Texas Early Learning Council Meeting (October 2025)

001o'clock, we will call the Texas Early Learning Council to um call the meeting to order. Reagan is uh was pulled away to another meeting. I don't know if she's going to pop back in or not, but so we're going to proceed as a group without her and we'll miss her. Um I'm Stephanie Rubin. Um and want want to welcome everybody, the council members, the agency staff, people who are joining from uh out through the zoom webinar. We appreciate you being here. Um, and uh, we are, let's see, the council members are part of the Zoom webinar as panelists while members of the public are able to participate in a listen-only mode. Um, if everyone, especially the panelists uh, could keep their cell phones on um, listenonly mode or quiet that would be great. Um, I

002do uh want to mention, and this doesn't happen typically where we talk over each other, but Megan Schneider has the ability to uh mute people. So, you know, hold back if you need to, or we'll we'll go one one by one if we need to. Um, and u Megan will serve as the meeting facilitator. And uh just a reminder for everybody when you um speak have a question just you know it' be great if you could state your name uh for the record and um please you know I encourage everybody to ask questions and comment and make suggestions and give feedback so that we have an engaging meeting. Um the public comment deadline it closed at 5:00 pm yesterday. That doesn't mean that um you know if members of the public are have partic have

003are on the phone on the Zoom webinar and would like to comment please email Megan Schneider at t at megan. Schneider tea.ex.gov and she will put that those instructions in the chat so that we can make that happen. Um, and let's see, why don't we proceed with our first item and um, let's see, you all have the agenda. So, what we're going to do is um, go through the minutes and get approval. If there is some last minute public comment, we'll do that. We'll talk about the early learning strategic plan. We'll have an update on the uh, early learning council operating procedures. uh some legislative updates which are exciting uh updates from council members some upcoming events um and dates for future meetings and then we will adjourn. We'll see if we're um on time

004or even a little early. So why don't um Megan, do I turn it over to you or do you want me to proceed with the minutes? >> You can proceed with um the minutes and seeing if anyone >> So everybody um on the council should have those in your email. want to take a quick look. Uh, does anybody have any edits or changes to the August 2025 meeting minutes that they want to bring up? Okay. If not, I will request a motion to approve the August 2025 meeting minutes. Uh, and then we'll probably need we will need a second. [clears throat] >> This is Kim Coffin. I'll motion to accept the meeting minutes. >> I'll second this is truthy Mendes. I will second that motion. >> Great. Thank you. >> Okay. Pending any other discussion?

005Megan, do you want to uh lead us through a vote on the minutes? >> Yeah, absolutely. So, this will also serve as a roll call um for the meeting itself. So, when I call your name, please reply for, against, or abstain. Shruuthy RS Mendes >> four >> Weldon Beard. >> April Crawford Ruth Alma Giles. >> Becky Husker >> approved. Kim Cochran >> approve. >> Batric mata. >> Reagan Miller. Marisella Nava >> approve. >> Stephanie Rubin >> approve. >> Amber Scanland >> approve. Kristen Schwab, >> Jennifer Stimer, >> approve, >> and Megan Young approve. >> All right. Um, the motion to approve the meeting minutes has carried and we also met a quorum. So, I will turn it back to you, Stephanie. >> Thank you. Thanks everybody for having taken a look at at those and

006voting. Um well actually our next agenda item is public comment. So let's just double double triple check that uh see if anybody has popped up who would like to offer public comment. Megan, >> let's see. Um no, we did not receive any requests today for public comment, but as a reminder to everyone tuning in, we always welcome public comment on these meetings. Um, so you can email um in advance of the meeting up till the day before um and we'd love to hear your input on any of the agenda items that are listed. Uh so that um but I will pass it back to you Stephanie. >> Great. Thank you. So um our next agenda item, we're a little bit early which is good is the early learning plan uh the strategic plan. So we

007can um go through a couple of slides on that. I wanted to point out um I guess let's go kind of slide by slide Kathy here for what we have. So just as a this is just a reminder of for everyone about what our particular goals were that we all worked on a long long time ago. Okay, let's go forward a little bit. Um so we um we did create a work there is a workg group um to recommend next steps for all actions. So these were the categories if you guys remember. All right go ahead. >> All right. >> Is Kristen on Megan? This is her. >> No. Okay. So, let's go. So, she was going to give a status update for the plan. Does anybody Is anybody part of that who wants to

008jump in >> or we can just review these? >> I I'm going to be giving a report on the number three of that on the updates on the child uh the our work with techs >> because I was on one of the planning groups. >> Excellent. Becky has keer. >> Okay. So, how do we Megan? What do you want to do with this section here? >> Go ahead and pass to Becky. Becky, you can dive into your update and then um Yeah. and then come back and um >> I'm Becky Husker and I represent higher education on this uh externally learning council and I was on a workg group having to do with the uh because I teach at the at University of Houston Clear Lake um to be able to uh find the different

009and get information on the various higher red institutions across Texas. So initially there was one done by the um by the state having to do excuse me a minute let me sorry about that um uh from the state uh which lists all the the um different you 60some programs all across the state the uh community colleges of four years and was on an Excel spreadsheet and so last summer I went and found and did a grid made up a grid and took all that information and went to everybody's website to try to get information off there. Okay, so it took me three days, but we did it. I did it. And so now the next step is for us to work with the um techs uh to be able to get that on a dashboard.

010So, what I did was this week I met with Tracy Jones who works it at um uh [clears throat] to who's working with that and she and I talked how this information could be put on a a searchable dashboard and they're going to make this great searchable dashboard on TechPads and it's going to have um each of the universities and colleges on there and it's going to be be able to be updated quarterly. And for all the higher ed uh programs, you could they're able to put their logo on. Uh they have a contact. They're going to have all the degrees that they offer, all of the links to the sites. Uh which you can show or hide any of the information at any time, any scholarships available, uh what also there's information going to

011be on there about just training. So, it's not just um credited degrees or certificates. They're also can be able to have if somebody's offering training opportunities. Um the faculty names if they want those on there that can be put on there. Any special events as they have an open house, which is they're usually recruiting events, that type of thing can be put on there. any scholarships that they're offering. Um, and they want to update it quarterly so that you know in higher ed people come and go and so uh they'll have that one contact person for each place and so that if somebody leaves or or whatever if they add a degree or certificate or whatever that can be put up there and so it doesn't get up there and somebody try to contact them

012and it goes into a dead letter box. Also, um they're they're going to designate if the pro how the programs are offered, if they're like totally online, they're hybrid, face toface, or whatever. They have the count. You can search by county. You can search by zip code. You can search by the type of program. They're also eventually going to have a map of Texas with geoloc. Meaning if you live in like I live in Houston and I was a student that wanted to somebody at early care and education or whatever wanted to go back to school, you could click on that and all the ones will pop up for that area. Uh right now they don't have that, you know, they're just starting, they're just working on the dashboard part, but I think it's going

013to be great. It's free to everybody. And um she did mention that um there's going to be like a calendar with it. So, as you said, there's different events or whatever coming up that the students, the people can find it. What I found out, it's going to be great because when I did this whole thing, I, you know, I have a doctor myself. I couldn't even find some of those things. And, you know, they're listed, especially in the community colleges, some of the early education programs are listed under like the arts and humanities or some other pro then you would never find them. And so this way they can go in and be able to search this. Uh they the one thing I forgot to ask, we were short on time, was how long it's

014going to take. April could probably tell because April is associated with um with uh Tracy and Tracy's going to have her staff work on this. She said because we've given her so much information that it's mostly a matter of putting it in the different slots but also checking back with each of the programs to because not all of them had a a person's name attached and so um that's basically and also she did say that she techped met with the child care regulators or the people for childcare licensing I think she met and so they're all going to be they're going to be more familiar now with tech peds and all associated with that. So they can also spread the word about that and so I think that um it's called the institutions of higher

015ed blackboard and there's going to be like a little tile and it'll I mean this is just a a draft but it's like find training and education programs on the techped site. So you can just click on that this whole dashboard thing will open up and it'll direct you to all these things. So hopefully because in higher ed we get our funding by how many students we have headcount at least in the four-year and also you have to keep your numbers up or the state will shut you down if you don't have five graduates within a certain amount of time they'll close your program down believe it or not. So this is going to help everybody. It won't just help the people in the in the child care and also it has certification stuff. It

016has master's degrees. So, I didn't put doctors, but the certifications, the, you know, the masters of arts and teaching, the EC6, preK3, who has what. So, that's going to help a whole range of people uh and a lot of other um programs to be able to um to get their numbers up and also for the people in the field to be able to know where to go to go back to. So that's what's happened since the summer for at least that piece. So we're on a roll, but it's >> Yeah, Becky, that's amazing. And we clearly you put a lot of time and effort into this, so we really appreciate that. It sounded like a lot of your, you know, personal and work time. >> Um, are there any questions for Becky about about what

017she shared >> or April because April's part of this whole thing, too. I'll I'll I'll turn it over to April to supplement if April wants to. >> No, Becky, I think that was a a great description of where we are. The in terms of timeline, I I I don't want to misspeak and we've already deployed the higher education dashboard functionality and we're kind of in the process now as Becky was saying of like loading all the information we already have from Becky and from other sources. And then the next step is TechPeds is reaching out and trying to um confirm a college level contact who'd be willing to be our quarterly touch point where we check in to see what changes need to be made. So I I think you know the next time we

018meet I can probably give an update on how that process has gone and how many you know colleges and universities have confirmed that they will maintain the information on the site. And then the geoloccation stuff is coming, but that's the one where I I hesitate to give like a date. Um I don't think we actually have the deployment scheduled. I know it's been planned, requirements are are developed, but >> April, >> can you explain um because I read this and I I see you know Telk, the early learning council will identify and promote, we'll publish, promote, we'll do things, but it's on your website like what is the branding of the early learning council or involvement like what's it's on there or is this uh sort of recommendations to supplement what you're already doing but

019it's >> yeah that's a good question I think we probably haven't concretely sort of addressed it for each like you know one of the objectives is it one of the strategies is related to publishing um re like a a training calendar and guide of trainings I can't tell if it's on this screen my eyes are >> yeah 247.9 line. >> Yeah, those those are curated lists with um input from the council. So those will say that the Texas Early Learning Council, you know, was involved in the curation of, you know, the events, the trainings, the programs that are in that published catalog. For something like what Becky was describing, it's a little bit more that Telk has just implemented new functionality to be able to better connect people to higher education opportunities and this collaboration

020with TELK. You know, it it's in alignment with TELK strategies. So, we've prioritized it through TechPads. Becky had already done a lot of groundwork around, you know, pulling together information. So that one I don't think we've talked about whether or not that would have any kind of telk branding. It's just that was this higher ed dashboard was on the road map for techs. So we've sort of aligned and accelerated what we're doing. >> 2.4.5 also lists colleges and universities. So it can be going into that because um uh it mentions about provide support for the workforce preparedness and skills and that's what this is. It does provide a a range of workforce uh preparedness and skills uh trainings uh learning competent well it talked about the competencies and things but um it also different of

021things available at Texas colleges and universities. So there are things that we put on that or I put on that um thing that if you know leadership thing certificates and other types of things. So that can go under that one uh 2.4.5 as well. >> Okay. So is the idea just for me to get clarification that these are resources, trainings, things like that that are currently offered by higher education as opposed to, you know, Stephanie's, you know, behavioral support training, you know, LLC, or how is it um or is it a combination of both and they're just a curated list based on research and outcomes? April what? >> Yeah, building on what you have. So, >> so the the techpeds hub strategy broadly, which is what TWWC has been funding >> uh to CLI for

022the expansion of Techped supports. Um what it specifically does is it will help individuals identify a range of information. Some of it coming from higher education opportunities, some of it coming from organizations that offer professional development that are on the techpeds organizational dashboard. >> So those are um organizations that have come through and been reviewed by teched and identified for their core competencies that they train in. Um, so it's it's really a variety of sources, but basically all of them have come through either this kind of higher education review pathway or the tech's organizational dashboard or the trainer approval trainer registry system. So it's kind of pulling together >> existing process to set before sharing and posting. Okay. >> Yes. Because it the title is she said would be finding training and educational programs. So

023whether the training comes from you know someone as an independent trainer or from the university because sometimes colleges do do training themselves you know for CEUs or or whatever. So it is she did state that it's a combo one. >> Okay. I was just I just wanted to reiterate that because I see on like 2.4.7 4.7 that we will be promoting you know as a early learning council and so I you know if the process exists for vetting that's already existing like that makes more sense because I don't know that we have a process ourselves to >> you know decide which ones to recommend but it sounds like it's incorporated in April what you all do already which is offers some >> uh accountability let's put that >> yeah that's a good point though of

024like where we'll be so right now for 247 Seven, the work group did curate a set of trainings and as TechPads gets ready to publish this first kind of static catalog of those offerings, they'll kind of reach we'll reach back out to the workg group to kind of confirm uh what we're publishing. That one will be like a telk curated list. I think longer term I think you know telk could sort of inform if telk is comfortable with the cur current current sort of strategy that techeds has for reviewing and approving training you know maybe tech maybe telk doesn't want to forever curate and approve the set of trainings on these topics you know maybe telk decides that hey we wanted [clears throat] to kick this work off get it started promote these topics But

025I don't know that Telk necessar that we've talked about. Does Telk want to do that forever? >> Okay. And be >> I mean this is this is a work group. So it just bears reminding you know Kirsten's not on who was leading it but I think there will be a process for uh >> early learning council members to give some feedback. you know, Kirsten will reach out because I think that's uh this is great work, but um you know, if there are other people who want to digest it and give some feedback, maybe Kirsten can have some uh specific uh questions for council members and where there's a need for feedback. Does that sound Megan? Does that sound like the right process? >> Okay, any other questions for Becky or April as you hear what

026they've shared? Thank you both so much. Thank you. >> Okay. So, without Kirsten here, I think we're going to move on from the strategic plan uh kind of workg group update. And I think are we moving Megan to you now on >> Yeah. Yeah. Um and if if I see Kirsten pop up, we can jump back. >> Yeah. Um but yeah, so hello everyone. I'm Megan Schneider. I'm the inter agency director of early childhood support. Um, and so one of the things that I get to do in my role is help us keep track of all of the different actions that are in our Texas early learning strategic plan. So, um, there's a lot of them. Uh, there's four goals, as you all know, split across family navigation, workforce support, community support, and integrated data

027and um, system coordination. And across those four goals, there's 64 different actions that, you know, this group came up with uh when we crafted that plan back in 2020, end of 2023. Um so this is just a highle snapshot of the status of those 64 different actions. But in your meeting materials, you should have gotten a PDF document that has a one to two sentence blurb about each of those 64 actions, kind of where they stand. Um so happy to answer. I know we just sent that out yesterday, but if you got a chance to review, it's the PDF in your materials titled Texas Early Learning Strategic Plan Status. So, if you had any questions about any of those or wanted us to dive into any, let us know. Um, and then overall, as you

028can see, we are tracking to eight of them have been completed. The vast majority are in progress. Um, the next biggest category is those that are ongoing. Um, and so those ongoing ones are where there's um it's kind of a it's an ongoing body of work that doesn't require direct action from the council or from the assigned kind of owner of that action. There's just a handful that um haven't been started that we haven't gotten to yet. And then there are three that are blocked. So this is our first blocked means that um so for example um blocked means that an item can't move forward and we aren't sure when it will be able to. So um we don't want to mark it as in progress because it's kind of it is paused. >> Okay.

029>> And to follow up on that Megan on the block and I have not read the the scan the document I have not read the document. When it says blocked, do we have a reason why it's blocked? Like is that is that information there on the document? >> We do. Yes. >> Okay, cool. All right. Three. I mean, there's three. >> Yeah, there's three. And I mean, if those are of interest, I'm happy to run through them. So, I'll >> Sure. >> One, as an example, is um 2.3.3, the TWWC will publish guidance resulting from work sessions with institutions of higher education on credit transfer. This is on page 11 of that PDF. So that is work that was planned when we were crafting the strategic plan. Um for various reasons the vendor that was

030planned to do that work um ended up backing out. Um so we were able to move on with the broader work that that was supposed to inform. Um so it's not complete. You know it's not in progress. Um >> yeah. >> Okay. Any questions for Megan? Any other questions for Megan? you're saying uh [clears throat] Baris Salava uh could you please uh just um reiterate on 2.41 the blocked one. >> Sure. Um so two the the blocked one is I know the numbering gets really confusing. The the blocked one is 2.3.3. Mhm. >> Um and it was that TWWC will publish guidance resulting from work sessions with institutes of higher education about credit transfer. >> Okay. So this was work that we were hoping to do to inform um a resulting landscape analysis about where

031are there local educational agencies that are offering an early learning program of study and where are there institutes of higher education that have some kind of an early childhood program or degree to try to give folks a better understanding of where they could collaborate. We were able to move forward with that landscape analysis and I'm happy to drop a link to it in the chat um which was one of the other actions. So this blocked item didn't end up, you know, setting us off from our work. But that said, if it's something of interest to the council to pick back up, you know, we are happy to have that discussion. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Yeah. because transfer has to do with that the higher ed and so like for instance we have a lot

032of affiliation agreements with other um other community colleges because we're a fouryear and so that might be something that could be added on to um the the um dashboard eventually if somebody could give them information and says yes we do have we do have affiliate it's called affiliation agreements ments. We have affiliation agreements with certain colleges or whatever. Uh because that is important if if somebody at a two-year school wants to send their students, but there's no affiliation agreements there, it makes it a little trickier. And so that could be something that could be added as they as you as we build out that. And I know Marisella probably can attest to that, right? that there's affiliation agreements with your univers your college and other universities. So >> yeah. >> Yes, ma'am. Thank you. >>

033That's just a suggestion. >> Thank you, Becky. >> Any other questions for Megan? Okay. >> I want to just share one other piece, Stephanie, since there are any other questions. Um, I just want to name this is kind of our our first cut at giving y'all back more detailed information that's like end to end about the whole strategic plan instead of just zooming in on certain actions, which is what we've done over the course of the last couple years. So, hoping to continue this forward and would welcome any feedback about how to make this information, you know, useful and actionable. >> And then although I'm the one sharing this update, you know, this is really the council's strategic plan, right? So, it's this is yours and and ours. Um, so don't feel like um I

034just want you all to feel a sense of ownership over this plan and and its ability to be executed and we want to help equip you to do that. >> Megan, to that end, thank you for this document. It's good to see the whole piece. So, um so um I'm looking forward to reading it more thoroughly. >> Okay. Okay, maybe just added the landscape analysis summary in the chat for people. So, thank you. All right. Um, if there aren't any additional questions or comments or or jump in if you do, we're going to move on to um Dr. Mandel. Thank you for coming back, Dr. Mandel. Uh, who's the assoc an associate professor at UT Health Houston School of Public Health. um she will go over the preliminary findings from the PDG birth to five

0352025 updated needs assessment. So Dr. Mandel, thank you for being here. >> Thank you. Um thank you for having me and it's good to talk to you guys again. Um so we're going to I'm just going to talk a little bit about the updated needs assessment that will be coming at the end of the year. Um we're still in the process of updating the needs assessment but um we do have a few things that I would like to share with you all. Um let's go to the next slide. So, first of all, I would like to um just kind of set the record straight about what we will be updating and what we will not be updating in the needs assessment document and what is going to be moved into the performance evaluation document for

036the PDG um birth to five grant. So, what we are updating is all of the administrative data that was originally in the needs assessment. So all of that will be updated and we may be adding a little bit more um data to that to that part as well. We are updating all the population data um in the needs in the needs assessment as well. So those two things are are easy to do and straightforward. The other thing that we are updating is we did a very large workforce survey in the first needs assessment and we are updating that workforce survey. That workforce survey we're using it not just for the needs assessment but we're also using it for the performance evaluation. There are sections of that um of the needs assessment that are specifically for

037the performance evaluation of of some of the activities for the PDG grant. And we are also doing an update of the family survey and that's actually in progress right now. So we're actively collecting data on the family survey. Just to be clear, what we are not updating is we will not be updating any of the qualitative data. So we had really rich child care director data interviews in the original needs assessment and that we will not be updating. Um, we also had surveys with early childhood coalitions in the first needs assessment and we're not updating those either. Our work on the early childhood coalitions have really really heavily moved all of that work into the performance evaluation. And so any work that we did around early childhood coalitions for the past three years, that's actually

038going to be in the performance evaluation. We weren't we will not be updating the needs assessment. Um and any qualitative data that received from families, we we won't be using that in the in the needs assessment either. We do have some some family qualitative data that we've taken from our family research forum, but that's going to be in the performance evaluation, not in the needs assessment. All right. So, as we talked in the first needs assessment, there are six things we really focused in on with um childhood workforce and the early childhood workforce where we did quite a bit of work um work looking about sustainability within this workforce. And what we really are going to focus on today is if you go to the next slide, we're going to be focusing on healthy professional

039parent child relationships, job stress, and child behavior management. Those three things are so intertwined together that it's really hard to separate them. Um, healthy professional parent child relationships really center on being able to have those really difficult conversations with parents or even kind of easy happy conversations with parents. We we see that when people when um our workforce is more comfortable doing that, they feel less stressed out at work and also they can handle child behavior management issues um a lot better. So all of these things are just intertwined and they're handling child behavior management issues really really well. They tend to have better communication and low job stress. If they have low job stress that can handle the behavior, it's all intertwined with each other. And so what I'm going to show you today

040is data specifically on healthy professional parent child relationships focused on having difficult conversations. not their child behavior management practices, but really how do they talk about how comfortable do they feel talking about these issues and how comfortable do they feel addressing the issues. We're also going to be talking about job stress for just a little bit today as well. So, let's get into the parent child relationship, healthy professional relationships. Um, first of all, I should tell you how many responses that we have. This is what we're discussing today. Um we currently have um 228 child care um respondents in our needs assessment which is fantastic. We did it we did a much bigger outreach in our needs assessment this year and are super happy with what we what we have. Child care actually maxed out

041what we were budgeted for. Um we also have public prek, ECI and family support services are this year is part of the overall needs assessment. At the beginning at the first needs assessment we had already been doing some other work with the family support group um that sector through the home visiting and we just use that home visiting data. But through this we've been able to get a wider range of family support um roles within that sector. So not just home visitors but also the family resource center staff. They're doing a lot of work directly interacting with um families and other family support staff. Those are the um parent navigators as well as those who are running and leading parenting cafes. So let's go to the next slide. So let's talk about communication with families.

042Um what this slide is showing you is the proportion of respondents across each sector who felt like they were comfortable having a conversation with parents. And so when you quickly glance through this and we kind of have this sorted in this way too. When you quickly glance through this, you see that most sectors have have least comfort talking about hygiene issues with parents. Um, with the exception of family support services, um, they feel pretty comfortable having this conversation. And this kind of pattern where not necessarily the pattern where family support services was just doing better than everybody else, but there was a general pattern across each of the sectors where some sectors were really good at this conversation and really felt confident in this conversation and some sectors felt a lot less confident in this

043um in this conversation. And what this kind of points to to us and one of the things that we're going to be talking about is thinking about the early childhood sector is a way to do cross- sector collaboration and cross- sector training. Not just doing training with child care, not just doing training with family support, but when you have family support doing something really well, they could come in and talk to child care about how they do it and how they go about having that conversation. So that way it helps connect each of the sectors together, but it also helps each of the sectors shine in what they do really well. Um for example um child care does a much um well on this I can tell you in other data child care centers and

044prek do a very good job of talking about positive behavior in this child care data this um includes family based services as well as child care centers. So in the needs assessment, we'll have those two broken out for you. But there's some really great places across the sectors where there's there's an opportunity for some nice cross trainining um to have better conversations. So the other thing that we have been doing over the past 2 years is we've been working with a family research forum. We established a family research forum at UT Health specifically for the PDG grant. And what we've been doing with that family re um we've been doing a lot of stuff with the family research forum. But one of the things that we did with the family research forum towards the end

045um and they were awesome about doing this is we actually had them say, "Can you tell us what you see in highquality child care? What kind of behaviors do you want to know that your child care center can handle that makes them makes you think they're really high quality? And so let's go to the next slide. And so our family research forum actually came up with a whole checklist for us of what they really wanted to know that the child care center could handle. and our family research form about half of them had a child with um who was not neurotypical and half of them had typically developing children who didn't have any any sign of um delay or disability at this point. And so what our family research forum did was kind of like

046break down this comfort of like not just comfort handling a challenging behavior, but the really specific challenging behaviors that they saw were incredibly important. And there are some things that I want to point out that they did that I find just they were just brilliant about doing this is one is um breaking down what a meltdown means. And so they have meltdowns that don't result in any harm, meltdowns that cause property damage, and meltdowns that harm other children. Those are three specific types of meltdowns that require three different types of respondents. And Kim, I see you like, oh yeah. Oh, yeah. You see where this is going? um the meltdowns that harm other children and meltdowns that cause property damage for the family forum were particularly important to break apart because these are things that

047can lead to expulsion and suspension from child care and from public prek. So um well child care specifically in the family research forum is what they talked about. Um the other thing they brought up was consistent defiant behavior. Um importantly and as soon as they said this I was like you guys are brilliant children who are alope um that is a particularly hard thing for um teachers to be able to handle and one of the other things that I would like to say that they brought up is lack of engagement in group activities. Um, our family research forum in particular pointed out that especially girls with early developing ADHD and girls with autism, this is how it begins to manifest. And they really felt like if the child care center wasn't keyed in on how

048do you bring somebody back into group activities that um that was that was going to be particularly problematic. So, let's go to the next slide. So, one of the great things that we saw, we asked this time child care centers whether or not they've used a behavioral consultant or a a consultant to come and help with um interventions for kids who needed them. And so, this could be a consultant, a behavioral consultant, or an infant and early childhood mental health consultant. We actually didn't make the distinction because our family forum as well as our childcare centers made it clear that they were all the same to them. But what we see very clearly is these four behaviors that our family forum in particular really keyed in on meltdowns that harm other children, meltdowns that cause

049poverty and damage, children who are alope and lack engagement in group activities. If we saw that the child care center had used a consultant, they were significantly more likely to say they were comfortable handling this challenging behavior than if they hadn't used a consultant. Um, and to let you know, 35% of our child care sample used had used a consultant. We think that that might be a little bit higher, but 35% actually used a consultant. So this is kind of cool to see. [laughter] So let's go to the next slide. So there are some promising practices that we see not just within this data but also that are coming out of our um performance evaluation. One obviously is the use of the behavioral consultants and the impact using behavioral consultants have on comfort handling these

050really challenging behaviors. The other thing that we see as a promising practice that's happening outside of PDG activity is DSHS is hosting um a developmental screening echo on a regular basis once a month. Um and I can tell you because I'm faculty on that echo that that echo has moved away from developmental screening. We focus a lot about developmental screening but actually has really moved towards like well how do you have this hard conversation? How do you handle the behaviors? How do you support the child? Um, so those are important topics where child care is asking for these topics related to developmental screening, not just learning how to do a developmental screening. The other things that we're seeing promising coming out of the um PDG activities is we're seeing local co-raining across sectors. That is

051just making me super happy to see where sectors are coming together through their early childhood systems building work and actually training with each other and doing co-raining where they'll sit down together with a case study and they'll be like this is how I would respond and another sector is like this is how I would respond or hey I've always had a problem with this how would what would you do and so this helps the sectors really understand each other but also helps the sectors understand how they can help each other. Um that has been really really exciting. And the other thing we're seeing through the early childhood systems building work is local community of practices developing. Um there's one in particular I would like to call out um that is being developed um that the

052actual child care directors in the area asked for it. um they were doing other training with child care and the directors came and said, you know, I just would like a place that we can all get together and share best practices or where we can talk to each other. Um so that that local community is building a community of practice with their childare directors. All right, let's go to the next slide because trying not to run out of time. So job stress is such a big deal. We know that job stress really adds to um retention issues, burnout issues, and it's something that we've been very much looking at um in the first needs assessment and we'll continue to look at in the second needs assessment. We are seeing that our job stress levels are

053very consistent with what we saw in the first needs assessment. So, one of the things I would like to point out and I always love to point out is child care and this early childhood workforce. They real feel fulfilled by their jobs. They really are mission driven, very very driven about I want to help kids. I'm here to help families. and the closer they can get to feeling that they really feel like the families appreciate them and they feel like the kids appreciate them. And that's what this fulfillment measured is really measuring. Whether or not we everybody else uh values that is a different thing, but this fulfillment measure is really an interpersonal fulfillment measure. Um we see that um prek has significantly lower um job control than any of the other sectors which is

054um not surprising and we see that family support services um they feel like they have lower job demands than the rest of the the sectors. We are using these data in the performance evaluation too because these data we're digging in specifically with ECI on these on these job stress measures related to the impact or how these job stress measures are related to the retention efforts that ECI has been doing through the PDG grant. All right. So the next thing let's go to the next slide. So when we get our take-home from retention and early childhood and this is related to our home visiting work, the work that's been done in ECI and things that we are hearing pretty much across the board in child care as well is these interpersonal relationships really drive early childhood.

055Um the entire all of the sectors in early childhood, they want to feel connected to their families. They all want to feel like they're helping their families and that that they're helping the children that they serve. Um, and that relationship also extends to the relationships they have with each other. That those relationships that they have with each other help with this having these closer relationships with with the families that they serve as well. Um, they want support and they have really high fulfillment. Pay is always an issue and probably will always be an issue, but we you don't need a needs assessment to know that. in in this situation. So, let's go to the next slide and go into the preliminary findings of the needs assessment. Um, what I would like to point out is

056the early childhood sectors have quite a bit in common. They they do they they share a lot of they share a lot of the same needs and they share a lot of the same ways they want to receive training. And um with that one of the things that they share is a training for difficult situations come and um training around difficult conversations. We we get this request in home visiting. We hear this request in child care. I've even heard this request among interviews we've done with ECI that having it's hard to have a hard conversation and this shouldn't be considered a one-off training, but the way we're hearing them talk about is this is an ongoing conversation about ways that everybody can work together to address these difficult conversations, ways that you can work through

057it. Um there's not going to be a magic bullet that all of a sudden makes these conversations easy. Um but that ongoing constant conversation about having difficult conversations makes those conversations easier and easier. Um we really see the value of sector specific training. It helps build capacity in that sector. Sectors talking to each other like in these community of practices really helps them understand like what can work in my environment. Um and it helps build relationships in those in those sectors. People want those relationships. However, I'm going to put in a plug for cross- sector training also because cross sector training, what we've seen in the few instances we've seen it happen, helps build up those support relationships of knowing like this is what I refer to ECI for. This is what they can help

058me for. This is why I call the the district instead. this is who I can call in case I can't get a hold of the district or the child care and the district going oh I see the problem or child care going you know ECI going oh I see the problem and here's some things that you can do those things those cross- sectors understanding help mitigate some of the problems that we see I think about having those difficult conversations um and it allows that resource connection that just is core it's one of those core for supports for anybody who's trying to have that difficult conversation with a parent. You don't want to have that conversation and drop them like a a bag of bricks. You want to have that conversation and also give them resources,

059give them help, and give them something next that can happen. And so that cross- sector training, we're really seeing some promising practices related to that. All right, next slide. So there's more to come. Our f like I said, our family survey is in the field. We are updating our prek survey that is also in the field because we're also going to be asking them some of these um questions that our family research forum came up with. We're doing a much deeper dive into the analysis of the administration of the administrative and population data in particular. Um trying to dig in a little bit more on childcare deserts as well as um zip codes where we've seen decreasing 3 to four year old enrollment. And um a lot of what's happening within the needs assessment is

060providing context for the performance evaluation of the birth to five activities. Um really nice actually overlap between this and the performance evaluation. All right, I'll stop there. Stephanie, you're on mute if you're talking. That's I'll get off mute. Thank you, Kim. Um, who [laughter] has a question for Dr. Mandel or or a comment? >> I do. >> Go back. You can go back and slide. >> Go ahead, Kim. Um, so the um I can't remember earlier on when you're talking about the councils and their their definitions that came up with like the came up with a meltdown definition >> and that they had and that they had used um uh consultants. One was like one of my questions was um or is where are they all in urban areas? Do you find that more common

061in our metroplex areas versus our rural areas? Like >> curious who's using those consultants and how like as a child center, how do they know that they that's available to them? >> Yeah, I'm I'm going to be 100% honest with you, Kim. We didn't expect to see this many say they use consultants. So, we're actually taking in on it. Okay. because it is 35% of of our sample that have used consultants, which is a a good chunk of >> Yeah. >> of them. So, we're we are going to dig in on where they are. Um if they're in suburban or outlying or rural areas, my guess is they haven't used them. Um and we also want to see if they're clustered in the places we know that that consultant work is working at a high

062level. Right. I mean, I'm also like it'd be interesting if you, you know, I'm live in the Austin area and I I know of a consultant that I just remember like all of us as when I was a Senate director was like, "Oh, have you used her? Have you used her?" So, it was like versus the communities that don't have someone like that. So, um, so that is just >> looking forward to that data. Um and then my second question um on the cross sector training um >> curious on like how that gets started and how do we build that in communities versus it organically happening in anything that you have deemed from that. >> I I mean this built organically this built from in this particular situation for this one early childhood systems building

063team that was able to do this. It was part of their it was part of their PDG activities. Their activity their goal of the activity was make stronger connections. And so what they did is they started putting together monthly mixers between um one sector and another sector. We would get together and then they had like it started off it was so funny. She she was no so nonchalot about it. She was like I just wanted to start a conversation. So I gave everybody a case study. I'm like, "Oh my god." [laughter] So they had table discussions so that everybody had assigned seating. So the sectors were were crossed every table and they had a tabletop discussion which was a which was a case study. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I just think about how like one

064how vital that is um and thinking about um our systems work and thinking about our state agencies and you know with sunset review happening and the task force happening and the quad agency happening as we think about how these all the silos that we our systems have >> and how we want that we we want to give them case studies right um so then [laughter] how do we how do we uh you know so just thinking about how do we we see we're seeing you're seeing this at the local level which is fantastic and how can we just continue to emulate that and build that on and to make to make the goal serving our children and families right so anyway >> very interesting thank you >> no problem >> okay I have a question

065because um I teach a class in child development at the graduate level and also undergraduate and I had a student last night who works in a child development center that is a commercial one that has [laughter] a chain. Okay. [clears throat] And she's very frustrated because she said that the person that the director does not support if they c she comes to if there's a child that's out of hand or whatever and really she can't do anything with them because they don't want her to ever contact the parent because the parent might get mad and pull the child out and then there would be loss of money and she feels that it's all uh commercial things. it's all about the money for these people because they're really not early childhood, you know, they're it's a

066business for them. And so I'm just wondering if you um had uh similar, you know, who what type of child development centers are you surveying? Because it's different than you if you have your own center. I mean, you know, somebody a nonprofit or a private and I'm not saying all chains do that, but you know, that can happen, you know, and she feels like her hands are tied because she's so frustrated. She's looking around for a different position because she's great, you know, but she said they won't support her because if they say anything, the kid they'll be pulled out and that's less of revenue. So, they see it as every child's like revenue. Kim's [laughter] shaking her head. he kind of understands that concept and you could see that but I'm just wondering you

067know how much that also figures into it. I hate to you know I never thought of that before because I've not been in a child about you know work in that sector. I worked in public school private school and stuff like that. So yeah >> have you noted any of has any of that ever come out? No, we have been told that where the big chains work differently and in our family forum we actually had um we actually had one of our fathers tell us in our family forum that his kid was expelled from one of those big chains because the director they were going to they were going to apply for the TWWC inclusion grant and the director was behind it but her supervisor said we won't accept the inclusion grant. So there is

068some things that happened. So he h his son was was removed. Um son's in care now and doing well. But um so there are some things that may be happening in that that situation and in those bigger child care. Um but I'm going to be honest with you like honestly like they don't respond to our surveys. Yeah. >> Yeah. [laughter] I mean, they're they they kind of don't. So, we do have a designation in the survey is we do know if they're forprofit or if they're not forprofit. Um, and we do know their capacity. So from that with you know being forprofit and having a higher capacity sometimes that also doesn't tell you the right thing because we have seen this came out very much in our interviews postcoid is that a lot of those

069large forprofit ones those guys are serving like really really rural areas and they are not the big conglomerates. It's like they don't have the capacity to apply for nonprofit status, >> but they're in essence working as a nonprofit. They just don't have the ability to apply for nonprofit status. So, it's tricky. It's really, really tricky in the data to figure that out of like who's those big centers except for the ones, you know, you can name off the top of your head. >> Yeah. I mean, one thing I guess I would um say is how important it is for parents to >> be knowledgeable about advocating for themselves because they should >> obviously won't be wanting to talk to their child care provider and ask how it's going and talk to the director and ask

070how it's going. And if your child is getting repeatedly sent home, like you need good information to know >> whether >> there are services and supports that would help or whether this place is not for you, you know, and so and I do know I think Kim and and HHSC can clarify here, but in licensing there is a at least a requirement that they sort of post their policies and procedures around >> like expulsion and supports. I mean that's obviously something parents need to be attentive to and and ask you know they that I mean when things get bad their children will get pushed out you know no amount of money is going to sort of um keep a a classroom safe and organized and so the earlier interventions obviously better but I do think

071there's something about parents knowing you know to develop that relationship and you can get a sense when I think when a teacher doesn't want to tell you things >> so That's obviously a red flag, too. >> That very much came up in our family forum. We just didn't know how to ask that question. >> Yeah. [laughter] >> Are there other questions for um Dr. Mandel? I have a couple of things that I just wanted to point out and ask you about in your data, but >> else have something? >> Um, can you go back to the slide about comfort levels? Um, so as I look at that and I'm, you know, Megan from ECI, please, um, there may be something here that I'm thinking about, which is, you know, for child care, which is obviously

072a big referral potential referral source and big referral source for ECI for families. It just concerns me a little bit where child care is a little bit lower. or no go a little earlier when you're comparing across systems who's got comfort for various kind of childhood challenges. I think it's the prior slide. >> Yeah, it's two slide. There you go. >> In in a lot of those cases, child care is a little bit lower. >> Some of those would re would affect whether they are talking to the parents about the opportunity for ECI for, you know, for young children. So, and I know that ECI and childcare have been trying to, you know, talk about these issues and that that was part of PDG, but it does seem like these data reflect more uh room

073for improvement because if family if if child care is sort of if the educators are a little bit uncomfortable having that discussion, they may not be comfortable talking about the need for ECI and explaining it. So, I just wanted to mention that that seemed like something maybe there's a connection. Um, and Dr. Mandel, I don't know if that's something that occurs to you as well compared to others. Yeah, I mean it's something that we have been talking about for a while in these lower values for child care that um in the in the final needs assessment. What you guys will see is actually we're going to be able to break these values up into who's in a child care center versus who's homebased care because right now we have both. >> Okay. >> And we

074were so excited because we actually have a big enough sample this year to be able to break out child care versus homebased care. So we do think that some of these really low numbers of comfort um low endorsement of comfort may be this uh disconnect between homebased versus child care centers and e we will be digging into this in the performance evaluation with how much training ECI is done >> but I can tell you that what we're hearing like with the Echo and with some of the other early childhood systems building work is the one and done um training on how do you do an ASQ is not sufficient to get the child care center comfortable. They need that ongoing practice. They need that ongoing conversation. And there's a few um groups through the early

075childhood systems building that is trying very trying different ways to provide that additional support to um to the child care centers. Okay, great. And then my other question or comment I guess is maybe about the next slide where we talk about job or maybe it's one or two where it's the job demands versus >> stress and it just what worries me a little bit is you know last session HB6 passed that now allows uh schools to uh suspend the young um you know prek through third grade through second grade kids or through third grade kids for kind of repeated challenging behaviors, some of which may be, you know, developmentally, you know, natural or having to do with the classroom environment. And so it worries me a little bit with prek here where like the job

076demands are higher, the job control is less. Like that seems like an environment that might lead to more suspension because >> they're not it's it's a difficult environment to work in and manage a classroom of uh you know 17 kids or you know whatever it may be. So that I think you know looking at those data combined with like the benefits of consultants and I don't know whether prek classrooms were using those as much as child care but it does it's something we're going to need to watch out for is like do does prek suspension go up especially for that category of like you know >> repeated uh disruption which just could be kind of you know annoying as opposed to unsafe >> um potentially harmful activities and um and then see what maybe interventions

077might be helping certain classrooms. You know, hopefully school districts will be able to share some information about what they're doing in response to give preK teachers more support [snorts] because clearly being stressed out and having a lot of demands is not ideal when you're have a classroom with little kids. >> Yeah. And that is something that makes prek different than all three of the other sectors is prek is kind of its own enclosed environment. So the work that they're doing with other communities all go through their district or all go through their principal or there's a few that have a relationship with family support ser the family support services in their area. But the prek classroom is going to be governed by by district policy. >> Yeah. >> So it is it it is I

078do look at it too with the same the same thought. It's it's harder to bring these sectors together to benefit prek because of the way um a lot of preks are set up. >> Yeah. I'm hopeful. I've seen some examples where people are trying um so I'm I'm hopeful that they >> they expand out. [laughter] >> And I one last question for you on the family survey. Are you including families of kids with disabilities who are in the who are in the pre-K years as opposed to in the zero to three? >> Uh the family survey is zero to six. So they just need to have one child who's zero to six. >> Okay, great. Mhm. >> Any other questions for Dr. Mandel? >> What so we the time when we would get a presentation

079on the results would be next meeting or more maybe two meetings. I guess we'll figure that out. >> We'll figure that out with Kathy A and Megan and Kathy D. [laughter] >> Wonderful. Thank you so much. >> Thanks for sharing your slides, too. >> Yeah. >> All right. Um let's see we will go to Megan for an upper operating procedures update. >> Sure. So this was one of the other documents. It was a word document that was included in your meeting materials and um we are supposed to review our operating procedures as a council annually. Um so Reagan as the chair um took a look at those and there's two um changes, two types of changes you'll see throughout. The first is really minor. It's just taking out um some specifics about whether the minutes

080have the chair's signature. Um we have not been having Reagan sign the minutes directly, so we realized that was just a mismatch and active active um procedures versus what's written in the operating procedures. So you see that um removed and then throughout where you see Texas Education Agency and the child care or sorry and the early childhood education division um as being the facilitator of the meetings and the communicator and the keeper of the minutes that is actually shifting to Texas Workforce Commission. So you'll just see that text replaced um from TEA to uh Texas Workforce Commission Childcare and Early Learning Division. And I know Reagan was going to give that update but she wasn't able to make it. So giving it on her behalf. >> Thank you. We appreciate you, Megan. >> Any questions

081about those? Okay. >> We do need to do a move to approve the new um operating procedures if folks are okay with it. So if you um >> Stephanie, if you want to refer to the beginning where we have the the script about how to how to run that motion process. Okay. So, let's go back. I think we'll have to do a roll call, right? But first, we need somebody to um uh sort of ask for approval or recommend approval of the operation. >> Make a motion. I Stephie, this is Kim. I will make >> That's the word you're looking for. It's It's late where you are. Um [laughter] um uh this is Kim Coffin. I will move to accept the additions and changes to the operating uh procedures. >> Is there a second? Thank

082you, Kim. >> Marisella Nava, I second the motion. >> Thank you, Marisella. >> All right. And I'll do a quick run through. Um so when I call your name, just say uh for against or abstain. Shuty RS Mendes. >> Four. >> Second. Sorry. Welden Beard, April Crawford, four. Um, Alma Giles, Becky Huskiller, >> Kim Coffin, >> four, >> Beatatric Mata, Reagan Miller, >> Marcela Nava, >> four, >> Stephanie Rubin, four, >> Amber Scandlin, four, >> Kirsten Schwab, Jennifer Stockr >> and Megan Young >> four. >> All right. The move to approve the revised um operating procedures of the Texas Learning Council has carried. So you'll see those posted um to the website to replace the previous version. >> Thank you. Thanks everyone. So our next agenda item is legislative updates and um we are going

083to start with Michelle Daniel project manager quad agency commission and Allison Wilson uh childcare and early learning deputy director um at TWWC. >> Okay. So >> um Michelle's actually gonna go Yeah, Michelle's gonna go last because she's got another slide after this with a little more detail. So I'll get us started. Um, so a couple of things um that I was going to update on. First is Senate Bill 462, which was just passed this last session. This was the the bill that um has TWWC prioritizing the children of childare workers who are on our waiting list. So we have um fasttracked the administrative rule changes needed to implement this. Um those rules were already the proposed rules already went out. The public comment period ended. We actually did not receive any comments which is really

084unusual for childcare rule changes. Um but those are scheduled to go before our commission the final rules for approval on November 12th. and we are concurrently making changes to our um systems in order to collect the data needed to implement this and uh we [clears throat] are expecting all of this to be in place by um the first week of January possibly sooner um but that's um that's sort of our our drop dead is um January 5th um also wanted to noted that note that boards have begun to >> [clears throat] >> um outreach their providers to collect data on any parents who are childcare workers that are already on the waiting list because we're going to have to have a process to to update their data um for those that are already on there.

085Um so that's where we are with that. Let me pause there and see if anyone has any questions on that. >> Allison, I was just going to say no comments doesn't mean that we didn't review it. It was just pretty cut and dry. So >> yeah. Yeah. [laughter] Yeah. It's pretty pretty straightforward. >> It was pretty straightforward. >> Thank you. >> Yeah. >> Okay. The next item is an update on the um the 100 million in tanniff that the state legislature appropriated to um TWWC's childcare services program for the 2627 bianium. So that's 50 million um each year. So, just wanted to make sure everyone kind of knew where we were with this. I I know that there's been some disappointment after seeing our um our performance targets that were released for fiscal year 26

086and seeing that um we are not increasing the number of children that we're targeting to serve this year. And there are two primary reasons for that. So this money is all folded in to the the allocations that 50 million is included in what the boards are getting. Um but we saw with um this most recent market rate survey a really really significant increase in market rates. And so that in turn drives up um our payment rates to providers because we do benchmark our base rates to the 75th percentile of the market rate and that went up um statewide by about 9%. Um we've not ever seen an increase that that large before. Um and so it exceeded what our predictions had been. Um and yeah, care is more expensive. Um, the other thing that is

087driving up our our average cost is the continued implementation of House Bill 2607 from a couple sessions ago. And that's, you know, the requirement that all chucker services providers participate in Texas Rising Star. As we have more providers um become certified, there are more qualifying for those enhanced rates. So, um, again, the market rate was the the biggest driving factor. that's probably about we estimated that that's like 80% of the driver and then the other 20% is being driven by the increase in Texas Rising Star participation. So the good news is that because of this additional 100 million we are not having to reduce the number of children that we would be serving and without this we definitely would have had to drop our target. So, um, let me pause there and see if you

088have any questions on that. >> Thank you for sharing that, Allison. I mean, the obviously the market rate relates to the cost of care, right? So, I'm glad that with this additional funding that um, TWWC can help providers keep up with that >> to serve families. Of course, we did hope that we'd be able to serve more families, but maintaining enrollment is better than fewer families having access. And I I do think, you know, the discussion during session was about addressing the weight list and serving families. So, I do, you know, it'll be um something we'll have to kind of talk about. The importance of the funding nonetheless, but that that is still a uh a big challenge is that um I don't know what the weight list number is this month, but I assume

089it's it's probably still very high and we do need to figure out how to support, you know, more eligible families in getting the scholarship. >> Thank you for sharing that, >> Stephanie. I'll just add to that. Um, I've been doing our checklist tour this month. Um, um, and uh, we talk about the 100 million and so I'm, you know, they're they're definitely asking where's the extra money for the extra kids? Um, and trying to explain the whole situation. Um, so, um, so the field is definitely feeling the need for additional dollars. So, I think that just reminding us that we can't keep our foot off, don't take the foot off the gas and continue to to educate our elected officials of the importance of this this what what these dollars did um and the need

090for continued u moving forward. So, thank you Allison for the clarification. >> Yeah, of course. Okay. Well, with that, I think I'm passing it over to Monica. >> Thank you, Monica. Great. Thank you. Um so to provide a little bit of an update on um House Bill 3963. As I'm sure um everyone is aware, this work um was well over underway before the legislation passed. So to date uh TEA it has been working with TWWC and HHSC to um develop a minimum viable product for the early childhood integrated data system. The goal is to have that done by December of 2025 and that is work that we have engaged in um with support from uh PDG funding. So, one of our uh primary tasks following House Bill 3963 passage um was to identify funding. So,

091we got the legislation that um codifies this particular project uh but it was not funded by the legislature. So we have been hard at work um with the support of TWWC to uh secure funding to ensure that we are able to continue the work that we have started beyond uh December of this year. And um I think we've made good progress. Um we have we haven't um got everything completely solidified yet, but we um are expecting that we will be able to continue the work into 2026. Uh some of the steps that have been taken um in recent months include the establishment of a steering committee, a data work group and a legal work group to identify um or excuse me to address the logistics of data sharing um memorandum of understanding all of those

092legal pieces that we need to have in place to ensure that we can move forward with the system. Um and we are um hopeful that we will have more details to share in the coming months and certainly um are happy to provide um a deeper dive on progress at a future meeting. >> Thank you Monica. I know the funding has been a challenge. So we appreciate your work in it whether that's from public or you know private funds or a combination and so thank you because that's uh that's important. Yep. Definitely want to um to keep the momentum going. We would hate to see um a pause in that. So um I think I think we're we're going to be in pretty good shape to be able to continue um in 2026. >> Excellent. Thank

093you. Michelle. >> Hi everybody. Michelle Daniel um with uh TWWC's childcare and early learning division. Um some of you may recognize me from childcare regulation previously. Um but I am back and super excited to be a part of this initiative. Um so quick overview of the legislation. Um basically it requires the the creation of this commission uh the quad agency childcare initiative commission that has representatives from all four state agencies that um have a hand in childare um and early learning. So, we're talking about childcare regulation at HHSC, um TEA and their their preK work, um TWWC's, childcare and early learning division and DFPS and their childcare investigations um division. So, um we are moving along. I have officially as of today gotten my list of who is going to be participating for um each

094of the agencies. So um uh we are going to have uh for HHSC childcare regulation it's going to be Jordan Dixon who is the uh chief policy and regulatory officer over um over there. Um for TEA we have Mike McGrath um who Mike Morath, sorry I said that wrong. Um who's going to be um the the representative for TEA. Um on our end um our chairman Esparza will be representing TWWC and um on DFPS. Is that Michelle frozen? Okay. Um while while we're waiting for her to come back, um Monica, can I ask you a question I forgot to ask about Sure. >> Um the governor's task force, I don't know if that's TWWC question or or yours about the status of that and also the um HB2310, the strategic plan. Um if there's if

095there's any update you have on either of those, you can share. >> Uh sure. So, um, House Bill 117, the governor's task force, is something that, um, my department will be, um, coordinating. We don't have any updates as of yet. Um, we have begun, um, initial conversations, but we're really focused on on trying to secure um, the funding for House Bill 3963 first. Um, so I would expect that we will have updates to share um by your next meeting um once once we're able to get that going. Um the second bill is actually not one that is um falls under the responsibility of my department. So I don't have any updates to share on that one. U apologies for that. >> Okay, great. Thank you. and and and next time um when if there's an

096update on the task force um how you all are thinking about the role of the telk of the early learning council in that I know there's uh spots for some membership uh but also just you know how the work can go in tandem or be in alignment or you know how how we can all be helpful and supportive. Thank you. >> Absolutely. And and I um I neglected to um introduce myself for those who don't know me. I'm the assist associate commissioner for standards and programs here at TEA. Um have engaged um with this group uh periodically over the years, but it's been a little while. Um, so I will um in the coming um months be more involved as we work to implement some of this legislation and and definitely want to make sure

097that we are um not only keeping this group up to date, but that we are uh appropriately engaging um with um the council um as we move forward. So um we're looking forward to to all of those pieces. >> Great. And Michelle is back. So want continue. We we lost you somewhere in the uh talking a little bit about the quad agency. So go back as far as you want. >> Um I don't know where I was at, but um we are working on finalizing um we should have some official announcements about the finalization of who the folks are for each of the agencies. Okay. Um we have our web page um that um should be up and running we're hoping next week um that will sort of outline the work of the group um

098and and looking at um uh rules, policies, uh regulations, any other participating agency activities that may have an impact on child care. um that's availability and affordability and and and all of those things and how these agencies can work together. Um so still a lot to work out um but we anticipate having our first meeting um sometime early next month. Um and um we'll be sending out notice as soon as that's all official and and it is open for the public and public comments and recorded and all of that good stuff. So um uh it will be in person but but we'll have um availability to um be live streamed. So um yeah um a lot to come. Um any questions you guys might have? >> Any questions for Michelle or Monica or from Allison?

099I mean it's a this is a very um opportune period of time, right? because we have the quad agency childcare initiative which will um have representatives but also stakeholder engagement opportunities I assume the government the the governor's task force on early learning it's going to be another opportunity for discussion about governance and uh supporting both systems uh prek and childare in particular and um you know e the continuation of eids is really exciting and and then the strate strategic plan um that Monica wasn't talking about, you know, didn't uh have an update on per se, but um that these are all going to be great opportunities for communities, providers, parents, etc. to get involved in. And I think um at least one good opportunity for the council is to be able to share those uh

100timelines and opportunities for input. So maybe we can figure out how to help play that role. or you know forward information or each of us as council members can kind of put that on our list of things to try to do is either participate or you know share information through our networks of how to engage in those opportunities. >> Yeah. And we did add a new um on this this web page, we do reference a new distribution list or or um gov delivery um that people can sign up for specifically for the quad agency. Um so that people will know about upcoming meetings and um anything that that are under active review once we kind of get a little bit further into the meat of the the the work. Um, we anticipate the first meeting

101will be more about introductions, you know, understanding, general processes of how the group is going to move forward. Um, but super excited. So, >> great. >> Thank you. >> Any other legislative updates folks want to share that we didn't get to today? >> I just asked R uh Relle, what are the four you what are the four agencies? So you said the TEA, TWWC, DP, FF, DFPS, and what's the other one? >> It's HHSC, childcare regulation. >> Yeah. Okay. Thank you. >> Of course. >> Any other questions? >> Uh, excuse me. Uh, Miss Michelle, who is the, uh, representative with DFPS? I think we left off with Esparsa being for TWWC. And who's representing on the DFPS side? >> Um, okay. Hold on. I think I think I may need to draw back on on

102that until there's an official announcement. >> I may have overstepped um on on sharing uh these specific dates. Um so, not >> we're is we're all good. We know him. Um I think in the next day or two I should be able to give the formal announcement of Fantastic. >> Who the other representatives are? >> Okay, that'll work. Thank you. >> Any other questions or other update legislative updates in particular to share? All right. Um, let's move. Thank Thanks you all for the for being here and for sharing. Um, we look forward to hearing about the initiatives and the task forces and the strategic plans. And we appreciate as uh executive staff all the work that you all are putting into creating those and funding them and uh your time in particular. Um the next

103agenda item, if we're finished with this one, is um updates from council members. Uh first we will hear from um Kathy uh at uh Kathy Arwood. So please share your update with us. >> Hi, good afternoon. Yes, Kathy Arwood with Texas Workforce Commission Child Care and Early Learning. So um we are excited to announce that we're now accepting employer interest forms for the employer child care solutions or we call it ECCS opportunity. So um this is for employers interested in offering child care for their employees that is at the workplace or nearby. And with ECCS, employers of all sizes have access to free technical assistance to help them learn about their employees child care needs, consider options um for standing um up an employer supported child care program and um also working with childcare providers

104to offer sitebased child care. uh uh employers would complete an interest form to connect with a TA provider. Currently, we have one provider, but we are seeking additional providers so that we can make sure employers have a selection um and are able to choose the the technical assistance provider that will best meet their needs. Our second request for proposals closed earlier this month, so we'll be in that selection process soon, but we do currently have one that um so employers can go ahead and get started if they're interested. But um the technical assistance that we offer through this opportunity includes an employee needs assessment um an employee feasibility study and cost analysis study and then an options analysis and recommendations um so that employers can choose you know what works best for them and um

105what they what makes sense for them based on um their employees need and um So then if the employer does decide to move forward with sitebased child care, then the TA provider can develop a site selection report and a business plan to help them get started. So this opportunity um does not include any funding for employers to develop sitebased program. Um it's really responding to what we've heard about um or we've heard from employers and and then also about employers that they are interested in doing something interested in getting involved and supporting their child care uh the childcare needs of their staff but they don't know where to start. We've heard that a lot like yes we know we need to do something but we don't know where to start. said this is an opportunity

106for them to um get a start on that and see what makes sense for them and um and it will not cost them anything to get this service. So um TA is going to be provided on a first come first serve basis and then um you can learn more at our website which I will um post in the chat and then I'm happy to answer any questions you might have. So Kathy, it sounds like um potentially there's a deep amount of support there if if somebody if a and if an employer wanted all those things, that sounds like really a lot of support. What what is um funding the technical assistance? Is that out of um TWWC current funds or what's supporting that? Yes, this is out of our um the funds that that we

107have to support quality um >> the C CCDF. >> Okay. do and I'm I'm not clicking on the link right now, but will there be um options analysis and recommendations and feasibility and cost analysis type resources that are just added to the website that are a little bit more general that someone could look at or do you only get those through getting direct technical assistance? >> So, it's very specific for each employer and it might look different for each employer. uh um so and you know some employers may be based out of another state but h but this would support employees in Texas for instance. So so it could be very different um and then based on um the size of the employer the recommendation might be to partner with existing child care in their

108area. Um or it it might be, you know, an opportunity for them to open a sitebased or a near-based. They may it may be a group of employers that come together to um like say in an industrial park, right? Where employers might come together um to support child care needs and they may open something that's nearby in the industrial park. That's just one example that we've seen. um not not that we've seen in apply but that we've seen um you know um operating. So um there's lot it it's just going to be different for everyone. So nothing's going to be posted. We do have more information on the website about what those different reports would entail, but um but yeah, each employer will will receive their own. >> Okay. Kathy, do you know how many

109employers you're anticipating, you know, this the funds that you have available to be allowed for TA? >> So, um that will depend on the number of providers, what their capacity is. Um at the moment, um we're expecting around 100. Uh um but you know as we get additional providers that um that are available that um would would increase >> and by providers you're meaning the TA providers. >> Yeah. Right. The TA providers. >> And I I saw on the u I saw your email earlier this week and was digging into it. So I saw that the current TA provider is a childare company. Will there be is will all the TA providers be other childcare companies or will they be open to other entities? I'm curious what that people will eventually be. >> It's absolutely

110open to other types of organizations as well that are qualified to provide this type of service. But um so we have a published request for proposals that goes into the details of what the requirements are. Um but yes, it's not just child care providers. That's why we want to offer a selection, right? Some employers may not want to work directly with someone that they know is going to >> offer other services that you know not going to pay for. Uh um but that's why we're very clear like this is what we're paying for. the employer may choose to move on with with that child care provider or they might take that information and choose to to do run something on their own or to partner with with another childare provider. So that's completely open. Um

111we're not that's one reason we want a variety too, right? We don't want to endorse any particular group, but we want to make sure that employers needs are served. >> Sure. Great. Thank you. And are there you said first come first serve but are there um minimum requirements for uh employers for the employer technical assistance? >> Um not really. So um as long they it could be like I said an employer of any size. the the main requirement is that they have an employee or or employees in Texas and those are the employees that we would be serving. >> Interesting. Okay. Thank you. Well, maybe we can get an update at a later meeting about um how many uh employers have expressed interest or are active as that would be. >> Yeah, we're really excited

112about it. So, um, I look forward to being able to provide some updates. >> Okay. Thank you. Any other questions for Kathy on this? >> I do have a question for Kathy. Um, I'm Jennifer Sockr. I own Ivy Vine Preschool and for the telk I represent childcare owners. And so when you mentioned after they do this assessment to determine what the best course of action for that employer would be and you said it might be partner with a child care in existence nearby or something like that. Is there a process or recommendation or something that would direct them to child care providers that have agreed to maybe work with employers to do discounts or subsidy funding through the employer or anything like that? Um, good question. So, there's not, we don't have anything prescribed in

113this particular opportunity on um, what that would look like. That's really going to be about the landscape. So, part of what they'll do in an analysis is look at the landscape of the child care providers that are out there, looking at the um, the needs of the employees based on the needs assessment and just identify does that make the most sense? And they'll also provide options. And you know, the options analysis would include, you know, what it would look like to try to offer something on their own versus maybe what it looks like to partner with another child care provider. Uh um and so it will really be between it'll really be up to that employer what actions they take. So the the organization may provide some recommendations but the um the actions that they

114decide to take would be up to them. Um I will say while this doesn't have any funding for that um you may have seen that we have already um published a request for applications for another expansion opportunity. This is our child care expansion um initiative startup opportunity for brand new facilities. Uh um and that would provide funding for startups that um would be for for nearsight or on-site um employer supported child care or in a childare. So, while while that's going to take a while before before it's actually implemented, that funding would be available that might help that provider um or help that employer work with a provider in the future. >> Thank you. >> You're welcome. >> So, Kathy, this is um you mentioned this CCDF quality money, right? Is that >> correct? >>

115Okay. So just to I mean we don't know whether these will be child care centers as employers or child care as employers who will apply or you know um you know big companies who serve lots of um well- paid employees but this is they're not necessarily serving families who are in the subsidy program or um you know serving employees who relate to the eligibility of of TWWC subsidy, right? It's it's just broadly about promoting child care access. Does that make sense? >> Right. Childcare access and this yeah this is a supply building opportunity. So that's what we're working >> okay >> on with this at the supply building. And you know I >> like I said if you you know look through the the large RFP that that discusses all the details um that's one

116of the considerations is you know if they open something how would child care subsidy factor in. >> Okay great thank you. All right. Any other questions for Kathy? Okay, we'll move on to Megan from ECI. Thanks, Kathy. Hello. Trying to turn my video back on. Here I am. Hi. Thanks, Stephanie. All right. So um we have shared this update via email and I just wanted to take the opportunity to share with this group as well um that in September we implemented some changes to ECI service areas in some parts of the state. So this slide has information on where different parts of the states are going to be served or are now being served by some existing ECI programs that expanded their service areas as a result of the request for applications that we completed

117earlier this year. Um the transitions did occur with minimal impact to staff and to families and with few instances of service disruption. Um as with other areas around the state, staffing has been an issue for some of the programs that expanded their service areas. But to address lack of staff or um any um delays in filling new vacancies, they're contracting with therapists when needed and um using teleaalth when appropriate to ensure service delivery. the state office and our team continues to work really closely with all of these programs to ensure smooth transitions for children, families, referral sources, and community partners. All of these um service area changes are reflected on our website which is linked on this slide. There's a short URL there. Um so we appreciate any support this group can give in sharing

118this information further with other uh referral sources or other stakeholders. And I'm happy to answer questions. Um, Megan, how many ECI providers are there now statewide? >> 39. Okay. >> Uh, Megan, did you um because I'm our area is affected with being in Houston with the Galveastston County one that was Spindle Top and now it's Bay Area Rehab from out of Baytown, right? And so what [snorts] are the two you said 77586 and 77598? Are they the two in Harris County that you said that there's two zip codes in Harris County? Uh, and what area? Do you know what area those are? >> Yeah, they're on the southern edge of Harris County. Um, over uh on the border with Galveistston County >> because we're down there. 77062 is where I am at 58 and all

119that. So, okay, I'll look it up >> because that affects our people where I live. So, thank you. Yeah, >> Megan, I um you may not have an answer to this question, but it's just been in the news recently about staffing at um the Office of Special Education and uh what's happening there, which and I know those are folks that provide TA and also, you know, performance accountability and work closely with you. Um some some of these uh staffing changes might be temporary, some might not be, but um is that something that you're seeing an impact on ECI or or is that something later, you know, if there are impacts to the changes in federal staffing around part C, if that's something you could share later at another meeting? >> Um yeah, we have not

120gotten any official communication from Department of Ed, Office of Special Education Program around any staffing changes. Um we have continued um you know with the federal government shutdown we're still able to draw down our part C funding. We're still operating as usual at state office and a lot of the technical assistance we get is also um through grants from OEP to other organizations um institutions of higher education and think takes and stuff that provide technical assistance and all of those technical assistance centers are still up and running so we do have that resource for support. >> Okay, great. Thank you. Any other questions for Megan? Megan, um, are you all you're all involved in involved in Eids too, right? >> Yes. >> Okay. Thank you. Any other questions for Megan and ECI? Thank you. Okay.

121Um, any other updates to share on um from council members? This is the time to do so. could be events, could be new resources, could be meetings you're having, could be um updates on work that's applicable to others on the council. >> Stephanie, I'll share an update um from PN3. Um we have an up uh our quarterly open meeting coming up in um November 18th. So, I'm dropping the link in the chat now. It is open to everybody. Um that's uh PN3 is our partnership with uh children at risk text protects and text care for children focused on that the our zero to uh zero to three infants and toddlers. So um we will be talking doing legis uh not legislative well kind of we'll be doing agency updates is what I was going to

122start to say and then also be talking about sunset commission the um and with the task force and the quad agency all the things happening and giving everybody an update on where where things sit and how to get involved and and so forth. So, um, we look forward to seeing everybody there. >> And I want to provide one update for DSHS. Um, as you guys think at the last meeting, we had talked about the Texas Developmental Screening and Surveillance Echo series. So, DSHS partnering with UT Health San Antonio for that series. We have two more left within the year. The next one is November 14th. Um, then we also have one on December 12th. I'll pop the link into the chat. The one on the 14th is for practical strategies for ASQ follow-up and individualized

123support. Um the series itself, I guess, is on the 14th from 1 to two and it's just a really great opportunity to learn more about developmental screening. I'll put that into the chat. >> Great. April Crawford. I'll just I dropped a a link in the chat to uh kind of a first release of findings from a TWWC funded study that TechPeds conducted uh where we um surveyed over 2,300 respondents and did interviews with 200 of those respondents looking across all of the career like occupational categories and roles that are part of the power to the profession framework. uh and this is kind of the foundational work that we're doing as part of a profile analysis that people will be be people will be able to come to techs and explore different careers and kind of

124relates to what we talked about at the beginning of the meeting. So this this data is kind of the beginning of starting to profile more exhaustively all of the career opportunities in this field. >> Wonderful. I have a couple of um updates too. I'll put some things in the chat. The first one is um we're hosting a webinar about early learning governance um featuring one of the national experts on the topic um Elliot Regenstein. So, let me see if I can and it's um open for registration. So, once I figure out uh the link, I will put that in there. The other is um David Fagan on our team has in the process of finalizing a kind of summary uh of course we heard about it from Allison uh about the TWWC funding uh the

125hundred million and um what uh happened the session and how that's being spent and we appreciate uh all the information that we've gotten from TWWC to to confirm what's happened and so that will be out very soon. Um, so I just want to give a promo to that. Um, is there anything else that people want to share? Things coming up. All right, wait for one more second. I know you all have exciting things happening. April, are you going to put it in the you're have you put it in the chat because it didn't show up. >> Okay, there we go. >> Thank you. Let's see that work. Here it is. Thanks. >> All right, so let's see where we are. Um we have um upcoming early childhood events. So that's great. Developmental screening and surveillance.

126We had the webinar from Texans Care. Great. Okay. Um anything else? There's additional events. You can obviously add them to the chat or send them to Megan um for all of us. And um I think our next agenda item is our upcoming meeting dates. All right. So, if you have suggested um agenda items for any of those, we talked about some today that were sort of po postponed, including hearing from Kristen um and some other updates around the early um the governor's task force on early learning and all the work that the agency and our community partners are doing. We can add those to the agenda. So, just please let us know. Thank you for the timeline on those. These are proposed dates. So, okay. Do we have to uh take a vote on these,

127Megan? >> No, more just a chance if there's anything that you know there's some big conference happening at this exact time that everyone's going to be at or anything like that. >> Megan, did we Megan, did we look at April when Easter is? I haven't. >> Just that make sure that's not it. April 17th isn't the holiday. I think Easter's early this year is >> I think it might be. >> I don't know. I don't have my calendar. >> Just as a reminder, these are Megan, these are 11 to or what time are each of these regularly. >> Yeah. Unless folks want to propose a different cadence. Um, we've we do 11:00 a.m. to 100 p.m. >> Is that still >> Easter is it covers lunch? Easter is uh the weekend before. So we are

128are two weekends before. So it's April 5th. We're good. >> All right. Um any um oh 11 to one our meetings. Thank you. Just we can get those on our calendars then. Um let's see. Our next meeting is January 30th, 2026. So my challenge to you is let's get some um good public comment. So, let's see if uh some other folks can share what's happening with their programs or families or um others doing really interesting innovative programs. That might be a good uh challenge for each of us to work on that before the next meeting. Um anything else, Megan? Anything else uh before we adjourn? I can call it right be Hey, you got two minutes back. So, um thank you everyone for joining today. We appreciate you and um we will now adjourn the

129meeting. Um and we appreciate um everybody have a good weekend, rest of your day and weekend. Byebye. >> Thanks, Stephanie. >> Bye. Thank you.