February Reminders and Links

Dates to Note

Feb. 18-19: New Coach Framework Training

Feb. 28: Teachers finalize the Winter checkpoint in GOLD® Online

March 15: Submit completed 2015-17 Funding Renewal Application

April 23-26: Early Achievers Institute

May 15: Submit updated and signed 2015-16 Service Area Agreements

2015 Legislative Session

The much anticipated Early Start bill was presented in both the Senate and House. Senate Bill 5452 was heard on January 26 by the Senate Committee on Early Learning & K-12 Education and its companion, House Bill 1491, was heard on January 28 by the House Early Learning and Human Services Committee. This bill impacts Early Achievers, ECEAP and Working Connections Child Care. Highlights related to ECEAP:

• Requires ECEAP staff with access to children to participate in the Portable Background Check.
• ECEAP contractors must maintain a full-day option effective July 1, 2018.
• DEL must collect data to determine the demand for full-day programming and report to the Legislature by January 1, 2016.
• By December 2015, DEL must create a pathway for family child care providers to administer ECEAP.
• DEL must implement a single set of health and safety standards for licensed child care and ECEAP by July 1, 2016.

Funding Renewal Application – Due March 15, 2015

The 2015-17 Funding Renewal Application is now posted on the website. For those new to ECEAP, the Funding Renewal Application is your PLAN for how you will provide ECEAP in the next biennium.  Some suggestions for developing your plan:

• Keep the ECEAP contract and the ECEAP Performance Standards by your side as you do your final editing of your Application.
• With staff, reflect on this year and what worked well and what you would do differently in the next two years.
• Include community partners and Parent Policy Council in developing your plan.
• Review your current ECEAP contract so you are up-to-date with ECEAP requirements before starting to write the Application.

Preschool Operational Work Group (POWG)

This lively work group met on Friday January 23 and had a busy day together. They learned about Opening the World of Learning (OWL), Building Blocks, Incredible Years and Promoting Alternative Thinking Strategies (PATHS). These four research-based curricula could be used in the layered approach (blending more than one content specific curriculum to cover all domains of development). Contractors may choose this option in addition to the comprehensive research-based curricula (Creative Curriculum and High Scope). The group also had an opportunity to discuss the results of the contractor/grantee and family support staff Family Support Survey. The group divided into the two subgroups and worked on refining the implementation plans for research-based curricula and differentiated family support.

The dates, locations and registration for the remaining meetings POWG meetings are listed below. Please be sure to register for each meeting to ensure we have accurate counts for space and food:

• February 20, 8:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.

Location: St. Luke's Community Health Education Center, 3333 Squalicum Parkway, Bellingham WA 98225

Register:  Register here by February 2 and indicate any special dietary needs.

• March 24, 8:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.

Location: Educational Service District 112, 2500 NE 65th Avenue Vancouver, WA 98661

Register:  Register here by March 6 and indicate any special dietary needs.

• May 8, 8:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.

Location: NEWESD 101, 4202 South Regal Street Spokane WA 99223

Register:  Register here by April 24 and indicate any special dietary needs.

Welcome Justin Chan

We are happy to introduce our new ECEAP Program Coordinator, Justin Chan. Justin comes to ECEAP with a strong public policy and cultural competency background. He has both government and private sector experience having worked at the Washington State Commission on Asian Pacific American Affairs, with the Seattle City Council and at the Northwest Mountain Minority Supplier Development Council. Justin has a passion for reducing poverty and supporting minority populations and is eager to increase his knowledge of early learning.  He tells us he thrives in a fast-paced environment, so we think he will feel right at home at DEL ECEAP!  Please join us in welcoming Justin to the ECEAP team.

Contractors with Full School Day Sites

FULL SCHOOL DAY SITES ONLY can include parent teacher conference hours as part of their instructional time. This change supports flexibility for planning time and professional development opportunities. This change does not apply to Part Day or Extended Day models.

Early Achievers Preschool Coaching

All ECEAP contractors must provide, or have access to, a practice-based coach trained in the Early Achievers Coach Framework.  As Early Achievers preschool coaches get trained in the coach framework, staff from DEL ECEAP, Head Start Region X, the Head Start Collaboration office, the University of Washington Childcare Quality and Early Learning (CQEL) and Child Care Aware are working to carefully align expectations and practices across the state. Early Achievers coach training continues to occur monthly through CQEL. The February and March training dates are listed in the training opportunities section.  The Haring Center internships (see January Reminders and Links) have begun and have proven to be an engaging experience.  If the Early Achievers preschool coaches in your program would like to participate in this opportunity, contact the assigned Pre-K Specialist.

ELMS Updates

Enrollment Maintenance: For those of you who started a new class in January at a site where classes also started in the fall, your ELMS Enrollment Maintenance report is no longer accurate for the sites that had a new class. These will remain inaccurate through the 2014-15 school year. Please contact elms@del.wa.gov if you’d like up-to-date enrollment maintenance data.

A new version of ELMS was released on January 29.  It has 34 fixes, including:

• A new report on developmental screenings. You can see each child’s status, similar to the Health Status by Child report.
• You can now enter a future end date for an IEP. Previously, ELMS blocked future dates.

On February 5 ELMS will have the following fixes:

• The Health Status by Child report will be accurate for medical and dental coverage.
• Access to waiting lists will be restored for users who lost this.
• Staff search will be corrected.
• Children’s Home Society, Neighborhood House, and the Suquamish Tribe will be able to proceed with Early Achievers registrations. MERIT will know that their ECEAP & Head Start sites are linked.

Teaching Strategies GOLD® Update

Teaching Strategies staff met with DEL staff to continue to improve the ELMS to GOLD® data feed.

New children were added from ELMS to GOLD® the week of 1/15/15.

• IMPORTANT: You must enter a child's actual start date in ELMS, before they can be uploaded into GOLD®.

DEL will let you know as soon as we know the regular upload schedule.

Do these in ELMS, not in GOLD®:

• Name changes for sites, classes, teachers and children.
• Birthdate or other corrections.
• IEPs and IEP dates. If you previously put an IEP in GOLD® only, it is being removed from GOLD® and it is now necessary to add it to ELMS.

If you use the Child Plus bridge to GOLD®, all site, class, teacher, and child names in Child Plus must exactly match ELMS.

If it is necessary to add a site, class, teacher, or child to GOLD® before the uploads fully resume, please make sure the names, birthdates and any other selections are exactly as in ELMS. If data is manually entered into GOLD® that does not exactly match ELMS, GOLD® will create duplicates. For example, if a child has a middle initial in ELMS and not in GOLD®, GOLD® will create a duplicate record. If names entered into GOLD® exactly match ELMS, they will be synchronized once the ELMS to GOLD® data feed resumes.

Teaching Strategies GOLD® - Observations

Reflecting on current observations of children allows teachers and administrators to identify trends and opportunities to adapt practices and to plan individualized curriculum experiences.  Teachers and administrators can view reports in the Documentation tab.

• View Documentation displays observations entered for each child.   
• Documentation by Objective/Dimension shows the number of observations entered for a class.
• Documentation Report shows the number of observations entered by program, site, class, teacher and children.

Making Data Work for Us

As ECEAP contractors, you collect data from many different sources. How can you use that data to inform program decisions and practices? First, start with a few well-defined questions. Defined questions will focus what data you collect, how you collect it and how you analyze it. For example, outcomes data may show some classrooms at the same site are achieving higher scores than others. Data that could help explain the differences may include:

• Attendance
• Parent education
• Staff qualifications
• Number of adults in the classroom
• Classroom model
• Children on IEP’s
• CLASS© and ECERS© scores
• Early Achievers rating

The analysis of the data will inform your program decisions and practices.

“The goal is to transform data into information, and information into insight.” - Carly Fiorina

Starting Strong Institute – Call for Presenters! Aug. 3-5, 2015

Capital Region ESD 113, OSPI, DEL, Thrive-by-Five and other partners are hosting the three-day conference at the Greater Tacoma Convention Center on Aug. 3-5, 2015.

Goals of the Starting Strong P-3 Institute:

• Increase connections between Early Learning and K-12 professionals;
• Apply theory to practice within a P-3 framework;
• Present information about Washington's Early Learning priorities, initiatives, and promising practices.

You are invited to submit a proposal to present at the 2015 conference. To submit a proposal or for additional information, email: http://startingstrong.net/presenters.html. The deadline to submit is February 15, 2015.

New Immunization forms

The new Certificate of Exemption (COE) is available on the Department of Health (DOH) website.  The new COE can be used for any new exemption requests.  Here are the main changes to the COE:

• The religious membership exemption, which allows a parent to sign the form without a provider signature, has been moved to the second page.  The religious membership exemption was added by legislators in 2011 when the exemption law changed, with the intent that it be used only if a parent or guardian has a religious belief that does not believe in medical treatment by a healthcare provider. 
• Two separate sections for parents and for healthcare providers to fill out.
• Providers should fill out the exemption to a specific disease/vaccine.  We want to capture detailed information about specific exemptions to certain diseases.

Training Opportunities

New Coach Framework Training

• Feb. 18-19; 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
• Location: CQEL Office, 5001 25th Ave. NE Suite 201E., Seattle, 98105

Registration: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/febcoach2015

Pre-K CLASS Observation and Reliability Training

• Feb. 23-24, 9:00 am - 5:00 pm
• Location: The Northcutt Landing Conference Room A, 5001 25th Ave NE, Seattle, 98105

Registration Link: https://www.regonline.com/builder/site/?eventid=1661992

Registration Deadline: Monday, Feb. 2, 5:00 pm

General & Special Education Conference

• March 4, 5 & 6
• Location: Grand Hyatt Downtown Seattle

For more details and to register: http://rehabseminars.org

New Coach Framework Training

• March 18-19
• Location: TBD

12th Annual National Training Institute of Effective Practices: Addressing Challenging Behavior

• April 21-24, 2015
• Location:  St. Petersburg, Florida

NTI’s format is designed to provide an in-depth learning experience built around the Pyramid Model.  Experts from around the country will present workshops offering practical, ready-to-use information on social and emotional development.   Learn more about the Institute.  Register now.

Early Achievers Institute

• April 23-26, Wenatchee Convention Center

2015 National Early Childhood Inclusion Institute

• May 12 – 14; Chapel Hill, North Carolina

This year's Inclusion Institute features Ann and Kate Turnbull, a federal panel of early childhood experts, workshops on mindfulness, and dozens more sessions... [more]

Opal School Summer Symposium - Extending Our Image of Children: Connecting Literacy, Creativity and Sustainability

• June 18–20; Portland, Oregon

This year’s theme examines the ways in which literacy and the arts build upon each other. Guest speaker will be Ann Pelo, author of The Goodness of Rain, Rethinking Early Childhood Education and The Language of Art. For more information go to www.portlandcm.org

Resources

Current Research

Unstable Child Care Can Affect Children by Age

Disruptions in child care negatively affect children’s social development as early as age 4, but some types of instability appear to have no negative impact on children... [more]

Many Key U.S. States Lack Early Development Plans for Dual Language Learners

Very few states demand early language assessments in early education programs, according to a new webinar by the Center on Enhancing Early Learning Outcomes and the National Institute for Early Education Research, titled "Young Immigrants and Dual Language Learners: Participation in Pre-K & Gaps at Kindergarten Entry."

Common Core State Standards and early childhood

A report by Defending the Early Years and the Alliance for Children explores the issue of whether Kindergarten is too early for some children to learn to read, and discusses the importance of experiential, play-based learning in early childhood as a foundation for literacy.

Child Development

Value of self-initiated play

Early childhood experts reflect on how children learn to make sense of the world.  The brief articles in the booklet Wisdom of Play, explains how children’s intellectual, emotional and social potential are realized through self-initiated play experiences.

January Head Start Disabilities Services Newsletter

This newsletter focuses on adapting activities so all children can participate.

http://hsicc.cmail1.com/t/ViewEmail/j/73EA29780B5E1C22/9E79C7DF5B2C282773767151F2435ACA

Study Finds Reading to Children of All Ages Grooms Them to Read More on Their Own

Cue the hand-wringing about digital distraction: Fewer children are reading books frequently for fun, according to a new report released Thursday by Scholastic, the children’s book publisher.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/08/us/study-finds-reading-to-children-of-all-ages-grooms-them-to-read-more-on-their-own.html?_r=1

Family Engagement

The Best Practices in Family and Community Engagement Video Series

This series is designed to support each program's efforts toward systemic and integrated engagement. Rooted in the Office of Head Start Parent, Family, and Community Engagement Framework, the videos highlight examples of innovative approaches to engagement that foster strong relationships with families and lead to positive outcomes for children and families.

http://eclkc.ohs.acf.hhs.gov/hslc/tta-system/family/video-series.html

 Health

Preventing and Managing the Flu

The December issue of the Office of Head Start Health Services newsletter focuses on preventing and managing the flu.  

http://eclkc.ohs.acf.hhs.gov/hslc/tta-system/health/docs/health-services-newsletter-201412.pdf

Healthier School Day: Tools for Schools

Healthier School Day: Tools for Schools offers topic-specific policy and resource materials to assist schools in meeting the new nutrition standards. Refer to the latest regulations, find free nutrition education curricula, or get ideas for adding tasty, kid-friendly foods to enhance your school meals program.  Read more here.