001All right. This meeting of the board of education for September 30th, 2025 is called to order. This meeting is being streamed live on PBS TV services website. Yay. Hello everyone. Uh welcome to our annual Head Start training. Uh as board members, we have the unique and important responsibility for the governance and oversight of our Head Start program. Uh tonight's training is a chance for us to strengthen our understanding of the program, review our roles and responsibilities, and ensure that we're fulfilling both federal requirements and our commitment to the children and families we serve. Head Start is more than a program. It is an opportunity to provide comprehensive support for our youngest listeners and their families. Dr. Armshaw, would you like to or do you have anything? >> Absolutely. First, I just want to recognize the
002team and look at them in their wonderful early learner t-shirts. >> I failed. I appreciate I appreciate it. >> I also want to thank the team for the preparation and I'm going to turn it over to Dr. Emily Glasco to introduce the team and launch into the training. Thank you. >> Yeah, thank you for having us. Um, I'm going to slightly rebrand and say this is your early learners and head start annual board training and we'll explain more why that's important and you can even see Dana's corrected her name tag here. We've shifted our program a bit over the last several years and it's important context I think for you as the board to understand. So we'll we'll get into that. Before we do though, Dana, why don't we go to the next slide? We'll
003do quick introductions. Again, I'm Emily Glasco. I'm the senior director for preK5 academics, which means I oversee our early learners program, K5 core academics, um K12 intervention, high impact tutoring, summer, and K12 TAG. So you'll hear from me about a lot of things, but I particularly love talking about early learners. This is always a really um fun moment in the year. I'm going to let Dana and a couple of our team members quickly introduce themselves and then we'll dive in. >> Sure. Hi everyone. I'm Dana Styles. I am the director of Early Learners, formerly the director of Just Head Start, but as Emily said, we've done some programmatic shifts in the last couple years. And then a few of my team members have joined tonight just because they're awesome and want to be here. So,
004I will let them introduce themselves and their titles. Um yeah, you want to go first? >> Hi everyone. My name is Terry Merchock and I have the honor of serving the communities of Sak Joa, JC and Mary'sville prek classrooms. >> I'm Brianna Martin and I serve our entire program. I work on all of our enrollment in data. >> Hello everyone. My name is Aaro Garcia and I serve the community of um to class and classroom at Rosa Parks 13 classrooms in the Spanish library. >> Wonderful. So this is just small representation of a very large team and we'll get into some more details about that as we go through the presentation. Um just to give an overview of what we're going to talk about in the next hour. Um we're going to first give an
005overview sort of of our early learners program of our prek program so that you understand where we are today in terms of the landscape and then where head start is situated within that and then we'll move into the required annual Head Start board training and the components of that and it will all sit through the hour. I think we're good with questions as we go. As long as there aren't, you know, too many all at once, we might have to like keep going and reserve them till the end, but we can start with questions as we go. >> So, again, just quick framing. Um, and she uh Chair Wong sort of started this way. Um, as uh because we have a Head Start program situated within a school district, which is not always the case
006with Head Start programs, you as the school board play a really important role. um you are actually the board that oversees our Head Start program within PPS. So federal standards, Head Start standards require oversight for compliance with federal laws and regulations and that means that there are a lot of of approvals you have to do over the course of the year and we'll talk about how those are going to come to you and what you can expect. Um and then we also just want to give a special shout out to Director Sullivan. um she has acted as our early learners board liaison for almost a year now, which just means she's someone who we can touch touch base with more frequently if we need um a board conversation with someone. It used to be um
007director to pass. So um we've passed the torch. >> It's a fun one. >> It's a good one. >> Yeah, you're all welcome to visit though. You don't have to be a leas to visit. Yeah. >> We're going to start with an overview of this program. This is just a little bit about scope and I think this is actually just an unfortunately well-kept secret within PPS. So the more we can talk about it the better. The more that you talk about it when you're out and about the better. Um we have the capacity just in PPS alone to serve 910 3 through 5year-olds. Um in our prek programs um what that looks like scope-wise is that we have 51 prek classrooms at 14 different sites. Some of those are standalone early childhood sites and some
008of those are classrooms embedded within elementary schools. Seven of those are dual language pre-K classrooms. Three of them are culturally specific classrooms. Every classroom has one licensed PAT teacher and one and a half classified PFSPAS, educational assistants in the classroom. And when you kind of broaden that out and also include all of the other folks that support the program, we have about 250 total staff who support our early childhood program, our early learners program within PPS. Um, you can see a little bit more about the program there. These are all free full day classrooms. Um, if you're interested, you can go to our website to learn more. And then an important note that we like to call out is just over the last several years in addition to the classrooms that we ourselves supervise and
009run and staff, we've worked really hard um over the last I don't know decade or so um to also build partnerships with community providers um as in particular Preschool for All has expanded and created more opportunities for small businesses and culturally specific agencies um to open up prek classrooms. What's often true is that they have the capacity to open classrooms but not the facilities. >> And so we have been working to offer facilities where and when we can to providers who either offer something we can't or don't or um or who would do it better than us. So um we have over a dozen you can see of classroom spaces that we as a system um kind of freely um to to partners in the community. >> I have a quick question. Um, so we
010have the capacity to serve 910 students and do we is that how many we're serving or is there >> we'll show you we're going to give you a live enrollment. My first three questions would help. Great. >> There's so much more to come. So we'll get to enrollment and we'll give you a live update on that um a few slides from now. >> So that's just kind of scope. This I'm going to pause here for a second to explain how we got to here. So when I um I used to hold Dana's job, which again was a little bit different job. um I'm the director of early learners in 2019 and um when I came into the job I was charged with trying to figure out how to expand horizontal alignment across all of our
011prek programs because at that time things were sort of siloed and and separate. There was Head Start, there was preschool promise and there were some classrooms that were just classrooms that we had just kind of stood up with title one funding and they were all kind of doing their own thing. And then I was also charged with vertical alignment um because at that time also I would say our pre-k programs were um ran pretty separately from the rest of the system and um there wasn't a lot of alignment in terms of um curriculum and programming and all those things. And so what we've done over the last um six or seven years and um under Dana's leadership for the last couple of years um out of a desire to have more coherence and more alignment
012and also out of financial necessity um we've kind of broken down the walls and completely um braided funding and reorganized our program so that we have one coherent program team which you can see here on this chart that supports all 51 of our prek classrooms regardless of which funding streams um come in on the back end to support and build those classrooms. Um and that's allowed us again to actually cut several million dollars out of the budget, which has been a necessity over the last couple of years, but also get really more streamlined and intentional with how we do wraparound supports for our prek programs because an important element um of prek is that these are not just classrooms. We also in alignment with our grant requirements offer wraparound supports to families. And so what
013you see here um is that we have a program operations team because um we're talking about you know tens of million dollars of grant funding and a lot of operations that need a lot of support. We have a health wellness and inclusion team. So we offer um mental health and wellness and inclusion and health and um nutrition. Um we have our education team um a team of administrators and coaches that support the classroom programs. And then we have a large family and community partnership team that supports enrollment and um family and community engagement and family and community education um family services um partnerships with community all those things. So this is the program team and then if you go to the next slide um how we've reorganized ourselves. Yeah. If um if they weren't braided
014>> would preschool promise and preschool for all also offer all those things. >> Not necessarily. And we'll show you in a little bit there. All of our grants um offer different funding levels and have different requirements. Head Start has the highest funding level and also the the kind of um highest bar for wraparound supports and expectations around that. What we've really tried to do though is take the highest bar in terms of service to families and use our creative rating of funding and programming to make sure that all families in PPS preK whichever slot their child sits in gets that same level of support. Um but but yes, just isolated they would not necessarily look the same. That's where braiding really is kind of the gold standard approach um across the country for how to
015make sure you're stretching your resources in creative ways. Um the other shift we made, we made this shift last year when we re um organized our program team was to organize ourselves into what we call pods. So we have four pods. You heard I think Amparo and Terry talk about the schools and the pods that they support. Um you can see where they are on the map. Um and you can see which sites are in each pod. And then every pod has an early learner administrator assigned to them who oversees and supervises the educators. And each pod team, as you can see, also has an admin assistant, an instructional coach, mental health consultants, family advocates, and floating um educational assistants. Again, this has allowed us to sort of be more creative and resourceful with what
016we have and really let people focus in in these sort of um if you're wondering why we don't currently have any programming on the west side when you look at this map. Um we do have a partnership with Neighborhood House Head Start and right now they are the provider on the west side and we give them some space and they also have some of their own space. Um it doesn't mean we could never do more but that's that's the arrangement right now. >> Is that where I pass? No, I do one more. I'm do one more. I'm gonna pass to Dana. Um, so this gets a little bit into director Sullivan's question, and this is what gets really complicated um to explain and understand, but again, we are now a fully braided program. We receive
017um grant funds from the federal office of Head Start, from the Oregon State Head Start, which is called Oregon PreK or OPK, um from Preschool Promise, which is a state agency and state funding, and from Preschool for All, which is Multma County funding. Um you can see on this slide that each of these funding streams has slightly different eligibility requirements. um it's largely, you can see, organized around um income, but there are lots of other priority populations outlined in each grant. And many of them overlap across all three grants. Um, and so again, what we've tried to do, and you'll see on the enrollment slide a little bit later, how many slots from each of these providers we have, we've braided them across all of our classrooms and sites because that creates then more flexibility
018for us to enroll families at different at different means and from different priority populations at all of our sites. Um, Dana's going to go into more detail. Any questions before I pass to Dana on what we've said so far? Yeah, >> I have a I have a basic question. So the 910, is that just Head Start or is that all three? >> All of these. >> Okay, >> we'll show you a breakdown in just a >> Okay, >> so here's a little bit more about um our prek program by the numbers like getting into specifically the students that we serve and the composition of the kiddos and um speaking giving a little bit more data to the wraparound services and some of the instructional components we have in the program. So, um, of our 910
019students, and this data is pulled from last year, um, but 210 students, um, were students with special needs, so about 25%. Um, I can confirm we are tracking very closely to that this year, and probably a little bit higher. Um, 37% of our students uh, were multilingual learners last year, and that's been pretty consistent, around 40% um, over the last few years. 13 students were um in foster care and um about 13% were experiencing homelessness. Um we've seen that number upticking and we continue to work with our Mckin Devento team um and really focus uh to reach as many of our families that might be experiencing houselessness as possible. >> Can you tell me what a Mckin deto team is? >> Oh, sure. or McKenna Vento is the federal program that supports students experiencing houselessness
020and we work with them to transport kids to school so that they still can have access to education um even if they're housing insecure. >> One sorry question about this is 210 um special needs is there any overlap? So might some of the special needs be experiencing homelessness in houses? So that so this number 25 plus 37 plus 13 >> it does not equal 100. It's it would have been 210 of our whatever our final enrollment number was of last year 800 and something >> some kids who are experiencing multiple of those >> definitely absolutely so the numbers aren't meant to tally 100 but of the total population and then um I wanted to just give a little bit of color to how many screenings and wraparound supports we provide to families. Um so we
021have a family advocate at every single site that we serve. The family advocates role is to support families with wraparound services getting access to the support that they need at home or at school. Um and last year we completed and then they also work really closely uh with our health team to provide um particularly health wraparound services. So last year we completed 870 vision screenings, 637 hearing screenings, uh 844 dental screenings, and we saw dental treatment for our students increase by 15% last year, which is pretty significant, especially if we think about that intersection of health with many other social determinants. And then um we also were able to pro provide through referrals through our family advocate team um 86,000 in utility assistance. And then um we also hosted six OMSI mobile play lab or
022six OMSI play labs, five mobile play labs and were able to provide 46 free memberships to families. Um that's just a little spotlight. It's not it's not uh all the work that we did but just some of the data I wanted to highlight. Um >> can I ask a couple questions about this section? >> Sure. >> Um >> so there's utility assistance or is there any way to connect um participants to housing assistance or rental assistance? Yeah, we are able to do that. We make those referrals too. And so we work really closely with um those assistance teams and then the family advocate will work with the family to get them into housing, stable housing. And then we will Rian and specifically and team will work with um the family to figure out like is
023this still the right placement for you? Do we need to transfer you based on where you're placed in terms of housing? So we have a pretty robust process around that um to provide housing assistance too and we do track families that start in homeless like maybe are experiencing homelessness to start and then get um housing. I just didn't pull that data for this slide. >> Okay, no worries. Um thank you. And then the other question was about vision screenings. Um I attended something at sit in school a couple years ago called vision to learn and it's a mobile uh screening. No, but yeah. >> Anyway, they um I think something like 35% of the school's kids ended up with glasses and they could pick whatever kind of like sparkly pink, you know, bright green. >>
024Yeah. >> And so, um and Governor Brown was there. That was a really big thing. It's like an Oregon company that's doing, >> uh vision screenings for low-inccome kids. So, I didn't know. >> We screening is good. I'm just wondering like what's the next step for these? >> Yeah. So, we work with Elks, which is a partner that Yeah. So, we work with Elks and so um we complete the vision and screening and then again the family advocate team will make a referral and we have ROIs on file so we can help families get the appointments to do the followup and then we track all of that followup to see how many students get glasses as a result of that and then we have time frames on like expectations for completion. So yeah, >> there
025was legislation last session that named that program >> vision to learn. Yeah, it did it made it to Ways and Means but didn't didn't pass. >> Oh, >> because of lack of funding, you know, >> but yeah, it it was a it was kind of a >> it was a program. >> I think they did expand to middle school though because Tubman at least has it this year. >> Oh, I was just wondering. I see that you you had 311 multilingual learners. Do you do you guys do this economics question? I know like a lots of um elementary schools do immersion programs. Do you guys do any immersion programs? >> Yeah. So, we have seven classrooms that are designated as dual language immersion. Um, in those classrooms, we do a 9010 model. So, it's 90%
026in the target language and 10% in English. And we have se six of the seven are Spanish and then one is Vietnamese which we opened last year. Um, yeah. And then just moving down to the last sort of component which is really focused on instruction. Um, we did a curricular adoption for the Hagerty curriculum, which again is speaking to Emily's u like what Emily was speaking to around vertical alignment and it we sort of did year zero last year we were calling it but we had 89% implementation with integrity um and then we're going to continue that funological awareness work this year um and and and digging in even further. And then we also had an initiative last year in partnership with the children's literacy initiative um to do um to host family literacy events
027and we had 159 families attend a literacy event last year. Um and those events are going to continue this year with the expectation that they're being offered multiple times at all of our sites across the year. That's just a snapshot of some of the data. I'm happy to provide any additional data or speak to any of the other areas. Um but for the sake of time, we'll kind of continue us on here. computer stopped working al together of course I don't know where are we hold on you guys I get back to the presentation >> she's about to show the much anticipated enrollment it's coming oh gosh I can't see anything hold on where did it go >> here it is okay we're back okay sorry guys zoom is not my friend today okay so
028Um we and our slots are ultimately funded by enrollment, right? So we we get money per student that we that we support and so each student um is every student is how we kind of get dollars and we are uh working to be fully enrolled, right? This is something that the whole district is working on. Um and we made some really critical changes in the last couple years to be very intentional about enrollment and to meet some of our corrective action plans. Um, and we're seeing there some really great gains from those shifts that we've made. So, our current enrollment, fresh off the press, from Friday, I think, right? Yeah, from Friday. Um, is we are currently 93% enrolled in our preschool classrooms. So, that means we have 842 students of the 910 enrolled. Um,
029and then you can also see what that looks like in terms of the total slots and then the percent enrolled per funding source for so for head start specifically um, we're 91% enrolled for preschool for all 96% enrolled and preschool promos 99% enrolled. And then I also wanted to give a little bit of information in regards to what does that rate of change look like from last school year um, just to see the efficacy of um, the shifts that we've made around enrollment. Um, so overall we're seeing a 21% increase at this point in time of the year compared to where we were last year with enrollment, >> which is outstanding. >> Yeah, that's a >> clinging. Um so some of the uh some of the key shifts that we made this year um we
030we launched it last year but like getting people to kind of get into summer work is really work that starts in January. So this was the first full year um that we had a year round programwide enrollment team. So Rihanna leads a team of three people and their job is to recruit and enroll kids. And so they've worked diligently all summer. um you know it always starts a little slow and then it gets really intense and then it sort of calms back down. Um so that shift has been really instrumental because we have people all year working to enroll families and being present and available to families through the summer. Um we also make continual adjustments on the composition and the locations of our specific slot funding. So we're using our community needs data. We're
031looking at our income data. Um we're looking at heat maps of the city for example and we're thinking like at a given site do we have the right composition of seats here to meet the needs of the families that we're seeing apply. So an example of that would be at a given classroom at Jason Lee for example we want to say well we're seeing about 50% of the families would be eligible for Head Start and the other 50% um would not be but they certainly would qualify for preschool for all. So then we'll say in a in a classroom of 18 kids, nine seats will be for Head Start and nine seats will be for preschool, preschool for all. And then the goal with all of those seats will be filled, right? And then that
032means that we're not leaving families without access and we're also making sure families are getting into the right funding sources which they're eligible for. >> I have a question. >> Yeah. Um, so based on the braiding, the different types of programs, um, does that basically mean that >> kids who have a preschool promise or preschool for all slot, um, are accessing the same level of service that Head Start kids are as far as like um, all of kind of the extras that come with Head Start. >> Yes. And so we've designed that to hold the high the most rigorous standard is sort of universalized in the program. We do have very specific deadlines with Head Start. So we we start with the Head Start kiddo. So we're meeting those performance standard deadlines and then over
033the course of the year we'll fill that out and make sure we get to all students over the course of the year. So the dental screenings is a good example. >> There's 45day and 90day or vision screening etc. There's 45day 90-day deadlines. we'll start with the kids that are required to be to to meet that deadline and then we'll use the rest of the year to to um support the other kiddos and families. Um and that I think has really come out of us trying to be very intentional about um and really listening to parent feedback which is um no parent we don't want to be presenting to families like this isn't something for you. we want to say like this is for you and you have access to these things and it is a
034selling point that we can offer to families and if we're thinking about a competitive marketplace. So it is an an asset in that in that regard too. Um, one note on that on enrollment, choose. We've worked really hard for there to be sort of one door to PPS preK so that families don't have to be thinking about what do I qualify for, what kind of slot, what kind of program, they just apply to PPS >> prek. And then on the back end, we kind of do the work of guiding them to the right slots and the right sites and then making sure they get what they need. So, I would be surprised if a lot of families even know necessarily like what kind of slot they're sitting in. Children definitely wouldn't know. >> Yeah. Yeah.
035That's awesome. So, and then the last piece of that is along those same lines is um we have really made intentional recruitment and partnership efforts to to be ready to receive families versus asking families to seek us out, right? So, the more we're present in the community, the more that we're seeking out partnerships, we're putting our name out there, we're creating one application, we're trying to really take that like leg work off of families and just say, "Here, apply and we'll help you on the back end sort of figure that out." I filled in a lot of phone calls. ran and filled hundreds of phone calls this summer. Um it's, you know, it's confusing for families and we getting into school shouldn't be hard, right? It's you're welcome here. We want you here. How do
036we make this work for you is sort of our our our recruitment mindset? Can >> I ask um where does the parent um policy council fit in for Head Start? >> Yeah, so our parent policy council is still the same. Um, we did adjust our bylaws last year to make sure that we were still maintaining the Head Start performance requirement or Head Start performance requirements and we also added in co-chairs. So, we do have we have requirements in our standards that say a percentage of the families need to be Head Start eligible, but we've added co-chairs and so that way we can have all families in our program participate. Yeah. >> And we thought it was I should say for those of you less familiar with that language, Dana's going to show you a visual
037later about where parent policy council sits in the government. >> Yeah. Um and to that end, we also we thought it might we might run into more issues last year. Like I was sort of expecting us to be like very imbalanced >> and we weren't, which was like a really pleasant surprise. Um I think we were like, "Oh, we'll see how this goes." And then it went really well. And then also families having co-chairs was great because if they missed a meeting, it wasn't the meetings just sort of like flowed much much more easily. >> There was another question. >> I was going to ask a question. Yeah. Um and you might get to it, but I'm just curious if there's like particular classrooms or facilities that are more underenrolled >> or if it's just
038sort of spread out pretty evenly. >> Um yeah, we weren't going to focus necessarily on where we are underenrolled, but we do have certain sites that we've been targeting. Um, it's not necessarily it's sort it's not necessarily um universalized in terms of Oh gosh, what's going on? Can't get back. There we go. Um, it's not necessarily universalized in terms of like a specific pod. It might be a specific site. We have a couple of we have uh like one site in in Southeast where we are still doing recruitment efforts to to increase enrollment. And then um up in North Portland, there's also just quite a bit of like all the sites are very close together. So we're still working um to uh get fully enrolled up there, but every site is at 80%. >> Yes.
039So everyone's at 80%. So we're not seeing like one site at 50 and one at 100. So every site is at a baseline of 80%. >> I have another question. So if a family when a family goes through preschool for all and their admission process, if they're in PPS, >> would that kind of get sent to your team and then you do the figuring as to where they fit into the puzzle? >> Yeah. So we there's a bunch of stuff on the preschool for All website that's like if you're interested in PPS, click here, right? like click here cuz we have a separate enrollment because we are a school district and it just to make things functional for us. We need that. We also really take intentional efforts around classroom placement to balance classrooms. So
040be thoughtful about um gender students with special needs to really create balance and that work has to be done internally. Um, so we work with the preschool for all team to, you know, have all of that sort of documented on the website to direct families and then if they get families that are interested in our classrooms, they get referred over through Rian and her team and then we'll kind of take over the enrollment. Vice versa, if a family comes to us and is like this isn't going to work for us for whatever reason, or they want I don't I whatever reason it's not going to work, then we can do that cross referral. Um, so we're still working through that. Like I think it's an evolving thing as we're all sort of like re like
041refining and revising our enrollment processes but it is it is a partnership that we do have. >> Thank you. >> Keep going. >> Yeah. Yeah. Let's keep going. Okay. So our program priorities for this year I just wanted to highlight um we uh have we sort of anchored in two priorities for this school year. The first priority um in yellow is around language and literacy uh with the focus on intentional language language and literacy instruction to pro to improve our educational outcomes for our priority populations. This is in uh strong coherence with the literacy focus and the district continuous improvement plan. Um and so and also statewide initiatives around early literacy and and really um anchoring us in foundational literacy practices and then also really focused on engaging our families in meaningful literacy um engagements
042for home to support particularly multilingualism. Um our second priority is around um safe and supportive environments. Ultimately, we know that students feeling safe, supported, a strong sense of belonging at school will encourage them to keep coming to school. And um within that, we're really focused on attendance and and engagement in the classroom this particular year. This again is in alignment with the district continuous improvement goal areas of attendance and also based on the data that we were seeing last year as a need. Um we did notice last year that um about 64 64% of our students would have been considered chronically absent um based on Oregon state standards. So we know that that is something that we really need to dig into this year. And we have a bunch of new processes in place to
043follow up with families and to um to dig into the data a little bit more. We're going to have an attendance leadership team alongside our instructional leadership team and our pyramid model leadership team. So, we have lots of things kind of going on, but those are our two priorities for this year. And and really trying to again thread that needle um uh in connection to the broader district priorities. >> That's 10 absences across the year. >> It's this the Oregon standard says that it's 10% of the total enrolled days. >> Okay. For like little kids seems harder to achieve than older kids because of illness, right? >> Yeah. That's the number one reason kids are still sick. >> Like my kids are like absent. They're sick a lot. But also if parents get used to
044one >> Exactly. So yes, building strong habits early >> got sick one time. >> Yeah. >> And it was chicken pots. I mean >> I know for your kids they just >> so just children. >> Okay. So we're going to move us into part two of this uh presentation which is um you think about the umbrella of early learners. We're going to dive deep into Head Start and just go into some of the required board training components um specifically for the Office of Head Start. Um and so when we think about the Office of Head Start, you all play a role as the governing body, right? Head Start doesn't have to exist in the school system. Often they exist in communities where there's a governing board and then there's a parent policy board and together
045those folks um provide the oversight to the program. Um so when we talk about Head Start, we're talking about a school readiness program. And when we think about school readiness, we are thinking about um children are ready for school, families are ready to um support their children in school, and schools are ready for the children. Um so that's a really important component for us. Um and then when we look at the Head Start kind of overall structure, we have this uh it's called a management systems field. But on the dark blue outside, you'll see there's leadership and governance, which sort of wraps around all the components of the program. And then there's 12 areas within the program in the in the aqua circle um that we are required to um support. And so here you'll
046see things like our wraparound services, data evaluation, um fiscal management. I'm just sort of like naming all the things that are in here, but and then some of the services that are also provided by the district. So we don't have a separate HR team. For example, we use the PPS HR team, right? We don't have separate transportation. We use PPS transportation. Um all of our management systems sort of are embedded in PPS. So, as the governing board, you there's some things you explicitly do for us as a program and then also things that are just within your purview as a board to the school district because we use those services as well. In terms of leadership and governance, there's three bodies that are the overlapping vend diagram to provide um program leadership and strategic direction.
047So, the bottom right circle is our management team. That's the team I lead. Um that's the team that my folks are on and that's our early learners department team um particularly our early learners management team. So that includes our administrators, our program managers and then a few other folks that support our broader program leadership. We run the day-to-day operations. We make recommendations of where we want to go strategically with the program. Um we are working really closely with all those PPS departments and so that's sort of our responsibility. Um, in terms of the parent side of the house, it is required that parents have a voice in all of our programmatic decisions. So, we have a parent policy council which has their own leadership team. We meet with them monthly. Um, the meetings are two
048hours a month. So, it's a big commitment for families. And then we do recruitment to get families from across all of our sites. So we have representation and we bring our leadership decisions or our think our best thinking or policies we want to amend and we bring them to policy council and we get parent feedback on them. We get parent input on them and then the parents vote and approve everything that we put forth from there. Um then we engage with you all as our school board and as our governing body. So you all will receive for example like this is uh at the recommendation of the parent policy council to approve because we've gone through those two cycles in advance of things kind of coming to you all. And then as the school board
049um there are some key components for governance that you are um critically important for. The first one is u fiduciary responsibility. Um so you all are the fiduciary leaders across the school district and the same thing applies to Head Start. Um you are also uh work with us around legal oversight. So we work we have legal legal services but you all are also um supporting us in that. And then um the the school board is also intended to provide safeguarding um and balance to both the parent policy committee and the program leadership team. So, it really is meant to be sort of these distinct roles that are creating some checks and balances within the program. I'm not going to read everything on there, but you guys can kind of see all of the components questions
050there. Okay. So, governance roles and responsibilities, just another view of it. Um, as I said, my team sort of manages the day-to-day operations. Um, informs the decision-m that we're going to bring forth to policy council and to you all as the board. The parent policy council is established yearly and they'll offer feedback and advocacy and then um ultimately we will bring um any sort of policies, procedures, strategic direction to you all to provide that fiscal and legal accountability and oversight to us. Um and ultimately compliance and effectiveness is in tandem with you all as the board. Um we are required to do um continuous improvement for Head Start. This is actually a requirement. Um, and we uh we work in five-year cycles. So, we have a five-year grant cycle. You have to reapply for funding
051every year, but the cycle of the grant is 5 years long. Um, so we are in year three this year. Um, so we apply for the grant, we get we start the five-year cycle, and then within that five-year cycle, we have goals and we do continuous improvement around those goals every year. I'm not going to go into all of the components of the continuous improvement cycle, but this does very much align to sort of other district practices that we have. And my job and our job as a leadership team is to report out kind of how we're making progress on those things. So you all will see things like a community assessment or a needs assessment or a self assessment which will be coming soon and those assessments are our own progress monitoring towards our
052goals um that we will report out to you all. Um, additionally, in the continuous improvement process, we also look at our fis at our fiscal components. And so, we have to retool our finances every year to make sure that we're creating um that we're making the changes we need to be continuing like to be sustainable. Um, and so that's also a component of um board engagement as well around budget, budgeting, and those sorts of things. So in terms of modes of communication, um there's three sort of main modes that we communicate with the board. Um the first mode of communication is through our automated Head Start enterprise system. Um this is where autom automated program updates or findings from the Office of Head Start will come through. Um sorry, Chair Wong, you're the person that's
053probably getting all these emails from them. Um, but those those automated, you're good. Obviously, I was like, "Oh, he's on another one." Um, but those automated updates will come through. Chair Wong will receive them. I can't change who has access. It just is what it is. Um, and then Emily as our executive director and then myself and then any other pertinent folks on on my team will receive the automated updates. If it's of something of relevance, I work with Emily to make sure you all are informed and any other key stakeholders. Um the more con the more consistent way of communication will be essentially our quarterly board packets that you all typically put on the consent agenda where I'll send forth like a whole bunch of things to approve information to read pro those reports
054that we're sort of offering out um and in those that will include our director's update policy council minutes enrollment and demographic updates financial updates etc. And then the last one is our supplemental communication. So we will communicate additionally um any health and safety incident reports, upcoming audit information, board requests, etc. And that's also a really key role that director Sullivan plays for us around that supplemental communication. So we have a touch point with the board. >> Just to reiterate, so all of this information will flow through the board office. Yes. And so you you'll definitely receive those updates and there'll be opportunities for further engagement too as we go. But there there it follows our protocol of the way the information flows too. >> And so um just an FYI of what's kind of coming
055down the pipeline preview uh to future communications. Um we will have a program review this year. Uh the office of Head Start requires reviews in year two to four and so we are in year three of our Head Start grant. So we will be having a federal review um at some point this year. We don't know when. Um the review will include both some virtual and in-person components. and it will look at the strengths and needs of the program, our staffing structure, approaches to all of our different domains of the program, our fiscal infrastructure, governance policies, and all of our practices, which includes eligibility, recruitment, selection, etc. Um, board member participation is required. So, a couple of you will be uh supporting us through some of the interview components. So, get ready. >> Get ready.
056>> A couple of you have done this before. It's okay. It was chainless, right? >> Yeah. It's It was It was >> You did a great job. >> Yes. >> So, when we know more, we will share more. um you know, we just know it's coming at some point this year. We've been notified. So, that's something that's coming down the line. And then the last thing is also our future engagement. So, we will continue to share out um about uh program reportings um any policies and procedures. And then long-term really around program sustainability. So, as we know, right, um money is tight. So, how we're navigating that as a program, too. We will continue to to communicate with you all and particularly how that intersects with our enrollment trends um will be something to continue
057to communicate about. >> Yeah. Yeah. We strongly encourage you to come visit us, talk with Rosanne if you're interested. And um I like to think of it as the happiest place in PPS. Need a pickme up. >> Yeah. Is >> I would say that's true. >> Is Henart happy with the wiggly brain? um they're happy as long as they can follow the money >> is my answer. Um >> meaning that they can like trace a direct line from the funding that they expect to go to the families and um students enrolled in Head Start to those students and they can. So it's more about the reporting part. >> Yeah. So as long as the money is sort of you know it's following all the allowabilities and it is directly tied to the individual student which
058all of it is. Um and we have and ultimately also we have checks and balances within our system. So I don't um those are sort of the key components. A check and balance example would be um I build the budget alongside my business operations analyst. We submit the budget. We prepare the budget but ultimately we're not the ones also doing the draw down. Right? We have a grant accountant from the fiscal team that does our draw downs. And so that's an example of checks and balances I'm looking for. They're also I think as you know Dr. Sullivan holding a very high bar as they should right now um in terms of enrollment. And I do think the liaison that we work with in the office of head start are very clear that the braiding has
059allowed us to increase enrollment across the board. That it's a strategy we've used to be able to to fill more slots across all of our funding sources. So that's a net positive for everyone. >> Yeah. >> Beginning a lot more kids. >> Yeah. >> I have um four quick quickish questions. Um one is sort of a information for me because my kids are older. Preschool for all because I understand that that's for anybody, right? There's no income limit. So the goal is eventually us on here by 2030 that anybody interested can participate. >> Yes. And um there's priority populations that we fill with first always and that are prioritized for those slots. Um >> and the the the for everyone is sort of always intended, it always has been intended to build upon the existing
060slots already in our county. So knowing that we already have X many head starts, X many preschool for all preschool uh preschool promise, preschool for all was built to try to reach that universal threshold on top of that. Okay, >> does that make sense? >> It does. Thank you. Um second, I wonder and maybe you do this already. Um, I wonder whether you work with um the family law judges specifically in DHS because I will say in my practice I would hear a lot of judges recommending to either parents who are experiencing houselessness or instability and or foster parents, resource parents stepping in, they would talk about Head Start, but I've never heard Mult County judge, at least since before I left, mentioned apply to preschool for all. And so I wonder whether because if
061there are lots of options for parents and a foster family or resource family that perhaps is more affluent might not qualify or I suppose they would kids in foster care but you know I'm just wondering whether you reached out to work with DHS and family. >> Yeah. So yes is the short answer. Uh we work really closely with DHS. Um, so foster care isn't is one of the uh heavily weighted uh being in the foster care system is a he a heavy weight on Head Start eligibility. Um so that it's a fast track which I think is why often they'll recommend it. It's a free program. >> Um it's a clear so the terminology it's called categorical eligibility. Okay. >> So, if a child is um um in a resource placement, they're automatically eligible for
062any of our slots, any of the 910, regardless of funding. Same if they're experiencing houselessness. Um or if the family is under 130% of the federal poverty level. Okay. >> If they receive SNAP, so food stamps or TANIF, those are all automatically eligible and they they can enroll any of our sites, any open spot. >> That's awesome. >> So, yeah. Thank you. And we have we have direct contact people with DHS um within the county to do those cross referrals. >> And then for a for a child who's placed in a resource home that applies for and is placed in Head Start because of this C categorical when the child returns home, does the mom, dad, parent then have to reapply? Is there any disruption or does the kid just get to stay or move
063to a different location that might be closer to their family's home? >> Once they're eligible, they're eligible for two years. >> Okay. >> So, if they um Yeah. So, if they if they turn um three by September 1st, then we we call it a two-year placement. They're eligible for two years and we don't have to redo eligibility. And then if they're four by September by September 1st, then the next year they would go, but we we don't look at eligibility again. Once they're enrolled, they're enrolled. >> Great. Okay. Yeah. And then my last question um are we worried about funding >> like >> Sure. I mean in the same way that any um whatever you were just talking about like a >> no the uh interview that's coming and like >> yeah I mean I
064think we all know and it would be silly to give this presentation and not acknowledge that there's potential instability around federal funding in particular right and we do rely heavily on federal funding. So, we've been working closely with our internal guidance, legal office, everybody, um, and our all of our partners >> to make sure that we have mitigation plans built out if that should, um, get compromised in any way. And that may be something you hear more about as this year evolves. We'll see. >> Okay. Because the braiding really helps with that, right? >> Sure. I mean, we're more stable across our program because we've braided and we may need to lean in in different ways with some of our partners to cover gaps if gaps arise. and we've been sort of, you know, having
065those conversations in the background. >> Yeah. >> Okay. Thanks, >> Ian. >> I did want to before we go to you, Ian, I just want to say one more thing. We also um we we actually just drafted anou with the with DHS, so that will be coming to you all through however contracts make their way to you all. Um but that is forthcoming and that was something particularly um as Rihanna was speaking to TANF eligibility working more closely with them for that and then also doing some cross trainining and supporting some other intentional supports with families. So we work really closely with them and we're doing more um as as a result of some partnership work. >> Go ahead. Oh. Uh, so I couldn't help but notice that towards the beginning of this uh of
066the presentation, you guys said that there was only that it was only about like 13 kids uh were in foster care uh or 13 and 13 slots were were taken up by by foster care people. Do you guys, you know, have an opinion on why that is or if you guys are working to like improve that demographic or >> I mean um it changes every year. So that those were like just the number that we reported out last year. I don't know where we are at currently this year. >> I can share um we're we're right on track for about the same number at this point, but I can share a recent conversation that I had with our as we're setting up theou um because we were asking that question as well. we want to,
067you know, we're here as a resource. Um, and what was shared with us is that there is a, um, uh, DHS is has a strong effort in keeping kids with their families and not removing them and returning them as quickly as possible and doing the work, the intentional work to do that. And so they they're overall there's just fewer kids that are living with resource parents right now um, in all, you know, all age ranges. And so that would apply for the for school age kids too. >> Thank you. >> Um I was wondering what is the relationship between uh PPS early learners and other Head Start programs like Albina Head Start for example. Um, and then kind of connectedly, um, I'm curious if there have been financial impacts from federal stuff already and whether
068that hits PPS early learners differently than it would hit other Head Start programs. >> Sure. So, to answer your question, we do have partnerships with our other um, Head Start providers in the service area. We are required to also have a service area agreement with them. So, we have a three-year agreement. It's still active um with Albina Head Start, Mount Hood Head Start, and um which Mount Hood service east county and then neighborhood house on the west side. So, we have a service area agreement with them that outlines like this is what we're going to do, this is what you'll do, and that is actually a requirement of the state that we have that. Um we also have really great partnerships with them in terms of communication. Um, so some examples I could give where
069we partner alongside them um is in enrollment, right? So if they um primarily do early Head Start when those kids are ready to come into a preschool program, we can do some cross referrals that way. Um we also do um a health and mental health advisory council across the county. We host, but we partner with Albina and with um Mount Hood and uh Neighborhood House. And so we come together as a program and we look at that data countywide. We bring in some guest speakers and that happens quarterly. Um so that's another way that we do partner. Um I would say the uh sort of getting to the fiscal question. Um every program in the area has had to make some considerations around the composition of their services in regards to um enrollment corrective action.
070So I don't think any program in Mulma County particularly the Head Start programs have um everyone has experienced a change in enrollment postcoid and has had to make shifts and and in their service model delivery to to respond to that which has fiscal impact. Um an example of that is maybe there was more preschool slots before there's been a reduction in maybe they've reduced preschool slots and opened early head start. That would be an example of sort of how we're seeing it play out. um in those partner programs. Um do you want to add anything? >> Yeah, I mean we have not at this moment experienced financial impact. Um could there be um in the near future potentially, right? So that's that's where we stand right right now with that. I think where we sit
071most impacted looking backward from today is um you know our people are expensive um because we're located in a school district which is wonderful in so many ways like our employees are unionized and they're they're highly paid within the field of of learning which is again terrific and means we can keep great people um and it it means we hit against the cap of our grants as salaries increase. So, that's kind of the financial dance we continue to do right now. Um, and and that we continue to navigate and what drove some of our restructuring historically and and may bring up some other sustainability questions in the coming year. >> So, other Head Start programs that aren't part of PPS can have different salary scale, different requirements even for teachers. >> Can you answer that?
072Yeah. Um there is a an objective to have a salary parody with uh I think it's by 2030. Um but they're moving or 2030. Is it 2030? I think so. >> Yeah. 2030. Okay. Um so there is a head start um and as part of the Head Start performance standards, there's a request to meet salary parody by 2030. Harder if there's also not funding increases. So there's a weird sort of math equation there. Um um but uh there are salary requirements when it comes to license uh to like uh early or early childhood licensing and and care. Um but no, there there's not that necessarily everyone's paying the same rate. >> I have two questions that are totally unrelated and I'm going to ask them together because it's time. Um one of them is a
073followup from Director Chase Miller's question. Um what and and I have neighborhood house on my mind specifically, but what protocols do we have to make sure that the kids that are coming over from Head Start into our neighborhood schools, we kind of know what's coming, >> make sure they're they have the IEPs, placements, and all of that that those kids need. >> Um and then unrelated, do we feel like we're ready to harness um growth that could come with preschool for all ramping up over the next several years? >> Yeah. Yeah. I mean I can so our early learners team is also responsible for transition work in the system as you know and so we do a lot of work around kindergarten transition and connect to kindergarten. We have special events for families that are
074in our neighborhood programs and our partner programs to help them navigate getting into PPS kindergarten. Um we also have a system in place where um in our prek programs but also in like neighborhood house and our partner programs um the teacher and the family before kids metriculate to kindergarten fill out um kind of a document like a form that lists a lot of important transition information about each child really specific information. What are their hobbies? What soothes them? Things like that. And then that's accessible to PPS kindergarten teams when they get there. Um so that's a nice transition system we've built out. And then in terms of special education, um any kindergartener coming into PPS or rising kindergartener who has an IFSP um and is receiving support in preK would go through a transition meeting
075with our a special ed early childhood transition team um and their incoming kindergarten team and would have that same process. Um so those are kind of several things. >> Great. >> Built in. >> Yeah. >> Um and now I've forgotten your second question. Uh, are you ready to grow with with preschool for all? >> That's the sustainability question, right? We'd love to, right? Like, and I think we'd all we'd all love to be able to bring in more families if I think if need suggests that that we could fill more slots. Um, we'll continue to be in partner with them, partnership with them, and figure that out. Um, so I don't know how to answer that question better. It's always a bit of a dance because we're always doing community needs assessment as they build
076out other programs in our locality. We don't want to be in competition with other types of programs. Preschool for all is always intended to be a mixed delivery system that offers families, you know, inh home care or full year care or school year care or because it wants families to have choice. >> Are we all day school year? >> We are full day but not full year school year. We have to wear school year >> full day but >> so we are one option among many. So, we want to grow at the rate that's appropriate for the community, but not at a rate and and at a rate that we can sustain, but not at a rate um that would inadvertently create. >> Well, I would say that if if we if there was capacity
077and funding, we know that we have space. We know that we have an enrollment issue. So like absolutely we it just I think what Emily is saying is that we want to make sure that we're able to properly support the growth but I think the team has done an outstanding job of even growing uh thus far as you see by 20%. So, and I mean I don't we don't have the data yet. So, um maybe it's a little premature to make the claim, but I will say that our Kinder numbers are um up and we were expecting a um a projected amount that was a whole lot fewer. And so one would have to believe that as our kiddos are coming in and with us at three and then four that they would potentially stay
078with us at five or six as they're making connections in the classroom and being embedded in the programming and the school environment. I mean I think it's a great way to um enroll from you know grassroots level >> here community schools. >> Yes. Um, fortunately we're out of time. >> Uh, we have another board meeting get started. >> Um, Terry, do you think 10 minutes is enough to set up downstairs? >> Sure. >> Love that attitude. >> I would like to >> plus or minus. >> Ask how long Terry needs. >> Oh yeah. How much do you need? >> But let's let's have this this training is adjourned. Uh, thank you guys. Thank you. Thank you.