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October 4, 2024
Early Learning Services Transfer to DCYF
The new Minnesota Department of Children, Youth, and Families (DCYF) launched on July 1, 2024, under the leadership of Commissioner Tikki Brown. Most of MDE’s Early Learning Services (ELS) division, including ECLDS administrative staff, transferred to DCYF on July 17. Two weeks later, Children and Family Services (CFS) staff from the Department of Human Services (DHS) also transitioned to DCYF. Get more information about program transitions to the new agency on the DCYF website.
New Year of Data Available for Your Exploration
As we enter the new school year, learn more about last school year’s preschoolers, kindergartners, and third graders on the ECLDS website. By browsing ECLDS reports, you can access and view disaggregated data for the 2022-2023 school year, all the way back to the 2013-2014 school year, for a total of ten years of data. ECLDS reports can help you learn about the children and families participating in our state’s public programs, and inform possible strategies to support their participation and development.
ECLDS Kindergarten Reports provide insights into kindergartners current and prior experiences Seventy percent of 2023 kindergartners participated in early care/education programs and/or economic assistance programs leading up to or through their kindergarten year. Explore the Kindergarten Reports to understand how children are accessing programs in Minnesota leading up and during kindergarten.
 Bar chart of 2023 kindergertners participation in early care and/or economic assistance programs.
Visit the Report
Take a closer look at what the data tell you about Minnesota's young children and their families in your district, county, or economic development region. Visit the Kindergarten Reports section and dive into the Kindergarten Summary report. Here, you’ll find a succinct summation of demographic descriptors and program participation for a cohort of kindergartners and their moms. Select the magnifying glass to narrow your view from statewide to your geography of choice. You can also download results from different school years to see how demographics and program participation have changed over time.
Some questions to explore:
- Have home languages spoken in your area changed over the last 10 years?
- Are families in your area relying more or less on economic supports like SNAP and MFIP?
- Have there been notable changes in student disability types present in your school district over the years?
Research Fellow Partnership with Columbia University
ECLDS has long sought more research and analytics on the whole family ecology and utilize its robust parent-child linked data across state agencies. Through a federal grant program, ECLDS has expanded its research capacity by hiring an ECLDS Research Fellow, Mindy Rosengarten, a PhD student attending Teachers College at Columbia University, to focus on a project exploring maternal experiences and outcomes. In her first three months, she has worked closely with ECLDS Research Scientist, John Burczek Dreier, to conduct some exploratory data analysis on ECLDS data, worked to clean up lingering data issues with our IT team, developed a data mart/view to more efficiently collate child program participation, and is working on linking child program experiences with maternal education experiences/outcomes. Mindy will continue her research apprenticeship through December 2024 and will present on her work to the ECLDS community later this year.
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