States Have A Role To Play in Helping Kids Access Inclusive Pre-K

by CI Guest | Jul 25, 2024 | Preschool, News, Preschool Landscape

This article written by Aaron Loewenberg at New America and shared with permission highlights how collaboration between school districts and community partners can be improved by states.

A distinctive hallmark of publicly funded early education is the fact that it’s offered in a variety of settings. In order to preserve parental choice and increase capacity, many states have adopted mixed delivery systems in which pre-K is offered not only in public elementary schools but also in community-based settings, such as child care centers and Head Start. There are a variety of reasons why a parent might prefer one of these settings over a school setting, such as closer proximity to their home or place of work, full-day hours that better correspond with a parent’s working schedule, or because it’s where other family members already attend.

But while a mixed delivery system of pre-K has many advantages, it can present significant challenges for students with disabilities when it comes to accessing early childhood special education (ECSE) services, such as those provided by occupational therapists, physical therapists, and speech-language pathologists. A nationwide shortage of special education teachers can make the task even more difficult. Despite guidance from the federal government that emphasizes that the requirements of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) apply to both school and non-school settings, in many districts these services are only provided in school-based settings, forcing families to make difficult decisions.

Families might be forced to choose between staying in a child care center and receiving no services or leaving the program to attend the school-based option that will offer ECSE services. Alternatively, families might be able to stay at their community-based setting but the learning day is disrupted by the need to take a bus in the middle of the day to receive services at the school district site. Neither of these options are optimal, and both go against a child’s right to be served in the “least restrictive environment,” a point recently emphasized in a 2023 federal policy statement. That statement makes clear that, “Families should not have to choose between remaining in their existing early childhood program and receiving early intervention or special education services after children are identified with a disability.” It also emphasizes the benefits of children with special needs learning in inclusive settings alongside typically developing children.

Since both Head Start rules and IDEA make clear that it’s the responsibility of local education agencies to conduct evaluations and deliver special education services, much of the work of delivering these services to young children in community-based settings happens at the local level and under the purview of the school district. And while there are several examples of communities across the country engaged in this work, there are fewer examples of state systems working across sectors to ensure that children are supported in accessing special education services across the mixed delivery system. However, there is an important role for the state to play here. In fact, the recent federal policy statement offers 10 recommendations for state actions to better serve children with disabilities in early childhood programs, ranging from establishing a cross-sector state leadership team to implement a shared vision to raising public awareness about the benefits and importance of inclusion.

Illinois is one state that has been engaged in this work for many years. “We really need to start from the presumption that the family has made a choice about where to enroll their child, and we need to think about how to keep them there and help that student thrive,” says Kayla Goldfarb, policy manager in Illinois policy at Start Early. To meet this goal, the state has established a cross-sector, interagency leadership team focused on increasing inclusive opportunities for young children with disabilities. The team’s work is guided by Indicators of High-Quality Inclusion that address inclusive policies and practices at multiple system levels: state, community, local programs, and the environments where children receive care. “Part of the reason it is so important is because the issue of inclusion for preschoolers is a cross-sector issue since there is no universally accessible pre-K system nationally. So, if we want to address inclusion, we have to not just have our school district and Illinois State Board of Education partners on board; it also has to include community-based providers, including child care and Head Start partners,” says Goldfarb.

The state has partnered with the Early Childhood Technical Assistance Center to provide technical assistance for implementing, sustaining, and scaling-up inclusive pre-K programs. District-based community inclusion teams consisting of community partners, education agencies, and parents meet monthly across the state to build awareness of the importance of early childhood inclusion. In Collinsville, a city located just east of St. Louis, the school district and a Head Start program were able to enter into a collaboration where an itinerant special education teacher from the district travels to the Head Start site to provide services that are embedded in the activities of the day. This arrangement means that children no longer have to take a bus in the middle of the day to the school to receive their services.

Illinois is also using funds from the federal Preschool Development Grant Birth through Five (PDG B-5) program to improve the availability of services in community-based settings. The funds have been used to pilot different service model options for providing special education services in community settings, such as one in which itinerant services are provided within a regional co-op to children who reside out-of-district and are enrolled in community-based organizations. Several community inclusion teams have been awarded funds to receive technical assistance, professional development, and help in implementing the itinerant service model in their communities.

Oregon has also been working to assist local communities in providing inclusive services for children in community-based settings through the work of the state’s Early Childhood Inclusion Initiative. “Oregon didn’t necessarily have a state strategy to move the needle on this, and so now we are getting technical assistance to build a state strategy for advancing inclusion,” says Dana Hepper, Director of Policy & Advocacy at Children’s Institute. Like Illinois, the state is using the Indicators of High-Quality Inclusion to guide work at the state and local levels and has organized cross-sector community inclusion teams that examine barriers to authentic communication between school districts and community-based settings.

In Lincoln County in Western Oregon, a community inclusion team made up of partners from across the early learning community has been using coaching to build staff capacity in three community sites, develop shared professional development, and identify interagency agreements with districts that will help sustain inclusive practices. Other community teams have focused on ensuring that all early education providers, regardless of setting, have access to high-quality training and coaching on practices that target the full inclusion of young children with disabilities.

For her part, Hepper sees a definite benefit to states stepping up to help lead this work around how to best provide services to young children regardless of whether they attend pre-K in an elementary school, Head Start classroom, or child care center. “It feels very inefficient for every community to have to figure these things out on their own. There are some common, proven practices grounded in research and experience that we should be sharing with each other and utilizing,” says Hepper.

Both Oregon and Illinois offer examples of the importance of states helping and funding local communities to do this often difficult, cross-sector work. It will take continued cooperation between local and state governments to ensure that children with disabilities receive the services to which they’re entitled in the setting that works best for their families.

This work is attributed to Aaron Loewenberg, senior policy analyst with the Education Policy program at New America.. The original version can be found here.

2021 Legislative Recap

by Rafael Otto | Jul 7, 2021 | Podcast, Oregon Policy

On this episode of The Early Link Podcast, host Rafael Otto speaks with three guests about the latest legislative session in Oregon. They talk about highs and lows, what passed and did not in the interest of children and families, and what it was like to move through the session virtually.

Guests:

Dana Hepper is the director of policy & advocacy at Children’s Institute, overseeing the organization’s legislative advocacy and community engagement work.

Anthony Castaneda works as the policy manager at Latino Network, a non-profit transforming the lives of Latino children, youth, and families in the Portland metro area.

Amanda Manjarrez brings creative leadership and a deep commitment to social justice to her work as director of public policy and government affairs at Foundations for a Better Oregon.

Summary:

The guests agree that the general mood for early childhood advocates post-session is “hopeful and exhausted!” While there were challenges associated with the pivot to a virtual legislative session, it was largely more accessible to those who could not easily make the commute to Salem. Parents, providers, and community members from around the state were able to successfully advocate for legislation that will support Oregon children and families.

Children's Institute · 2021 Legislative Recap

Transcript

Rafael Otto: This is the Early Link Podcast. I’m Rafael Otto. Thanks for tuning in. You can catch us on the airwaves on 99.1 FM in Portland on Sunday at 4:30 PM or subscribe and listen wherever you find your podcasts.

Today, I’m speaking with three guests about the latest legislative session here in Oregon for 2021. We’ll be talking about highs and lows. What passed, what didn’t and in the interest of keeping it in the interest of children and families. We’ll also talk about what it was like to move through session virtually; hopefully the only time we’ll have to do it that way. I’ll be talking with Amanda Manjarrez from Foundations for a Better Oregon, Anthony Castaneda from Latino Network, and Dana Hepper from Children’s Institute.

Hi everyone. Thanks for joining me today on the podcast.

Anthony Castaneda: Hi there.

Dana Hepper: Thank you.

Amanda Manjarrez: Thank you.

Rafael Otto: First of all, let’s just kind of check in. Is there a sigh of relief now that the session has passed us? And that work is over and we’re just a little bit of a pause. What’s the mood?

Anthony, do you want to start?

Anthony Castaneda: Sure. I think, at least for me, the dust is still settling. I’m beginning to understand what really has happened. What are some of the changes, and what were some of the successes, and what were some of the failures for us.

Rafael Otto: Amanda, Dana, how’re you feeling?

Amanda Manjarrez: I think that captures it pretty well. There’s a lot of dust. I think a lot happened in the final week of the session, even for folks who were tracking it or have been tracking it pretty closely for the last five months. And so I would say in terms of how I’m feeling? Um, hopeful and exhausted.

Rafael Otto: Dana, what do you think?

Dana Hepper: Yeah, I would have to agree there. Exhausted is a great descriptor of what us, and including legislators, are all feeling right now. In fact, the speaker of the house kind of wrapped up the session saying, “Hey, I want you all to take a break in July. Don’t do any work.” So I think that all speaks to how we’re feeling.

We know what bills passed and didn’t pass but we’re still trying to uncover why.

Rafael Otto: I want to talk about some of the specific bills and talk about what those highlights are. But I know it was a strange session for advocates for a lot of reasons, because it was virtual. It just made the work of advocacy, I think, a lot more difficult.

Amanda, do you have thoughts on that? What was it like for you?

Amanda Manjarrez: Yeah. So it was an interesting session for many reasons. As you mentioned, it was all virtual because of the pandemic, but also, 2020 has been a little crazy. And so I think heading into session, while many of us are navigating the pandemic and trying to think about how we can continue to move Oregon forward, there was a lot of banding together to figure out how we could work collectively to advance some of the longstanding and complex educational challenges that we’re facing. So we actually worked closely with the coalition called the Oregon Partners for Education Justice. I think I’ve mentioned that previously in this podcast.

Rafael Otto: Yeah.

Amanda Manjarrez: Yeah. A cross-cultural network of dozens of community organizations, culturally specific groups, education advocates, etc., who are championing racially just policies. It was… I think, on the positive side, more accessible than it’s ever been. I would say I would give the legislative session a mixed bag because in terms of accessibility and inclusivity, we had communities from across Oregon who were actually able to engage in the way that they had never had before.

Folks didn’t have to travel to Salem to testify, especially for our partners out in Eastern Oregon. That’s a long journey. A better online platform emerged, I think by necessity. And to a certain extent, lobbyists and members of the public were actually navigating some of the same online information.

So it did level access in a way for folks who don’t spend their time in Salem. And so I know that many of our partners within the coalition, myself, others, spent countless hours tracking legislation online, meeting with policy makers virtually, wordsmithing, bill submitting, letters, etc. And you could actually see the growing influence of that community engagement, and culturally specific partners being able to show up and share their experience through the process.

That said, in terms of transparency, I do think, to Dana’s point, same old. Decisions are often made behind closed doors, and you know, it’s a little more challenging when you can’t go to a legislator’s office, talk to their staff, have a conversation about what’s going on with some of these budgets.

And oftentimes items are posted without much time for review. So you’ll get documents that, you know, a hundred-plus pages that are posted a few hours before a public hearing begins. And in some cases, especially towards the end, the public hearings go away. So I do think we have a lot of work to do in terms of transparency. But I do hope that there are parts of this virtual session that sustain moving forward, because I do think it made it accessible for folks who hadn’t been part of it in the past.

Rafael Otto: Dana, Anthony, do you have additions to that?

Dana Hepper: This is Dana. I just really agree. I think being able to meet with legislators from home or from work, being able to testify at hearings remotely, was really important for people from all across Oregon, to be able to participate in the process in that way. And I hope we hold on to that more inclusive approach even as the Capitol building reopens to the public. But yeah, Amanda rightly named a really big con, which was, if the only way to contact a legislator is to call them or email them or text them, and they don’t necessarily call you or email you or text you back, you’re just kind of stuck. Whereas when, you know, Amanda, Anthony, I, people who are professional advocates can be in the building, we can usually find someone within a day or so and try to get the answers that we need. Why is the bill being killed or what is the controversy? This time it was just so much harder to get that information, even for us who do this for a living. And that makes it harder for us to communicate that back to the communities across Oregon that we work with.

Please download the full transcript below.

Download Full Transcript

2020 NIEER Report: Federal/State Partnership Needed to Expand High-Quality, Full-Day Preschool

by Ashley Walker | Apr 29, 2021 | What We're Reading, Federal Policy, National Research, News, Oregon Policy, Oregon Research, Policy Trends, Preschool, Preschool Landscape, COVID-19, Equity

As expected, the COVID-19 pandemic set back state preschool enrollment and funding across the country, according to the 2020 edition of The State of Preschool Yearbook by the National Institute for Early Education Research (NIEER) at the Rutgers Graduate School of Education, released earlier this month.

Oregon had achieved an increase in enrollment and inflation-adjusted spending prior to the pandemic, and is poised to continue to make headway on preschool access by funding the Governor’s recommended expansion of Preschool Promise, Oregon Pre-Kindergarten, and the Equity Fund during the 2021 legislative session.

But nationally, the report found that:

Growth in state-funded preschool was slowing before the pandemic.
The pandemic imposed serious setbacks and reversed recent progress.
Uneven progress among states is worsening inequality in children’s access to high-quality preschool.
Most states spend too little per child to support high-quality, full-day pre-K and few reach all their 3- and 4-year-olds.

NIEER says now is the time for a renewed commitment to high-quality preschool for all, beginning with those in the lowest-income families.

“Oregon is one of a small number of states approaching levels of per-child spending adequate to truly support high-quality preschool,” said Steven Barnett, Ph.D., NIEER’s founder and senior co-director.

Dana Hepper, CI’s director of policy and advocacy, adds, “Oregon’s per-child spending reflects the progress we’ve made toward achieving funding parity with K-12 schools — which would mean preschool teachers were paid on the same scale as elementary teachers, and full school-day programs were available to 3- and 4-year-olds.”

Federal/State Partnership Needed Beyond COVID Rescue & Recovery Dollars

Nationwide, enrollment in state-funded preschool increased slightly in 2019-2020, but took a hit in 2020-2021 as many programs closed or only offered virtual learning and parents were hesitant to send children to in-person school during the pandemic.

“For nearly 20 years, annual progress on preschool has been slow and uneven, and at this pace universal pre-K will remain an unfulfilled promise into the next century,” said Barnett. “Beyond federal rescue and recovery dollars for the short-term, we need a new federal/state partnership to accelerate progress toward high-quality pre-K beginning with the most disadvantaged children, many of whom still receive no pre-K at all. This would require that federal and state governments steadily increase spending on pre-K during the next 30 years, expanding programs to reach all 3- and 4-year-olds, beginning with the many children in low-income families who still do not attend pre-K.”

As with last year, the survey reveals bipartisan support for preschool across the country, with both “red” and “blue” states among the nation’s leaders in high-quality preschool. That offers hope that the nation can move ahead to expand access more rapidly in the future.

Coalition Building & Advocacy with Amanda Manjarrez and Dana Hepper

by Rafael Otto | Feb 17, 2021 | Podcast, News, Oregon Policy, Policy Trends, Equity

In this episode of The Early Link Podcast, host Rafael Otto explores the topic of advocacy and the details of two legislative agendas focused on building an inclusive, equitable, and just public education system.

Guests:

Amanda Manjarrez is the public policy & government affairs director at Foundations For A Better Oregon. Previously, Amanda served as director of advocacy at Latino Network, and as advocacy director for the Coalition of Communities of Color.

Dana Hepper is the director of policy & advocacy at Children’s Institute. She oversees the organization’s legislative advocacy and community engagement work, including Oregon’s Early Childhood Coalition.

Coalitions:

Oregon Partners for Education Justice is a cross-cultural network of community-based organizations, culturally specific service providers, and education advocates who are championing a racially just and community-centered public education system for Oregon. The coalition believes in the vision, wisdom, and leadership of impacted communities, and advocates for equitable policies and investments that eliminate disparities and empower historically underserved children. Foundations For A Better Oregon is the coalition’s coordinating member. Read their 2021 Legislative Agenda.

Oregon’s Early Childhood Coalition includes more than 40 state and national organizations that work to advocate for young children and families. The coalition asks legislators to commit to continued improvement in early care, education, and supports for all of Oregon’s young children and families and to center the voices of those most impacted by legislative actions in their decision-making processes. Children’s Institute serves as a coordinating member of the coalition and offers facilitation support. Read their 2021 Legislative Agenda.

Summary:

In this episode, Amanda Manjarrez and Dana Hepper explain the priorities of the coalitions’ respective agendas as well as where they overlap. They also share why racial equity is key to an advocacy agenda, and discuss the need to build on the historic investments established in the 2019 Student Success Act.

Relevant Resources:

The Early Link Podcast’s episode on the 2019 Student Success Act

Children's Institute · Coalition Building & Advocacy with Amanda Manjarrez & Dana Hepper

Transcript

Rafael: [00:00:00] This is the Early Link Podcast. I’m Rafael Otto. Today, we’re exploring the topic of advocacy and the details of two legislative agendas focused on education for kids from birth all the way through high school. I’m talking with Dana Hepper from Children’s Institute. She’s the director of policy and advocacy. And Amanda Manjarrez, who’s the public policy and government affairs director at Foundations for a Better Oregon. Amanda and Dana, welcome to the podcast.

Dana Hepper: [00:00:26] Thank you.

Amanda Manjarrez: [00:00:26] Thank you for having us.

Rafael: [00:00:28] So I know you’re both involved in two coalitions that are, that have been very active in, are active right now in the advocacy space, Oregon Partners for Education Justice, and the, and Oregon’s Early Childhood Coalition. I would love it if you could talk a little bit about these two coalitions, who’s involved, how you work and what your purpose is. Amanda, would you start us off?

Amanda Manjarrez: [00:00:52] Sure. So I work most closely with the Oregon Partners for Education Justice, which is essentially a cross-cultural network of over two dozen community-based organizations, culturally specific service providers and education advocates who are working on efforts to create a more racially just and community-centered public education system for Oregon.

In terms of how we work, I would say the coalition is a BIPOC community-driven space that’s rooted in on the ground experience and expertise. So this really drives the conversations and the design and implementation of the agendas that we advocate for. And our purpose as an organization is to ensure that impacted communities are more involved in the development and implementation of equitable and inclusive education policy that centers kids, families, and those who are directly affected by systemic inequities.

Rafael: [00:01:44] And tell me a little bit about who’s involved in that coalition. What are some of the organizations or people?

Amanda Manjarrez: [00:01:49] Sure. it’s predominantly culturally specific partners. So those include organizations like the Latino Network, Adelante Mujeres, the Native American Youth and Family Center, Kairos PDX, Euvalcree, APANO, among many others. We have folks from across the state who are providing services to families who work in the education space.

We also have education advocates like Foundations for a Better Oregon, the organization I work for, Children’s Institute and other organizations who do more work in the policy sector space.

Rafael: [00:02:24] Okay Dana, can you talk about the Early Childhood Coalition and who’s involved? How has the coalition been functioning? Kind of bring us up to speed.

Dana Hepper: [00:02:34] Yeah of course! The Early Childhood Coalition first formed to advocate for and support early learning investments in the Student Success Act in 2019. But after that session, the coalition decided to center racial equity in developing our shared agenda for the 2021 legislative session. Really recognizing that well, all children are born full of potential, and even young children can experience barriers to opportunity that are driven by racism, classism, and other forms of discrimination. And so we wanted to tackle those issues head on with the development of our legislative agenda. Many of the partners who are on the Oregon Partners for Education Justice also participate in the Early Childhood Coalition. Some that Amanda named, the Latino Network, Adelante Mujeres, and we also have many early learning hubs and other child advocacy organizations. FACT Oregon works with families experiencing disability, the Head Start Association, and Relief Nursery Association, and foundations, as well as others.

So, that’s a summary of who we are.

Rafael: [00:03:49] In thinking about the language that the Early Childhood Coalition uses, I thought this was pretty powerful that children ages zero to five are the most racially, ethnically, and linguistically diverse Oregonians. And they are the group of Oregonians most likely to live in poverty.

And to me, you’re making the case for why a focus on racial equity is so important in the advocacy agenda. Can you say more about why that is and what that means in terms of the coalition’s priorities?

Dana Hepper: [00:04:17] Absolutely. I think early childhood advocacy has often focused primarily on serving low income children and closing income related opportunity gaps. But we know that not all gaps are driven by income. There’s actually an interaction between the impact of racism and the impact of economic disparity that layers.

And if we look at who are Oregon’s children, who live in low income families, children of color, especially Black children, Indigenous children and Latino children are more likely to live in families with lower incomes. And, if we really want early learning strategies to be effective, they need to be designed by and for the families that they’re intended to serve.

So we wanted to make sure as a coalition that we were doing a better job of ensuring the policies and investments that we advocated for weren’t just good for children that are low-income children generally, but that we specifically were thinking about how these policies would impact children who are Black, Indigenous, Latino, children of color and have an impact on those children specifically.

For the full transcript, please download the pdf below.

Download Full Transcript

ECC Policy Agenda Shaped by Lived Experience

by Ashley Walker | Feb 12, 2021 | Child Care, Oregon Policy

Zakkiyya Ibrahim had been running a 5-star rated child care program in her rental home for three years when she received sudden notice last May, from her landlord, that she would need to close her business within fourteen days or receive an eviction notice. Zakkiyya could not shut down her business in two weeks; not only did her own family depend on the income, she also did not want to disrupt child care for the parents who were relying on it so they could work.

Zakkiyya was fortunate. She was able to negotiate an extension with her landlord, and ultimately, she and her husband bought a home and now operate the business in this new location. But many in-home child care providers in Oregon are not able to seamlessly move from renting to owning property.

“It’s challenging, because there are so many write-offs for a child care business,” Zakkiyya says. “Your income looks really low. That makes it hard to buy a property because you won’t qualify for many loans.”

Finding another rental is difficult as well. Not every rental property meets licensing requirements, and when they do, there is no guarantee that a landlord will be willing to rent to a prospective tenant who intends to run a licensed child care business in the home, even if the business owner carries insurance and has no history of injuries, damages, or other issues.

As a child care provider and the owner of Education Explorers, Zakkiyya has been a participant in Oregon’s Early Childhood Coalition (ECC) since last spring, and told her story in meetings and conversations establishing priorities for the 2021 legislative session. These conversations led to the proposal for House Bill 2484, co-sponsored by AFSCME and Children’s Institute, which asserts that fair and reasonable protections for renters are one piece of expanding child care access and opportunities for culturally specific child care settings, helping to meet a critical need in Oregon.

The ECC’s 2021 Legislative Agenda is centered on community-driven policy proposals like this one, and has been guided by the experiences of Black and Indigenous families, families of color, and families and providers historically excluded from policy and budget decisions. This shift toward inclusive policy-making is a crucial step for implementing comprehensive change needed to build an early childhood system which addresses generations of exclusion and discrimination.

According to Dana Hepper, who convenes the ECC as Children’s Institute’s director of policy and advocacy, “Zakkiyya’s contributions to our work this session have been huge. The items on this agenda were truly shaped by her story and her expertise, as well as the expertise of other participants in the ECC who can offer a deep understanding of the kinds of change we need to see in order to create an early childhood system that really works for people.”

Read the ECC's 2021 Policy Agenda

« Older Entries