations. Dr. Morgan, Dr. Crossman as well. Dr. Kraft, no. Good morning. Thank you for having me this morning. I'm Dr. Morgan Crossman. I'm the executive director at Building Right Futures. I'm also the mom of a two and a half year old who was just registered for Precac. So just as a reminder to this community, Building Right Futures is Vermont's foundational early childhood public-private partnership. We are mandated by both state and federal legislation to serve as a state advisory council on early childhood as a state of Vermont. Our mission is really to improve the well-being of children and families in Vermont by using evidence to inform policy and bringing the systems together across sectors and within regions to discuss critical challenges and problem solve. The three key components of our role under Act 104, which is Vermont's statute of authorizing BDS role is to convene, monitor, and advise. So what you're gonna hear me talk about today is what we learned from convening at the regional and state level and monitoring the progress of the system of services and my role today to advise the governor and the legislature on what we heard. So we use a collective impact framework to organize our work. We have a state advisory council including 23 governor appointed members as well as large members. We also have 12 regional councils across the state. We host the early childhood action plan and seven online committees and we also host Vermont Insights which is publicly accessible early childhood data. So one of the things I wanna talk to you today about is the However, Monsign Children and Families Report. There are copies over there. I'm also happy to distribute these broadly. One of the key components there was on Universal Creek Kindergarten Education. So we heard statewide and from the Agency of Education we've seen more than 2,000 children increase since 2014 in having access to early childhood education settings. So 8,600 each eligible children were enrolled from 2018 to 2019. And the reason I'm here today is that BDF recognizes the importance of supporting the legislature and the administration in making key decisions on Universal Creek Kindergarten. So we hosted a second set of information gathering sessions to help supplement what you've heard in the Creek Kindergarten Report and bring to you information that we've heard directly from our regions to deepen our understanding on Universal Creek Kindergarten. So the purpose of our information gathering effort was to utilize our statewide regional networks and partnerships to ask those directly impacted by Act 166 to identify one, their perceptions of success, the mechanisms of success, so where and how regions and why are you seeing success in Universal Creek Kindergarten to share best practices and then outline persistent barriers. We've heard a ton of these already. That is not gonna be made to you in what I present. So we also are developing a forthcoming report that will provide any depth information. And what you'll hear right now is this snapshot and an opportunity to hear a little bit more about some of the potential opportunities to scale some of the regional initiatives that you heard before. So we collected stakeholder feedback in two different ways. One was through focus groups and forums within regions. So as Claire mentioned earlier, it's qualitative inquiry. We facilitated meetings within regions with a range of either the participants range from four people to 33 people in each of those forums. We also held an electronic feedback forum. So essentially a survey asking those same exact questions in an online format so people who couldn't attend in person could also provide feedback. In terms of the number of participants here, through our focus groups, there were 199 participants from 26 unique sectors and organizations. And I will scroll quickly here just so you all can see the range of people who participated. So that first box at the top here on the focus groups are the range of people who participated in person. And again, it ranged from four to 33 people. We also had an extensive participation online. So 169 participants in our online forum. So 368 stakeholders total. And I think it's important to note that in the electronic feedback forum, the categories weren't mutually exclusive. So if someone identified as a parent, they may have also been a provider, an educator. We had 113 parents provide feedback online, 24 private pre-K program directors, 22 childcare providers, 20 private pre-K teachers, 16 public pre-K teachers, 14 superintendents and principals and 12 pre-K coordinators. And those are just the highlights of the broader group that you're seeing there. I think it's also important to note that when we analyze these data, similar to any qualitative inquiry, we have a team of professionals who are reviewing all of this data. And the reason you're not seeing a report in front of you today is because we just finished that data collection within the last two weeks. So we are just finalizing our analysis. But the way that we reviewed that data was an eye towards a merging pattern. So what did we consistently hear in that data that would tell us something about these top four categories? So what you're seeing in terms of our results is that we have, not surprisingly based on the questions we asked, statewide successes in the pre-K, statewide mechanisms of success, so the why and how it's working, and then regional variation in those mechanisms and persistent statewide barriers. So in terms of the statewide successes, again, one of the things that we tried to capture that we weren't able to get from the pre-K report was participants lived experience about what this meant for them. What did Act 66 provide them? And what we heard is that there was significant initial investment in this. So it gave financial support to families. It provided additional opportunities for child development and education, enhancing development, learning, and readiness for kindergarten, public and private partnership and networking opportunities, specifically in the areas of coaching, mentoring, professional development. Statewide dedication towards continuous improvement initiatives. A key one that we heard a ton about was diversity in program type and structure. So you hear a lot about mixed delivery as a buzzword here, right? We're really not talking about agency oversight when we're saying mixed delivery. We're talking about the public and private settings in which this is happening for kids. So really, how do we best support children and families in providing access and choice through this mixed delivery structure? We also heard awareness. We've seen a great awareness of the importance of early childhood education starting before age five. We've absolutely seen an increase in pre-K enrollment, less staff turnover, and access to high-quality learning experiences. We're absolutely hearing that we've reached more families, specifically those who wouldn't have had access in the past. Increased collaboration across sectors and programs. And what's interesting here in that finding is it's not just AOE and AHS. We're hearing that people are engaged across headstarts, nutrition, with health. Other sectors are really being engaged around a common topic. So there's increased public conversation around the community needs and spots and access. Two specific quotes that came out in the statewide successes. One is from a provider. So I've seen success in in-home preschool programs, center-based programs, and headstart programs. I think having a variety of structures allows parents to choose a program that best meets the needs of their family and their child's learning style. We also heard from families. Our son has completely blossomed in so many ways since starting pre-K. He's more interactively social. He thrives in structured environments, and these are only a handful of experiences of how our son has immersed himself in this program. We are so proud of him and the amazing teachers who help guide him every day. The second theme, and this is, I think, really important to think about as we are considering making changes and moving forward pre-K, is statewide mechanisms of success. So across every region, what did we collectively hear about what's successful? There were two key things, and they were both very much focused on relationships. The first was having a pre-K coordinator or a liaison. So someone who is specifically tasked with having expertise about Act 166, supporting early childhood educators and professionals. I think it's really important to note that when you say a point person or a pre-K coordinator, we're not talking about that person as a family navigator. This isn't the person whose task was supporting families. It's the person that's supporting the system broadly, the educators, the providers. The other key component here in statewide mechanisms and mechanisms of success is partnerships among public and private entities. So, again, strengthen communication, relationships, partnerships across all levels. I'm only gonna list two quotes here. One is that success is clear when school districts have an Act 166 coordinator who understands and knows the law. Another from the partnerships component is that building strong relationships between partners, providers, pre-K teachers, and the local school district administration is a huge change maker. When the supervisor and you can reach out to share resources, training opportunities, and partner with staff, the benefits to children, increase and trust builds and creates better outcomes. So, Theme 3, and I apologize, we're not scrolling as I'm going here. Theme 3 is on regional innovations and mechanisms of success. So you heard Claire talk a little bit about some of the things they heard, and my role here is to give you a little bit more in-depth information. So when I say regional innovations, we've heard that regionally, there are some unique things that are happening that are supporting the success in U-PK communication, standardized protocols, or relationships that are contributing to their ability to successfully do this. So the first one is the fact that they are formalizing collaborations. They are naming it, and they are making it a part of their everyday practice. So a couple of examples. One is there are consortiums and learning collaboratives. And a quote from Addison, is that we have a consortium in our region designated and designed to streamline the collaboration between and among school districts and private pre-K partners. This structure provides an excellent support mechanism to ensure our private partners have regular communication from the schools. Another example is early learning partnerships. So this example is from Chinden, but it is starting to be piloted elsewhere. And so the ELP, the early learning partnership, is a collaboration between school districts and pre-qualified community preschool programs supported through ACLIN-66 to ensure quality programming, sharing teaching resources, and staying abreast of legislation in order to better prepare preschoolers for kindergarten. So they are having a shared Google Drive where all of their documentation is streamlined. It's in one place. They are holding quarterly meetings with eight school districts and over 80 partnering pre-K programs quarterly. And that is a model that's working well. That is actually being scaled now and piloted in the front row of our denial region as well. So we're seeing these problems multiple leases. In terms of the next area, it's integration and continuous improvement. So I heard in Claire's presentation as well, mention of the same page initiative in Springfield. So again, this program is really building bridges among key partners. It's also really focusing on reliability and assessment and practices in building partnerships as well as piloting mentorship programs. We're also hearing a lot about resource sharing, specifically in Southeast Vermont. So again, the opportunity to share professional development opportunities has been key for these programs. Another key component of mechanisms of success, not surprisingly, is that people are standardizing their protocols within the regions. So they are taking it upon themselves to develop universal common enrollment forms and standardized invoices across the state. But it's happening in pockets differently. So it's not standardized. We're also seeing some innovation. I know the discussion has largely focused on transportation. That's not surprising, right? We know that we have a transportation challenge in the state of Vermont. A key example of what we heard here is that innovations is rather wrong. So they said, we have children take the bus in order to attend a program outside of their town, which better meets their needs. And for part day programs, a bus to local childcare was successful. Another idea was having private childcare and public pre-pay in the same building. And that example was from Chittenden, although we have seen that pop up in many locations. The next section of this is on statewide persistent barriers. And again, Claire covered a lot of these, so I'm not gonna go in depth, but I do want you to see that we are hearing consistency across the state in what we're seeing as some barriers and challenges. The first one is the administration of Universal to be Kindergarten. And there is absolutely variation in the perceptions of agency oversight and partnership. There is no consensus around whether or not it should be single agency, dual agency, and if it is single agency, who it should be. Coming again from the perceptions of key stakeholders in Vermont or within the regions. There's also a perception in the field that there's a lack of communication between our major agencies leading this initiative and how can we have some more consistent stream run communication. One example of a quote there was that the bifurcation of the system between the child development division and the agency of education does impact the overall monitoring operation. I think that the two agencies may have different goals and need to have common shared understanding of the needs of students and families, not just the funding of the programs and the administration. The second area of administration, again, we've heard this today, there's a lack of standardization in the system. We don't have common enrollment forms, it's not standard from that perspective. There's also variation in financial management and pay equity. One of the key things we consistently heard is lack of monitoring and evaluation. I'm so thrilled to see partners in the room say that there's gonna be another session to talk about this. There was a lot of confusion about whether or not there is a formal monitoring evaluation plan on behalf of regional partners. The next area of barriers, persistent barriers statewide, is access for children, as well as the capacity of providers. So we heard today, transportation, which again is not specific to U Pre-K, given our rural state, but transportation is a challenge that we need to address. There's financial barriers for children and families and capacity. So there is absolutely a concern on behalf of providers of being able to maintain their ability and capacity to serve the number of children, the number of slots for kids. And there's a major concern about the availability and the quality of the early childhood workforce of cross-sectors. This is not unique to one or the other. We also heard a ton about equity, right? So what do we know about equitable access for children? And it was really interesting for me to hear in Claire's presentation about what our numbers tell us versus concerns from community. We heard the same concerns from communities. We have a challenge for specific subgroups of the population who are struggling to access U Pre-K. Specifically children with special healthcare needs, those with religious affiliation, and those in poverty. I'm not gonna read all the different quotes there. I will absolutely provide this to you, but that is definitely a common message. We also heard a lot of variability and access based on the timing of the child's third birthday. Again, not surprising. There are very clear regulations for when a child will have access. So for example, a child who was born on September 3rd will not have the same access as a child that was born at the end of August. There was also a conversation about the overall number of hours. So again, currently the law provides access to 10 hours of publicly funded Pre-K for 35 weeks annually. Respondents continually suggested that 10 hours may not be enough and that actually leads to challenges with equity, but there wasn't consensus on a specific number. So how do we land on that number? Recognizing that a lot of the conversation was around full day programming. We also heard so much around awareness and messaging. Families aren't informed about Pre-K. They don't know what they have access to. They don't understand the regulations. We need consistent messaging. A quote here, oh sorry, one of the component of that is there's variability in how the districts interpret this law. So one of the quotes here was we have a very transitory population and I constantly run into families that do not know what's available to them or how to access it. We also heard a ton about the transition. So again, transportation challenges, daily transitions for families, how to get kids to and from programs. That's not surprising to us. So the conclusions for this information gathering effort are not gonna be surprising to this committee, right? There is great intent for the initial model and we need continued investment. So Vermontres are clearly saying we care that families have access to high-quality, early care and education environments. There's statewide recognition of the importance of Pre-K, the mixed delivery model specifically in terms of having both public and private opportunities for families to access to Pre-K is important and now we need to figure out how we go from what's working well within regions and bring it to scale in different ways. We also heard so much about monitoring and evaluation. So there's absolutely a need to implement a robust monitoring and evaluation system to support decision-making. The field broadly needs clarity on how this is being evaluated statewide, including the key measures and outcomes and what are the gaps? What are we missing? What can't be answered right now? We heard a ton about collaboration and this is one of the key points given everything we talked about is really about relationships, right? So how do we invest in collaboration and building capacity to work together? It takes time to collaborate, right? Sitting in this room takes time. How do we invest in the fact that we need our agencies to be able to have the capacity to partner better? We also know we need clarity around messages. So clarity around agency roles, responsibilities, the regulations, but also the vision and the direction for this. And then standardization. So supporting administrative standardization and state-level structures. We also need to focus on access for sub-population. So again, how do we best support families of children with disabilities and special health care needs? Transportation came up again. So how can we review critical regional solutions that we're hearing and potentially scale them? And then then absolutely need to focus on workforce development. So we need to recruit and retain high-quality workforce and provide professional development opportunities and competitive compensation because across the board, our system is struggling in early childhood and this is both public and private professions. And then the final conclusion here is that we need to keep the child at the center of all decision making. Thank you. That's the purpose of us having two committees here together. Fantastic. Copy the answer questions. Also happy to be a resource tree. Thank you. Right now we have two really big reports. We have the NHS here. We've got AOE here. Did you have a presentation or are you here to answer questions? Hi, I'm Ken Schatz, the Commissioner of the Department for Children and Families. I'd like to enable you to ask questions that don't have a specific presentation. I mean, a header really presented a position that is totally consistent with the agency and services and the Department of Children and Families. So glad to enable you to move this along. Thank you. I mean, Universal 3K has had some growing pains. And we have one more from Melissa. That's DCF, right? But they may be a different person. Okay. I have to leave. Melissa, do you have anything that you would like to add, and make sure that we hear as we, before we go into questions? Thank you, Your Honor. Thank you. I'm Melissa Riegel-Garrett with the Child Development Division and our division is couched within the Department for Children and Families. So I'll just sit, but everything the Commissioner Schatz just said. Okay, thank you. Thank you. Committee, I think what will make sense is to have the people who present it to either sit in the front row or all pull your chairs up here so that we then, as questions come up, we can hear you and it can be, do that. So, Representative Coopley and I need to leave. We will, of course, listen to this. And Representative Coopley, you are going to take over. Yes. Thank you so much. So, you might want to come up here. You might want to move here. And you're allowed to phone friends. Phoneing friends, fine. Is it part of 3K learning how to sit in circles? Could someone, oh, that's sorry. Well, a strategy that is used in many 3K settings to get people to pay attention is to raise and lower. And it seems to work with older 3K students. But so I really want to open it up to questions to, for both member, both committees and Topper has one. This question can probably,