Texas Early Learning Council Meeting (April 2025)

001All right, good morning everyone. It is 11:00 a.m. Um, and the Texas Early Learning Council is called to order. I'm Reagan Miller. I'm the chair of the Texas Early Learning Council and also the director of the Childcare and Early Learning Division at the Texas Workforce Commission. So, welcome to members and guests. Um, as we as we always do, we're producing this as a Zoom webinar. Council members, presenters, and agency staff are participating as panelists while members of the public are able to participate in a listenonly mode. Um, so as a reminder um to to members, presenters, and staff, please keep your electronic devices on mute when you're not speaking. Megan will also mute as needed. Uh Megan is the inter agency deputy director of early childhood support and she's serving as today's meeting facilitator. Please

002try to remember to state your name each time before you speak for the record. Um, and I want to remind everyone that the public had an opportunity to submit public comment. Um, that closed yesterday at 5:00. Uh, if that was for written public comment, members of the public are still able to request to provide oral public comment at today's meeting by emailing the request to Megan Schneider. and Megan is going to drop those instructions into the chat. All right, so um the next slide we have our agenda for today. Perfect. Um and so we're going to move on to our approval of the January 2025 U meeting minutes. Members, you received a copy of the meeting minutes in an email and I want to see if any of the members have any edits or changes

003to those draft meeting minutes. Becky, I was there and I'm not listed on the attendance sheet. Thank you. I was also there. Marisella Nava was also in attendance. And just sorry, a quick clarification. We are perfectly happy to revise those. I think when folks um join a little bit late and aren't there at the beginning when we call roll um and do the move the minute approval and that's why you might not show up. Thanks for explanation. Yeah, thanks for that explanation, Megan. So members, um, always look at the meeting minutes if you're late to the meeting to confirm that your attendance is reflected. Okay. With those amendments, is there a motion to approve the January 2025 meeting minutes as amended? This is Kim Coffin. So moved. Thank you. Do we have a second? This

004is Jennifer. Stock. I will second. Okay. Thank you, Jennifer. Um, and with that, uh, pending any discussion, I don't believe we have any, I'm gonna ask Megan to conduct a roll call vote and approval of the minutes. All right. Hello, members. So, when I call your name, please reply for, against, or abstain. And this vote will also serve as the roll call for this meeting. And as a reminder, even if you weren't present last um at the last meeting, you don't have to abstain. Um you can still say four to approve the minutes if you'd like to. All right, so four against or abstain. Um Sarah Abrahams, four. Truthy RS Mendes, four. Weldon Beard, four. Harry Breeden, April Crawford. Thought I saw April join. She is here. She's on mute. I'll come back around to

005you, April. Um, sorry. Okay, great. Alma Giles, Melissa Hoyington, Becky Huscular, four, Kim Coffrin, four. Oie Lee, four. Batric Mata, four. Reagan Miller, four. Marisella Nava, four. Stephanie Rubin, Amber Sconland, Kirsten Schwab, Jennifer Stockmer, or Megan Young or All right, great. Um, the motion to approve the January 2025 meeting minutes um as amended has carried and we also met a forum and I will pass it back to you Reagan only for me to pass it back to you because you are going to facilitate our next agenda item which is public comment. All right. So, as a reminder, um we are always um happy to have folks commenting publicly. Um we did not receive any registrations for public comment this month. Um but we always post the agenda on earlytex.org in our meetings section. Um and

006speakers can have three minutes to to speak. So, I don't see anything that came in this morning by email either. So, I'll um pass it back to you, Reagan. Okay. Thank you. All right. So, uh, moving on to our next agenda item, it's, uh, the Texas Early Learning Strategic Plan. So, as a reminder, as part of our most recent preschool development grant, PDG grant, um, we did update the early learning strategic plan and we are sharing progress updates at each of our council meetings. Um so the strategic plan is divided into four goals and today we need to go to the next slide. Today we're going to hear updates on actions related to goal one family access navigation and engagement and on goal two workforce recruitment retention and support. Um, so on goal one, family

007access navigation and engagement, we're going to be looking at strategy 1.1, streamline intake and administrative systems for parents and providers to make it easier for families to navigate early learning programs and services. And then action 1.1 is simplifying the application practices by launching a common eligibility screener. Um, and I think Kathy Arwood is going to give an update on our progress on this action item. Yes. So, if you want to go to the next screen or the next slide. Uh, um, so we are excited to talk about our eligibility screener. Um, as some of you may know, this is a project that's funded by the preschool development grant birth through five. And um it's a joint project. So Texas Workforce Commission, Texas Education Agency and um the Texas Head Start State Collaboration Office are working

008together with a vendor to develop an eligibility screener. And this tool will assist parents in understanding if they're eligible for child care scholarships, public prek, and or um Head Start or Early Head Start. So they could be eligible for for all three. It will then give them um next steps to take. So link to an application or to um additional information about how to find their um you know a Head Start uh center near them or their school district. Um and so for now we're in the development phase and um we have conducted two focus groups. We've got two more to um conduct next week, excuse me. So, we're work we're going to conduct focus groups with parents. Um yes, or two days ago, I think we um conducted one with child care providers and

009that included center and homebased providers. Um we have one upcoming for parents and child care providers that are Spanish speakers. And we are also or we actually already met with um some eligibility specialists from all three programs. So, Head Start grantees, I think there was someone from an ESC um educational service center and um an ISD um as well as from the local workforce boards that um administer childcare services. So, um, we're really excited to get this pro, uh, project going and it is scheduled to launch this summer on early childhood.ex.gov, which is our familyf facing site that, um, encompasses a lot of different um, state and local programs. That's it. Happy to take any questions if you have any. Reagan, you're on mute. Thank you, Kathy. So, members, any thoughts, comments, or questions as

010we're working on developing this new eligibility screener? All right. The general question I have is do do you think it's I mean, are you seeing already that it's really going to help reduce like asking families for duplicate information and kind of better aligning how each agency collects information? So, I think April, I don't think we're there yet. I think what we're looking at is something that's really going to help families figure out what programs they're eligible for so that they can go in, put in some information. It's going to tell them, it looks like you're probably eligible for this. Then they have to click on that which takes them to the application for that specific project. In order for us to develop like an integrated application system, um we would have to link to every

011program's eligibility system. Um so TWWC has one eligibility system. So you would link to ours, but if you had to link to Head Start, obviously you have multiple programs and same with preK. So, this is sort of step one um in that in trying to help families really understand what they're eligible for. Okay, got it. Stephanie, uh I was going to build on that a little bit. Um and get a sense from you about how you were thinking of tracking the impact of it. Is it um I mean you'll know how many clicks come in there, but how will you kind of know whether this ends up helping parents get to a program? I guess is is you know is there some evaluation built in? And then even though you can't um you might not

012be steering them towards the application process for anything, is there a thought in the future about connecting it with whether it's, you know, adding in something about ECI, adding in something about Medicaid, adding in something about SNAP, um whether that there's some like future potential there in a cross-system way. Yeah, I mean I I certainly think there's future potential. we had to start with something. So, you know, we've started here. Um, but yeah, I certainly think we have opportunities to determine how this how this can grow. And and you're right, we can track clickthroughs. Obviously, we can see um you can always look at like the average length of time that people spend on a page so that you know if they're if they're spending a little bit of time, they're likely filling out, you

013know, the information for the eligibility screener. Then you can track, you know, clickthroughs to see did they follow those recommendations. Jennifer, I was curious how the participants were recruited for the four focus groups. Kathy, is that something you can address? Sure. Yes. So, um, for the child care providers and, um, parents, we had, um, well, actually there was a a couple of different ways for childcare providers. We, um, did a survey in I think it was February 2024, and part of that survey, we asked if people would be interested in participating in focus groups or um, providing more information. So, We just took a sample of um those from various regions and reached out and just kept reaching out until we got enough u folks that that agreed to participate. Um and then we used

014um you know we received some parent names that way as well. We also reached out to um the um Texas Head Start state collaboration office and um TEA to help provide some additional names. And I believe we also reached out to um ECI and um some of the parents on their advisory council um participated as well. So just kind of did a cross agency um group like we were trying to recruit at least 12 from um each category and um I think our groups have been a little bit smaller than that with who actually showed up but um that that's kind of our methodology for recruiting. Right. Thank you Becky. Yeah. I couldn't find out where to put the where the little hand thing is on my end. I saw your hand. Yeah. Good. Okay.

015Thanks. U my question would be how are you now it's going to launch, but how do people know about this because there's a lot of these are a lot of different entities and this is wonderful. I mean it's great but how does the parent in the field or the general parent know about about this? I mean, you know, of course, Head Start and you know, I know they're recruiting right now for Head Start from my practicum students are saying that are out there, but how how do parents find out about this? So, we are I I mean, I think it's going to be a multiplestep process, right? So, um with TWWC, we'll be um launching communications. So on um probably social media, we've got um some other resources and then um you know I imagine

016that schools and the um Head Start grantees will also want to promote this. So um we haven't gotten to that step yet in our project where we're really um pushing for that, but um we will be promoting it widely. Yeah. And I think this is a great avenue that members can help as well when when information like this is available. If we can develop um some social media posts, some some onepage collateral that can be shared with parents that all of you interact with. I think we've got some great opportunities to try to help push the word out. Good questions. All right, any other thoughts, comments, questions? All righty. Thank you, Kathy. Um, we are going to now move on to our next update on goal two, workforce recruitment, retention, and support. And we'll be

017looking at strategy 2.2 and 2.4. You'll see there on your screen, um, early learning pathways and early learning professionals. and April Crawford um co-director of the Children's Learning Institute is going to discuss how her team is supporting goal two. I thought I would just because I think we've had some new members join uh and it's been a while since we've talked about TechPads. I just wanted to give just a very brief overview of who Techped serves and kind of what it does before I dive right into the very specific updates. Um so the platform is designed to support really three key user groups. Uh workforce members who we'll focus on a lot in today's update. Um people and organizations that uh offer support or resources to the workforce. And then a third group uh of

018individuals or organizations that want to learn more about the state of the workforce. So today we're really going to focus on career pathways and what we're doing to support workforce members who want to explore and learn more. Um, and the kind of big components of TechPads are the Texas Workforce Registry, uh, the Texas Trainer Registry, a set of core competency resources, uh, linked to specific professional roles, uh, career pathway tools to help you learn more about how to advance in a particular uh, role, and then a certificate generation tool that helps everybody who delivers training in the system to kind of standardize and more efficiently help our workforce get their records into tech pedest um see. Okay. And then this is really just kind of showing for workforce members the kind of big vision is

019to have teched viewed as kind of a career hub. Uh kind of my place I can go to understand the range of jobs that exist in this landscape. uh access professional learning recommendations and learn how to strengthen their competencies. It's where they can find information and resources to help them pursue education or credentiing opportunities and uh ultimately a place to come to connect with other early childhood professionals. Next. Um, so kind of in this careerhub vision, there are really three types of tools and resources for uh, work fest workforce members to access on techs. This kind of first bucket includes resources that educate you about the range of positions in the landscape. Um, it includes information about specific career pathways and have some tools to help you plan uh, for your future. The second bucket

020includes resources and tools that connect users to professional development and educational opportunities, helps them connect with other professionals working in the field, and provides personalized reports and recommendations. Um, and then in the future state, we uh are looking at ways to have it also connect you to information that's available about scholarship opportunities or incentives. And then the third bucket is Techped's uh recognition pathway opportunities. And these are competency based credentials that help workforce members show they have knowledge and skills aligned to specific roles. And the current roles being supported on TechPads are trainer, coach, coaches coming this summer that'll I'll show you in a minute. Uh and early educators. So some most of these components are in some state of already being implemented on tech peds. Others are being designed and rolled out uh this

021year through TWWC supported projects. And then there's you know some things that we already kind of have envisioned for you know even FY27 that would keep kind of expanding this kind of vision of a career hub. Um the next slide. So this is, you know, now this is a very specific strategy linked to that larger vision. Um, so I'll I'll show you more specifically what we're doing to achieve this goal, but the brief update is uh that we've completed the trainer updates that integrate competency recognition into the trainer pathway. And we're kind of in the process of we've published the criteria for educator credentials and a pathway for level one, two, three. And then we're rolling out um the actual recognition supports for level one. Uh and then the coach pathway is being launched in

022the summer. Um 2.2.2 is focused on expanding the range of roles that are included and covered on techs. uh and it's intended to help us to have us provide a deeper level of information about pathways to better guide uh the workforce. So the the brief update on this one is that we're conducting a career pathways and trajectories landscape analysis right now and I'll show you more details about it in a second. Uh and then at the end of that process, we'll publish a report uh laying out everything we've learned and we'll use the findings to create new resources uh and tools uh so we can support the workforce in exploring the diff various roles and pathways that are available to them. So this next set of slides will kind of dive into how we're achieving

023this. So the landscape analysis is happening now where um our goal is to survey 3,000 workforce members. Uh the majority of those are we're targeting individuals working in school-based settings in various roles that are actually working in schools. And then um I think it's about a third of our sample will be um members in other roles that are not uh school-based but are still part of this early childhood landscape. So the you know what you the bullets you see here are kind of the big buckets of role types uh that we'll be doing more uh you know to showcase on techs. So, early childhood educators, pedigog and instructional administrators, business operations, uh, or operations administrators, family, child, and health well-being. Um, and then there's kind of a a final bucket of other roles where there

024aren't as many individuals in the system who are in these roles, but they're still uh, you know, widely recognized roles uh, for early childhood professionals. Uh so the survey is out now. I'm going to share a little bit more about that in a minute, but essentially we're looking we're gathering information from all of these role types around what's kind of their motivation to work in the early childhood field. Uh what have been some of the major transitions they've had in their career? What are some of their aspirations and future roles that they've they've considered? Uh and then we'll collect a lot of you know basic information about their wages, benefits, working hours, you know, their perceptions of you know their satisfaction and state of state of working in that role. Uh and all of that

025will kind of go into some really nice career or job profiles where we'll actually include like some personas uh that help us kind of think about well you know who is attracted to this field and and who who stays in this field and who transitions into more advanced roles across their career span. Um then there's a smaller group of people 200 that we'll gather information from through semi-structured interviews where we'll actually be able to take a much deeper dive into learning about you know what were the kind of barriers to advancement for them in their career. What were the you know kind of key supports if they were able to progress in their career? What are the key supports you know that helped them achieve that? And all of this will come together eventually to

026provide um some nice information for us to put into career adisement materials so people can, you know, sort of accelerate what they what they know about how to advance in the career and hopefully just help people see that this is a really large field with diverse positions in it. Um yeah, so we can go to the next one. So the report we're creating with that phase one data will kind of be organized according we're trying and this is a question for the council that maybe we'll come back to. Um but we use the term pathway a lot but we don't necess we haven't really defined what we mean by pathway. You know pathways could mean all the various roles in the landscape what's kind of depicted in this higher level here. It could mean understanding

027the um education requirements, typical experience, you know, information about income potential associated with specific roles though and you know what does it take to advance in that particular role in the field that could be a pathway. And then there's a more granular level that on techs we refer to as pathways and that other you know sometimes when we talk about a pathway we're actually talking about a recognition or credentiing approach or pathway. So uh with this report we'll create a lot of new interactive content for techs to help people explore careers in early childhood. Um, and I'll kind of walk through how the new pathways and adisement resources we're envisioning target these levels. So at the broader EC career landscape level and this one starts to align nicely with the strategy is um users will

028be able to explore the range of roles in the landscape uh requirements for entry. what are the typical trajectories of people uh who are working in the field uh motivations all those kind of higher level systems kinds of things that drive people that help us with the with thinking through like how would we attract people to this field how do we recruit and uh keep people engaged in the field. Uh the next level, the specific profile level. Uh this is where we really start to dive into the specific activities and information that are part of the TEK strategic priorities we're addressing. So this is like the level where users are going to learn more about typical qualifications uh for a specific role. You know, are they interested in being an educator? Are they interested in

029being a diagnostician? Are they interested in being a director for an early childhood program? Um they'll learn about average compensation where this study has helped us refine sens a sense of um earnings by region across the economic regions in Texas. We'll include that information. Uh we'll include information about um the related competencies and skills associated with that job or that role and we'll also have these kind of personas from our interviews that help you kind of see like a day in the life. What's it like to work in this job? Uh and then we'll also include links to career support resources if you want to learn more. Uh at the most granular level, uh this is where we actually have um recognition pathways. So the other kind of vision of that is we help educate

030you about the pathways and the opportunities and what to do next. Teched also has some very specific recognition pathways. We have those for trainers. Uh and we've just released uh more recently a version of the trainer approval pathway where we've embedded competency demonstration along with the levels. So you um you know you've actually seen demonstrations of their work as they receive these higher levels of recognition on the pathway. We have this um implemented now for educator one. And this um image is just an example of how the educator pathway um incorporates higher education, you know, credentiing, higher education into the progression through the pathway. And then there's a competency ba based pathway where you actually can demonstrate these skills uh in lie of having seat time or earning seat time in a training uh or

031another type of credentiing program. And then the coach pathway is a competency based credential that is aligned to a competency framework. coaches submit work samples, demonstrate the skills and are recognized and that'll al that will have three levels uh for coaching recognition. Um so if you Yeah. So I think you know where we're at now is we are trying to get you know our aim is a representative sample for this uh first group of school-based educators. So, we've actually pre-selected the schools that we are working to engage in responding to the survey. There will come a point where we're ready for a referral-based release of the survey for those non-educ non-classroom or non-school roles. So, we would love the telk support at that point in disseminating um that survey through your network so we can

032get responses from people who aren't working at schools but who work in the early childhood field. Um, but that's, you know, probably a month out before we would send that information to you all. Um, so that's that's kind of the study that's leading to the expanded career pathway information on on techs that's, you know, specific to Telks aims. This career advancement through networking tool. I just wanted to kind of put it out here because it's one of the key ways we plan to disseminate information gathered from that landscape analysis. Uh it's one of the key ways we plan to engage more professionals like a broader range of professionals uh on techs. So we're launching this resource very this tool really very soon. and it's called Techpads Connect and it will allow groups to create their

033own peer initiated communities of interest you know so for example the um TWWC funds at the board's techped subject matter experts so they'll be one of the first groups that we look to engage through one of these um groups uh you know if the state has family childcare networks uh other resource sharing networks uh really it's it's going to be a nice set of tools and resources that let people connect with workforce members who are interested in connecting with other professionals in the field. It'll have nice question and answer forums. Techpads will be moderating those forums uh initially. Um lots of good tools and features there and it also connects to 2.4.10 10, which I realize we aren't talking about today, but it's a great way to kind of also address that piece of the

034of the strategy. Um, I think that is Yep. So, this one we transition into the next strategy that Tracy Jones is going to hop on and help us with. It's around improving the usability of techs. But did do y'all want to talk about the other? So I just want to see before before we go on to that, are there thoughts, comments, or questions about the information that April just shared? And April, I I do have a question. I'm trying to recall. It's been a while since I've looked at one of the annual reports that you put out. Um, you had this slide that talked about um the different level of requirements. I I guess I'm trying to figure out what what level of data are you collecting now from people who are voluntarily using the

035system. I recall that you know there was some data that that folks just they weren't inputting because it's not required. I was just wondering what sort of um what sort of data are are practitioners willingly using tech peds to help them with? Yeah, I would say like and Tracy you can jump in and and share like specifically I would say that there are some demographic fields that there are holes in like so if you're talking about like identifying like charact those types of characteristics of the workforce those we have plenty of gaps in the data. Um, and I'll show you a tool in the next set where we address usability that hopefully will help us get more data from individuals because it's going to make it so much easier to provide it. Um, but I

036would say that we have a lot of professional training data. That's one of the I think key sources of information that workforce members choose to store. And through various automations with other organizations, we've built up a really robust set of records around training histories and the core competencies people are focused on. Um I would say Tracy, you want to jump in for Texas Rising Star providers. There's a lot of data on a wide range of experience. you know, I would expect a lot of on the training because obviously there are annual training requirements. We've created the ability to link, you know, QR codes from trainings to automatically populate. When we were looking at um career pathway levels, do you do you find that that data is in there so that if we were to look

037at the practitioners, you would get a general sense of what level on the career pathway, you know, are they are they just at, you know, well, you know what I mean? like what's the what's the range of practitioners through through all of those different levels? Okay, I see what you're asking. Yeah, go ahead. Okay, go ahead. Why don't you I think you should answer Tracy because I don't remember if we are automatically calculating the pathway level or if the user still has to kind of like mash the button to calculate the career path. So, um, a couple of answers here. Uh, Reagan, first of all, we just the 2023 data is up on tech peds and can be looked at at a county level or a local workforce board level and looks at both their

038education and their experience. So you can go in uh to this PowerBI report and say I'd like to see what the education level of our practitioners are versus our administrators in Bear County. Uh so that is a very useful set of data that we collect for the career pathways. It is automatically calculated and um we report that out to TWWC every month. It's one of those fields that we collect. We do have um requirements for each level. So, it's really educating the user. Um I was just at a conference this week, last week for TWWC and we had our career pathway signs out there and it's really still educating those providers where they are on their levels, but it does automatically calculate. So we are collecting that data on an ongoing basis with uh date

039stamps on it. So you can potentially look at a user over time of what they were a year ago or what they are now if they're in the system. We do collect a few more fields of data than we previously did. Uh so wages and salaries are now collected and timestamped. Um again, so over time we can see changes in those providers that are perhaps connected to their career pathways. So eventually we'd like to produce reports that show as providers move through this career pathway, their salaries are increasing. I see Stephanie has her hand up. Yeah, I um thank you for this background and TechPeds has grown so much since I first heard about it forever ago. So, it's exciting. I um I had a question about um and and teachers in prek are included

040in this or is right. Is this not just private chat? Correct. We have about 35,000 prek teachers in the system that have connected. Okay. Yeah. So, I was just going to say there is legislation this year in the House and Senate that would essentially remove the prohibition against out of school suspension for kids preK through second by the language. It's uh uh SB I don't know. I'll have to look at the number. Um but it would essentially allow for out of school suspension for kids who just have repeat bad behaviors. And one of the things we've been talking about is, you know, we know how much early childhood educators want training and support for kind of behavioral challenges in the classroom. And so I was just wondering just given that it seems like these bills

041will probably pass and it would be wonderful to figure out how to get more support to these early learning um educators so that the suspension is the last resort even if it's allowed and sort of think I was just wondering whether teched the network whether it's the networking part or the training like could help fill a void in the supports available, whether they're early childhood mental health or they're just other kind of classroom management skills. I just I just wanted to throw that idea out there because I'm kind of concerned that we're going to get back to the place of, you know, more a little bit more just well now I have this tool so I'm going to use it because I don't know whether there's other resources available and I don't really know what

042to do as a teacher. Yeah, I know that April was going to discuss a special data collection tool. Okay. Um about supporting us in getting more specific missing data into the tool. As she said, we have really robust data for Texas Rising Star providers. Um we've seen our Texas Rising Star provider counts go up as we've now got um the change in them getting points for having their teachers in the system, too. So we've seen some rapid growth and so we have really robust data for those providers. Uh what we need is some further data on providers that maybe are separate from Texas Rising Star and April. Um do you want to talk about the special data collection tool? say first just to kind of build on a response for Stephanie and Becky might remember

043the number the strategy number but a little later today I think we're going to provide a very high level update on a strategy related to um tell putting together a set of training resources links to referrals to training resources to support um addressing challenging behaviors supporting you know social emotional development. So, a lot of the maybe we need to include some explicit links to trainings for the you know what you're discussing like alternatives to expulsion. Um, and I think we'll I think naturally that subject matter will align with that. And what we've talked about is teched is a good place. We can build a catalog that techs can keep updated and it will be really easy for people to push out. it can definitely go out through the networking tool and that's a great place

044for like behavioral health consultants, people who can support with these kinds of topics. Um, so I think we're I think we are going to try to use techs to disseminate high quality training opportunities. Good. Yeah. to address that. Sounds like something that schools would if they don't really know where to go, that's a good resource for the teachers rather than uh you know as maybe as part of inschool suspension if you have to remove a child for a little while but you know making sure the teachers are equipped to welcome the child back into the classroom in a way where they're where they're in a way that they stay right and thrive. So thank you. And we definitely in the educator pathway, the educator one, uh, it it prioritizes the types of competencies and behaviors

045that help a teacher feel equipped to, you know, work with a child who may have some more challenging behaviors. And then as you kind of move up to like the educator two, there are even more sort of strategies around, you know, how to handle situations like that appropriately. So, we're trying to kind of embed it early in the educator path, thinking of it as foundational training. And I agree like for the public schools, I think the key will be to make sure when we create this um electronic catalog of courses that address those topics, we'll have to make sure we are thoughtful about how to position it in front of districts. Yeah. Great. Thank you. All right. So now are we ready Tracy to go to your your slides? I believe that we are going

046to be on the educator um usability update. Yep. Now we're ready for usability. Yep. So, so in just for some larger framing, in um 2023, TWWC funded um a usability study for techs, an independent study to go out and really get close to users and understand what some of the pain points were for using the site, how could it be improved, uh what did they like about it, what did they not like about it. Uh and then for the last you know couple of years really we've been digesting those recommendations and this year TWWC um funded specific improvements to the platform that were informed by those study recommendations. So this is you know these are just highle bullets for some of the uh key improvements that are being made that are in alignment with the

047usability study and with the feedback we got directly from from users. So uh a first thing that is being uh improved uh making it more usable for for people is we're adding a third language. So the site's contents will now all be avail uh be available in Vietnamese. Uh we're adding enhanced record sharing functionality so it is easier for people to share the data they need to share with someone with their employer with you know whomever. uh the owner of the record now will have much easier ways of sharing that that information. Uh we're improving data collection tools for uploading and updating career records. I'll show you a little bit more uh on the next slide about that. And then uh there's a collections tool that Tracy was kind of providing a preview of that

048will help users fill in gaps in their data uh without having to go into the platform and navigate around and find things. Uh there are a lot of enhancements to user reports to summaries and to the data visualizations that we're providing through the platform. And then we've also done some work to embed evaluation uh surveys directly into the certificate generation tool. So if we can go to the next one, Tracy, I think you can probably speak um better to the kind of streamlining. Uh absolutely. So we took that usability study and the feedback that we've received from both providers out in the field that we talked to our tech paired specialists that have utilized the tool and have now a really deep knowledge of how the system works. And in January we published a new

049dashboard um with an improved layout so that users can have a better experience. And number one is a simp much simpler view of the system. It is colorcoded now and has group actions together. So the first set of tools are tools that everybody uses in the system. The second set of tools that you can partially see there are certificate generation tools. Um it just allows a user's eye to catch the important things that we want them to do. A lot of the features were kind of hidden before. Now they're right out in front of you. Uh we changed language so that it's much easier for the person that's in the classroom or the administrator to look at this and know what action to take next. And we put it in order so that when you

050take a look at this dashboard, you know that you're going to upload your records. you know that you're going to um look at your reports, you are going to connect to your center. For administrators, it's very much a step one, step two, step three of using those fields. Um as April just said, um the Vietnamese will be coming in May. One of the um biggest changes on the system so far is the ability for providers to now share their records with others in a very safe, secure password encoded way. Um allowing a provider to email a report to someone uh safely and securely. Maybe they're looking for another job position. um or connect their reports to organizations. I think a really good example of this is if they're seeking a wage supplement program or a

051scholarship with Texas AEYC or a local workforce board, they can allow the local workforce board to see their reports to track that progress over time. And then anytime they're ready, they just disconnect. They're no longer going to be connected with that system. Um and it has all been designed with mobile friendly in mind. Uh there has been some work done in 2025 to really enhance the mobile friendly features and uh we're hoping in 2026 to um include those features in the design as well. but moving towards those designs as we're able um working on each component. Next slide. Updates. I intelligent document processing might sound boring, but it's actually really really cool and great for users. So, one of the things we really saw that we needed to do is continue reducing the burden for

052getting data into the system. Um part of it is it was you know very timeconuming to go in and actually go into a field for education and enter the answer. Go into a field for you know so you you actually had to go in and enter all of these data elements yourself and then you can upload a copy of that document uh to kind of store in your record. And what the intelligent document processing does is it uses machine learning to you can upload a photograph lots of different file types. uh let's say it's your transcript or you know or a training record. It you upload the document and the tool extracts all of the relevant data that's matched to the techpadeds fields and displays it for the user to just confirm that these are

053their details and it does this with incredible accuracy. Uh and then it stores your document for you in that same process. So it is going to dramatically cut down on you know what it takes to get your information into tech peds. So we're very excited about that. Um the new I will say April. Yeah. I will say um when we've announced this to users in the field at conferences there has been a round of applause for the system. They're very excited about it. And one of the biggest changes in this is you can upload one uh record that has multiple documents in it. So instead of having to tediously put in each record, you can upload one really big document with maybe a 100 records in it and it will place extract it and place

054it for you. So, not only does it allow the user less burden, it also improves accuracy in that it goes into the right section um instead of a user maybe placing a document in the wrong section and our staff having to remove it and place it where it really needs to go. So, it's very much more efficient as well. um the data collection tool. Again, this is another um way that we're improving usability by saving users. So, for example, you know, Reagan, if there's key information missing that you all need for a report, let's say there's, you know, too large a percentage of the users have failed to report their education status. Instead of us trying to outreach workforce members and guiding them to go into the application and find that field and add the

055information, we can use this new data collection tool to send them an email and send them a message and it tells them specifically that TechPudswood is requesting that they update this specific field of information. All they have to do is answer it right there and it goes straight into the techpadeds database. So I mean there's more complexity obviously I'm oversimplifying because I'm not technical but it um it essentially the user does not have to go to the site and navigate through the platform to find the field where they need to put missing information. It's a way for us to more proactively kind of scan the data and say, "Look, hey, we really need to we need to increase the responses to this specific type of field and then we can just engage with them through

056a more familiar, easy access way to communicate email and have them respond that way." So, we're super excited about that, too. And that's actually a tool that I think will serve us well, like, you know, for example, the study that we're doing um right now you really you can send out any kind of question through this tool and it brings the data back to the platform. So, and then I Tracy, do you want to talk a little bit about the career profile report improvements? It I mean it looks amazing. So, it's visually improved. We we have uh really spent a lot of time creating a report that will work for all users um whether that's for their own use um for professional development planning with their center directors for the TRS assessors and childcare regulation

057inspectors. Um it will give a summary of the important data fields. is going to allow more searchability. So I don't just get a full report with maybe 300 records. I can focus in I want to see the last two years uh by hire date and give me some summary data about how many trainings I've taken. Um it will show the validation on there. So we try to make it as easy as possible to find the information that you need and display it in a very professional manner. It will have um our logo on it for the um council for professional recognition as we are a recognized entity for the reports being utilized to document CDA hours. Uh so this report is going to be extremely helpful for those that are working towards CDAS as well.

058I think that's you know that's the end of our slides. Um yeah, so this was a great update, you know, um just so everyone is aware, the the requirements around Texas Rising Star entities using tech peds to to record information um came out of input that we received from our most recent Texas Rising Star work group. Um the work group before that required directors to use techpads and I think as things have evolved and people have begun using the system the work group then recommended why don't we make a pointbased measure and the more of your um of your teachers that are using it the more points you get. So I think it's a testament to people getting more comfortable with the system and making recommendations you know for its continued use. Um, I'm also

059curious, uh, and Tracy, you probably know this, you know, you you mentioned our we have subject matter experts on tech peds in each of the board areas. I I I assume that they're all aware of all of these new features so that as they're talking to child care programs in their area, they can share lots of these great enhancements that make the system so much easier to use. Yes, Reagan. We we meet every month uh with the tech ped specialists and during that monthly meeting we give them very indepth um reviews before um these tools are even provided for the public. So they get to understand it and how to use it prior to it even being sent out. Yeah. Great. Jennifer, get your hand up. Hi. Yes, Jennifer Stalker with Ivy Vine Preschool and

060I just wanted to acknowledge the distance that TechPads has come. I have been a TechPads account holder since probably 2019 when it was very new to us and very difficult and cumbersome and time consuming to use. And I have just recently been reintroduced. I've had the account but I don't use it much to be honest. um been reintroduced to it and I have been impressed and I'm excited to get to using it more and sharing it with my child care educators here. So, I just wanted to say thank you for listening to the request for easier processes and faster processes and for responding to that. So, thank you all. Thank you. Thanks, Jennifer. Definitely. It's come a long way. It has. And you know, our our last House Bill 619 work group, the the first

061one actually made this recommendation on a usability study. So this entire usability study came out of another work group that provided input to us. So Jennifer, I'm glad to hear, you know, from the front line that you're seeing sort of the fruits of all of, you know, these investments. So thanks for sharing that. Members, other questions or comments? All right. Um, April, I'm not sure if you see the chat in our in our Zoom. I do see I see a question about um Tepad's trainings uh being approved. Uh so we have a 3 to six week timeline. On an average basis we try to turn those round in one to two weeks. We always like to give the window and the window is um those details are on our website. It really does depend on

062the busy periods of the year. But what we find is trainers will use holidays to put in trainings. And so if you are turning in a training during spring break or the holidays over December, um you can expect to see a little bit longer time. Um and it also depends on if the tech head staff are out in conferences. We are working at having um an additional um early childhood content specialist to support that. We're hoping in 2026 that we'll be able to get that additional content expert. Uh because right now Tracy Jones does um all of the trainings to ensure that they are of high quality um on the team. Uh that's kind of my extra little job that I do. uh just know that we can get 200 trainings now turned in in

063one month. Um it has exploded as the organizational dashboard and the registered trainers are have come on board. Um we've got so many users taking advantage of those tools. Um it doesn't mean that if your tra your particular training is not approved that it won't be validated. As long as you have already been approved in a core competency area that training will always be validated. It's just if it's sent out a new core competency. So we do highly recommend that you at least get approved initially in all the core competency areas so that you even if you have to wait a little while for a specific training to get approved um you are already approved in the competency area. Uh but we're hoping in 2026 to get an additional staff member for that. All right.

064Thank you. All righty. So you guys, with that, we're going to move to our last update um under our Texas um early learning strategic plan, and that is the strategic plan workg group um that that the council put together that Kirsten is overseeing for us. So Kirsten, I'll turn it over to you for an update on um this workg group. Yeah. Um thank you, Reagan, and thanks April for that. Um that was a great intro kind of into this whole conversation because I think we um our group that has been looking at some of these goals really see techs as as filling a lot of those um those those things. So that was really great to have that comprehensive [Music] um presentation to sort of understand better where you guys are going with it. Um

065so our we have a separate um workg group that has been meeting frequently um as a whole group but then also breaking off into subgroups to kind of tackle there's a lot here um and we have a lot of great expertise so it's been um it's been a a great uh strategy so far and I think the the group is feeling really engaged and that we are really um identifying some pathways forward. Um I will say it's a lot. I think all of you all recognize that um you know some of these aspirational goals are um you know figuring out how all of the agencies work together, how we get information across such a big state. All of those things um are kind of weighing on all of us. But with that, um, we, uh,

066have looked at, uh, I will say we have a couple of wins. So to celebrate wins, it's Friday. So, um, let's start with that. Um, we were able to combine um, goals 2.45 and 2.47. So, um, that is around this notion of retaining early learning workforce professionals in the field by providing educational and social support. And so you can see that the tech's um strategy really feeds into this. Um so the two so those two action um items we felt like we could kind of bring that together. Um and they and the actual action we we came up with was to use techs as a centralized resource for early childhood educators. So that just it that that makes sense. And I think um now that you know more about the work that's going on there,

067you can see how it would um definitely meet a number of these goals and action items. So our next step there is to solicit input from known early childhood training entities and to support April and her team as they're, you know, continuing to do this work. um and to to uh look for um the the ways that we can, you know, kind of continue to keep these goals in mind as as that work continues. Uh I guess I'll stop there. Any questions about the first part? Yeah, Becky, I'm on this workg group and one of trying to get done is because I'm in a a list serve with uh two and fouryear campuses that offer early childhood programs. And so I put it out to them uh to send me information on their programs. And

068some of them have there are a lot and we try to get people from different parts of the state. Some of them have some a lot of them haven't. But, uh, another thing that we've had is Kathy Arwood sent a gave me a great big, um, it was an Excel spreadsheet with all of these campuses all across ca all across the state that offer early childhood to have an early childhood program in two and four years. So, I'm still working on that to get links to each of the campuses that have coursework in early childhood, either a two or four-year degree or CDA for credit and all that. And I'm still working on that and hopefully I'll be able to do more after my semester is a little bit over, but in early May or

069miday on because I don't teach in the summer. So to get that and so we'll work with April to have that uploaded somewhere on TechPad. So that that's one thing. There's programs all over the place, but if somebody's really wants to get a degree or certificates or whatever, they don't really know. There's not a one-stop shop place to see ones. And some of them are like we have stuff online. Some of them, you know, are just specific to that area that are face-toface programs. So those types of designations also so that more people will have if they want to go on to the next level or whatever that they know where to go and um I want to have it more comprehensive than just you know hit or miss. Okay. Thank you. Yeah Becky that

070is outstanding. I wasn't aware that you were doing that, but I I think that's a really gonna be a great addition as you said. And then, you know, as we get that data up there, if there's some mechanism for folks who have programs that aren't on that list for them to email or let April's team know that that, you know, that there are other programs. I mean, I think I think, you know, having a big part of all of this work is kind of having things in one place as you said. So, you know, that's outstanding and really appreciate the extra work you're doing there. Any other and I'll just say I know that um as part of that PDG work, we we developed that landscape that that Becky's talking about. Um we have that

071posted somewhere on our PDG website. I think Kathy can probably find it and drop a link quicker than I can find it. Um so, Becky, I'm glad that you were able to put that to good use. Um, and I, you know, I love the action for all of the, um, council members to really encourage folks to use TechPads for all of their early childhood educators. Um, I think that's clearly something that's really actionable that all all members should be able to help promote and um, and get the word out about the benefits of using Tech Peds. Okay, Kirsten, back to you. Yeah, that's great. Um, and we're certainly willing to help get the word out too with our audience, which generally is a lot of parents and and, uh, folks that are caregivers. So, h

072happy to help in that regard. Um, so, uh, the other side of this is kind of a little bit a little bit of the messier, um, with all my my word, um, in terms of that we, um, our group met and we really kind of explored some of these things, but need more input from this group, um, to kind of figure out where where, you know, how to move these things forward. So in the strategy 2.1 um the goal is to increase financial support of the early learning workforce um and specifically the action is TELC will explore forming public private partnerships to support the workforce including support for the workforce through philanthropy and corporate support and this feels like something that's outside of the purview of the state agency folks um and others. So, we

073wanted to um kind of explore with the council um how would we go about kind of beginning this or what would be kind of the early steps um and and early action and the next steps on this goal. Um so, so here so just to make this a little bit um easier on everybody, we put together some questions. So would love your feedback on these two things. So starting with guidance for the role the TELC would like the work group to take with this specific item and you know what what the kind of clarification of what the council is looking for with this uh strategy. Um and then secondly um well let's start with that. So, is anybody prepared to to give us some um thoughts on where we what what was behind this particularly

074particular action and how you think we might move this forward? So I think there was a lot of recognition um that there has been a great deal of interest in early childhood issues. Um and how do you have the ability to to leverage public private partnerships? I I I think um there's some legislation that's a great example right now uh that Early Matters and the Texas Restaurant Association have been very involved in. Um you know tr trying to look at this this idea of how do you get employers engaged in child care. Um, I think that's, you know, certainly one form of of public private partnerships, but I think that's part of the issue is, you know, what what are the other strategies that might be out there so that you you engage with other

075private entities that may have an interest in this topic. Yeah, that's a good point. and a number of of corporate entities that are putting together their own um you know child care solutions and how do we engage with them and include them in this work as well. Yeah, I think we one of the things that the Texas Workforce Commission is doing again in an effort to try to help employers who want to get engaged in this issue is we have a procurement right now to try to identify entities that can provide technical assistance to employers who are interested in helping to address the childare needs of their employees. So, how do you get those private businesses engaged and oftentimes they don't know where to start? So, is there a way that we can provide some

076technical assistance to them? That was, you know, one of the strategies that that we're implementing right now that we're still in the procurement phase. Um, so those services are yet to come. Great. Part of the challenge and Kirsten, I'm trying to remember the conversation we had in the workg group. I maybe part of it is like I think we can come up with concrete examples of successful public private partnerships that have supported the workforce but it's this idea of how telk will explore forming them. So like is it that is it that as individual as members of the early learning council we sort of um kind of embrace public private partnership as one of the ways in our home organizations that we work to ex expand this kind of support or is it that we

077as Telk are kind of going to put together like examples of successful public private partnerships you know to kind of promote knowledge building in the system about how this has been done successfully or is it that telk is actually going to form public public private partnerships you know right that's that is that is kind of where the conversation went I think because it it feels a little more general in the action description so what what does this group think the you know the overarching goal was here and and those are three really good questions or three really good ways to look at it. Do does anybody have any memory of you know as we were doing this kind of what we where we I mean and part of this is also thinking about success and

078you know we can um you know layer the the the you know the practical on this um but but I you know I think if it's if it's more aspirational as April suggested that it's you know how do we facilitate these kinds of partnerships or is it something that's really concrete that's like here is a list of best practices, strategies, and examples or is it um more of a a function of this council that we are going to actually form some public private partnerships? I'm not sure that the council has the ability to form a public private partnership. Becky, did you have a thought? Yeah, I just I agree with what they were saying because I can remember I'm on that it's that same group I'm on. But I think that it can be both

079and because you can have examples like um case study type things uh you know that we're we're um promote not promoting it but we're suggesting this could be a way but then as Reagan was saying that that what what the Texas Workforce Commission could offer in there would be technical assistance and and stuff like that. So you could have like little ca I do qualitative re like little case studies of here's how the Moody Foundation did whatever or here's some examples you know that were uh we're not promoting them but here's a good here are some good examples from around the state and that here is if you're interested in this here's what we can our our members can do would be technical here's how we could contribute to that would technical assistance if you

080are interested. So it's kind of a both end like we're not promoting we're not bringing them together but we're showing that this is a part this is a potential way to uh to promote early care and education and help the workforce by giving them like for instance one of my practicum students works at I mean is are doing her practicum in Houston at the Chase Bank Bright Horizons drop-in center. So the Chase Bank and that's for people in the downtown Houston area have a drop-in center but it's it's by Chase Bank. So, for instance, and they're NYC accredited and they're probably TWWC and all that type stuff, too. But you could say, "Okay, here's an example. Here's an with their permission as that." And then here's what Texas workforce if you're interested in doing that.

081Here's some examples. You can ask them, but then we can offer technical assistance to anyone who is interested in doing something like that. Oh, that's just his suggestion. I I agree with that, Becky. I can speak to how DSHS has public and private partnerships in regards to Texas mother friendly work sites. Um, so DSHS does provide TA for any private uh organization that wants to be designated as a Texas mother friendly work site. So it's not necessarily that tal would be forming the relationships, but we could collectively put together like best practices to develop those partnerships. um based off what we are already currently doing. Um I don't think we're in a position that we could actually form those relationships though or partnerships. So, so generally I think the first two things that April laid

082out [Music] um without taking this to actually forming is what what I'm hearing from this group. Um, that Jennifer has a Oh, I'm sorry. I can't see everyone. Oh, I see you, Jennifer. Sorry. Go ahead. I feel like this gets very abstract very quickly because as the owner of a private childare facility, I feel like I have the autonomy and the opportunity to build these connections with philanthropy and corporate support. So, somebody putting out a report that says, "Hey, this is a great idea is not super helpful if there's not a lot of support behind it. Like, how do you get started? Who do you contact? What works? What are the steps, the actual steps I can take?" And even if I had all that lined out for me, I don't know any child care

083director who's not already spread so thin that we just can't take on another maybe. So it would almost be more helpful to say these are corporate organizations or these are philanthrop philanthropy organizations that are committed to doing this and having some kind of matching system rather than just going out on our own and and trying to locate this resource or this idea because that's that's going to be almost impossible and probably not super helpful. And we're told a lot of what should work and what could work, but when it gets down to actually making it work, that's a whole different experience. Yeah, that's great feedback. Kind of thinking of it from your Kim, you were going to add to that. Yeah, just kind of building off of what Jennifer was saying. I think the I

084think the question that we have is do we want something forward- facing for childcare providers to set up these partnerships or is our is the real real need and I hear you Jennifer you guys have been you do all you know it's you're there um or is the real need how do we help the Chase banks how do we help those people come to the table and like like so I think that's just a something that as we mle over this one. How do we what what is who's that audience and what's what's the what's the purpose behind it? So, um is it really focused on the childcare centers and helping them or is it focused on businesses or both? Thank you. That is an ex that's the succinct description of what my long- winded

085comment was, but thank you. Well, yeah. I mean, I think I think your point is well taken that the child care workforce and the centers are, you know, under a lot of pressure um you know, daytoday. So are there ways that we can but we know that there's some benefit and I love Kim's reframing of this to kind of think about you know the corporate sector may want to be a part of this and and have solutions but how do we build a process so that those things can be matched. Um so that that makes a lot of sense to me. Um anyone else want to weigh in on this? I guess we, you know, cuz we did use this term Reagan, we do use this term form. So I don't know, you know, not

086words smithing here, but just is there, you know, do we want to kind of um think about some um counsel from from this group about, you know, how we want to approach this? There's been some great suggestions today or what are what are what can we do in that regard? Yeah. And I guess it I guess it depends on how all of the council members feel because as a group we each represent our individual organization. Um as the council we we bring all of these perspectives together if we're talking about public private partnerships. Kim, I think you asked, you know, a good question. You know, who who are we aiming this out? Are we aiming to find best practices? Are we aiming to identify strategies to to promote these um I think I think that's

087the challenge. It's very easy to put in a strategic plan and then when it comes time to think about actionable strategies, what do we all feel like we have the capacity to do in our in our individual roles with our organizations? Megan, I know there is a piece of legislation going through the process about an employerbased website resource website piece. Um, I mean, it's in the it's in the process. So, we'll see where that where that ends up. Um uh but uh and try not to get the cart ahead of the horse, but if that passes, would that be a place that that something like this could potentially live of it's because that's geared towards the non-child businesses? Um it is. And that's we we actually already have a Texas work and family policies clearing

088house or it's not a clearing house anyway. I mean we actually have a website now and I think what this bill would do is it would ask us to sort of build on build on on that website on what we already have have published. And I think those are things that we actually now plan on doing. I think that that the Senate bill passed out of the Senate yesterday. So, it's moving and in fact, we've already started talking about how do we add more resources. Um I don't know that that's it's a component of public private partnerships certainly. I don't know that it's right it's everything about a public private partnership but certainly information that we pro provide out to businesses about how they can become familiar with familyfriendly work policies and other types of

089early childhood issues you know is is one strategy to engage those private entities I guess um and and Stephanie I'll say this and I'll let you talk um he'll be quiet um uh I guess I think thinking about thinking about that bill moving thinking about what you guys already have and thinking about what else is what else is needed and doing some type of analysis of those three components to know what is like what else is needed. we have these components and then what else is what else is there and then making the determination is you know is that the is that the angle that we want to go go forward with Stephanie I was just thinking just as the maybe the value of the uh early learning council given the work we've done is

090a little bit about maybe talking about sort of the principles and the goals and like the value of things because there's probably partnerships in that could happen in a hundred different ways, right? And some some of them are focused on increasing access to more families. Some of there are other goals around um supporting the child care partner, you know, with additional resources through public dollars. there's the, you know, getting more businesses interested in in ensuring their employees have access to child care. So there's different goals in mind and maybe one place for the council is to sort of uplift like what are the most important ones or the ones that will have maybe the biggest impact on the most families and the most providers because I I mean I always hesitate to think about um

091you know partnerships in a resource limited environment is you know sharing the same resources among now a couple of entities and and are we you know a forcing people together without really a benefit you know figuring out what the benefit is blending and braiding resources uh maybe there's more resources and in some in some I think legislative proposals there are some incentives financial incentives for partnerships which is great but also like how how do we maintain quality at early learning through The melding of different systems is also, you know, questions that come up like are there different teacher qualifications that should be in one system versus the other. And depending on, you know, which seat your child has, you might have a teacher with different credentials and and that might be okay. But you know

092there's also this sort of what what's the most important thing to ensure the most families get affordable highquality early learning no matter which system they're entering in is so I mean I'm t I guess I'm thinking a little bit maybe some value we can add is sort of waiting through and thinking like what's the what should the main goals be of partnerships um given that we are a body of you know different constituencies Um and so that that going forward it's like hey our top the top goal is more families have more options you know and the providers can benefit from additional resources and you know quality is still high. However we however you know Kirsten you want to kind of help lead this through. I think you've you've been involved in local uh partnerships

093and some are really tough, you know, and if they're really really tough, they're not going to scale up. So, um and then and then I guess that's the question is tech, you know, technical assistance is super helpful, but so is like a local backbone. You know, resources are great, but every community is a little different. So, we can't, you know, there's no one-sizefits-all in a partnership, I guess, is kind of one one principle we have to accept, right? And um and and I, you know, I'm still thinking a lot about are we making sure that the kids served by the scholarship subsidy system are, you know, are prioritized, uh, you know, over higher income families. And we have, but we have other strategies for the higher income families, too. But sort of thinking about the

094balance given given the use of public dollars, I guess. All right. So, Kirsten, how does that work for some for some feedback right now on this issue? I think that's really good feedback. It's actually coming from a number of folks that are part of the work group, but I love that. Um, so I I mean I would like to suggest if everybody agrees that we kind of go back now that we've gotten this feedback from the council and and kind of fe and and kind of talk through some of those strategies and and determine how we could do those things. And Stephanie, thank you. That was really good guidance cuz I think we we do want all of these things to fit into the greater goal of, you know, maintaining and securing more resources for

095families and, you know, all the things that you mentioned, particularly quality, you know, comes through in many of these goals. So, yeah, just sort of now that we've had this conversation, maybe go back and and work on this some more and then bring some recommendations forward if if everyone agrees. Yeah. Yeah, that sounds good. And if we need to think about it shouldn't be explore forming it, we should you know somehow think about explore supporting um you know if if that makes more sense. I I think council members are you guys all open to thinking. Okay, I'm seeing some heads nodding. So yes. Okay, good. Okay. Yeah, that's great. So then the other the other thing that has come up in these discussions is um and this also um was poignant for me in the

096um in the the survey data that that um UT Tyler u found in talking with centers directly about behavioral and mental health um conditions and how that's um growing or changing and the needs are different. Um and so we wanted to have a thoughtful reflection on that action which is the dis discussing trainings for children with behavioral and mental health conditions. Um and um there were a number of suggestions for how to address programs that turn students away as um as April mentioned. Um and then you know just training in general, how much time um uh child care providers are given on these subjects. Um and and then sort of continuing that education because as things are are expanding and growing, I think that this is this is one of those areas where continuous training

097is needed. Um and then um we also discuss how to make centers aware um of the ECI um system and therapists so that that they can help funnel those resources to families and making sure that that loop is closed and that they know how to access um the ECI system. So, um we could use some help because this is, you know, this is important and a big um item and it definitely came out in the survey as being a a big need for um for the the field. You know, how how do how does the council suggest we um try to meet this goal? Um, and what are the things that we should be thinking of as we kind of continue I I would assume continue this focus on this topic? Yeah, Kirsten, I was

098just going to say we I don't know if um Holly is still on the call, but Holly Gorcelin is kind of a state, you know, treasurer on early childhood mental health at UT. And so she um you know that I think uh uh part like I still think of these you know early childhood supports as not just a training opportunity but like a real partnership opportunity because like how do we embed uh whether it's training or just you know pedigogy about kind of ma classroom management and other things into the kind of pipeline of education programs. How how do we make sure that like local mental health authorities or others that ECI programs have relationships with child care as you mentioned you know not just to get referrals to ECI but they're also they also

099know a lot about uh you know developmental delays and other sort of mental you know mental health supports that are needed for parents too. I mean, you know, early childhood mental health in some ways is also a twogen approach there. Um and there's also mental health of child care educators um who struggle and I you know it's one of those things where uh the the discussion at least at the state level has been a lot about you know kids who are coming to school with such bad behaviors that it's like you know risking the health and well-being of other children and of teachers and you know some some really terrible examples. But there's also, you know, kids, they're not necessarily, they're not, they're not arriving at early learning programs like that. They're, you know, they

100have some things going on at home. They have maybe some some uh special education needs that haven't been addressed. Parents don't really know where to turn. And so, again, this is uh, you know, Holly, I know, has looked into this um, and there's a lot of writing that she's done on it. Um, and I guess I would encourage maybe for us to think about a partnership with their group too and have a little bit more discussion about I think and I think they're developing kind of a roadmap and I don't want us to duplicate that effort or try to go around it because that she and her team are awesome. Holly, if you're still there, will you put your like Yeah, she responded in the chat. I guess she's not a panelist. We can't Can

101we can we invite her to say say something or I mean, you know, Holly also would be a great person to have as a you know, a guest uh you know, as a public speaker, guest speaker in the future, especially on infant early childhood mental health. So, I think I'm I'm wondering, do we want to put that on the agenda? Yeah, since there's so much interest in this. I mean, when we were getting the tech peds updates, that was one of the things you're asking about, Stephanie, and it's coming up now with this work group. would seem like perhaps a topic for our next council meeting because she Yeah, she and her team are already leading, you know, have have had workg groups for long periods of time and we should just really benefit from

102that. Uh yeah, great work. Yeah, that sounds like a great Well, so Reagan, you're thinking inviting her to share some of the work they're doing on this on our next um early. Okay, that would be great. Yeah. And then Yeah. ways that we could be helpful, too. Yeah, and definitely agree, Stephanie, that we we're not trying to reinvent the wheel. There's a lot Yeah. of of goals that we have here and trying to meet all of those and many of them kind of rest on these partnerships and just including information about these things on our on our the TEC website but also right um linking up um with you know the other agency um and then the forward facing site for um for families. So just, you know, trying to navigate all of that is

103a lot, but but appreciate that suggestion. Thank you. And Holly, we'd love to hear from you next time. Becky, you were going to ask. The only thing I wanted to mention is in linked to what I had mentioned about the different programs across the state, uh, I did send because one person asked me to send exactly what I wanted. And so I just copied and pasted this down. And some of the programs did specifically give coursework or whatever on this area. Not everybody did, but some of them did. And so that's another another uh and also Texas Children's Hospital has some training type things too that are free. So, I have a one of my former students, Diane Cowen, does a lot of trainings and um so I can get with her also to as

104a suggestion uh to see what trainings they have for free to the public for um this too. That's great. Um Becky, any resources we can add for our next council meeting would be would be great to have. Okay. Well, thank you Reagan Kirsten. Thank you very much. Lots of good discussion. Okay. So, with that, we're going to uh we're going to move to our next update. Those are legislative updates and we have um Stephanie Rubin and Kim Coffin who have given us some slides. So, Stephanie, let me turn it over to you. Looks like your slides are up first. Sure. So, so we just we have a slide on some budget movement um and also on some good bills that are moving forward in our kind of prenatal to you know three space. And so

105on the budget um side we there was just a long budget day was yesterday. Um, one of the budget bills is HB500, which is kind of known as the supplemental budget. And, uh, through lots of amazing work from the child care community, um, and David Fagan on my team has just been dogged on this. Um and Representative Wall-E with the support of the speaker and Chair Bonan of the appropriations committee have in the House budget $und00 million to reduce the child care sub uh scholarship weight lists and um and that would Reagan can uh there's probably some updated numbers on the size of the weight list somewhere 80,000ish um and uh the hope is that if we can secure $100 million that that would help communities reduce um by about 10,000ish families on the wait

106list. Um and that would be you know that would happen very quickly after the bill goes into effect I think. So I will say it's 100 million for two years. So you won't and and it is it is about 10,000 kids right? Um the wait list can grow. We're already at 90. So I will say we can serve 10,000 kids. It doesn't mean the weight list goes down. That's true. So, that's Yes. Well, so I mean that's, you know, that's a good that's a good argument too because one of the, you know, we do have a surplus. So, we are a state with a surplus and we do have this growing need which has been, you know, part of the argument and TWWC and, you know, the local workforce boards are prepared to get this

107money out the door which is also um a great benefit. So the the bill now will go to the Senate and there will be some you know negotiation I assume on lots of provisions on the budget. So uh but that's very exciting because we did start the session with uh with zero in the first version of the budget on the house side. So this is great work. And then um there's also uh this is the first time since I've been working on ECI anyway that the uh both the House and the Senate uh increased funding in the in their versions of the budget uh for ECI. So, it's an additional $18 million and that was very um skillfully requested by HHSSE and their L and we really appreciate them uh you know including this increase

108in the in their exceptional items really making a case that the programs and families needed this extra support. So, we we're hoping that that funding which uh will stay in in the budget. It's given that it's in both sides, it it probably will, but you never know what happens in the next I think we're what 51 days left, something like that. Um or 51 days done. So So we're we're we're pretty we're getting pretty far in session. Um and then uh in both house and senate budget there is uh 500 million um uh there is a a fully funding a fully funding the HHSC's request for Medicaid eligibility technology to make sure families can get seamlessly enrolled. Um and so that's fabulous. Again, that was requested by the agency with lots of support from outside

109groups. And that's um some of the main you know budget implications that uh are in the budget bills. So on the next slide we can talk about some other um bills that have movement. Uh Kim can we'll cover uh some of these too. Maybe Kim I'll leave the u 462 for you to talk about if you want. Uh Representative Buussy this is a bill that was introduced last session too and got through the house. Um, and so far we've been approved by a House Subcommittee, but this would notify parents if their children are eligible for Medicaid coverage using um, SNAP enrollment. And so this bill, uh, would just make it very easy for children who are involved in, you know, SNAP or other programs like that to easily enroll in Medicaid. And, um, I'll skip

110over the next one, which Kim can cover, because we're we're we're that's a big childare coalition bill. um HB2, which is a you know big school funding bill, um has a provision that we and others have been um pushing which would extend prek eligibility to children with disabilities. So that is included in the bill at this time. Um and there's other conversations in other bills around fully funding uh or funding full day prek through the enrollment uh you know funding. Right now districts get halfday prek funding even though they have to provide full day prek and they use their early learning aotment or other funds to support the other half a day. And you know, districts have made it pretty clear that they would just really like full day pre-K funding and the early learning

111aotment would cover, you know, so many other needs that they have for young children. So, that's um still being discussed. Um and then, uh HB 136 by Representative Hull um would this is sort of on the Medicaid side, the next two would cover lactation consultants um in Medicaid, which is wonderful. I suspect, you know, lots of lots of women use them and then that's pay out of pocket. Um but that has not been a Medicaid um eligible service so far and that got approved by the House committee. And then HB1 1201 by Rep. Emanuel. There are a few um doula related bills. This one was approved by House Committee. This would be a pilot program that would provide Medicaid coverage for doulas uh uh pregnant at the pregnancy stage or postpartum stage. So, we'll see

112whether that one moves forward. And um so there's some good movement on some things. There's also discussion around um in prek the early learning aotment is um calculated based on the number of um you know kids uh kindergarten through third I think and but it doesn't include the number of pre-k eligible kids and that would uh you know give districts more accurate funding to support their population. So that's another uh goal of the early learning community and we'll see whether that moves forward. There's just so much negotiation in the education bills right now that uh those dis those debates and decisions still haven't been made yet. So I will end there in case anyone has any questions on those. And then um we didn't I don't have a slide here on the federal side you

113know um maybe at some point later we can have a more of a discussion as data are coming in about the impact of uh you know the loss of uh large numbers of federal employees who work in the early learning uh departments about whether you know how is that affecting programs and services and technical assistance things like that in Texas might be a topic we could consider consider. But um you know there's also proposed $800 billion cuts that would um impact Medicaid at the federal level. That that decision hasn't been uh made yet. The House and Senate are not exactly on the same place at the federal level, but that would um be a huge challenge for Texas. And I'm just going to put in the chat, we it's really important, I think, for people

114to understand um what Medicaid, who is covered by Medicaid in Texas. Um and you know, we haven't expanded Medicaid like other states. So we uh you know Medicaid is really largely children, pregnant women, postpartum women um and uh some other vulnerable populations, you know, families uh people with disabilities, seniors with um you know, nursing homes, etc. So I just there was some effort to help explain sort of who Medicaid really covers in Texas as as the negotiations go forward at the federal level. Kim the federal stuff. Um, so as we're all anxiously waiting to see what that is. Um, and I just want to take a little pause and just give us our give all of ourselves a a cheer and a pat on the back for the extra for the money that is in

115childare. Um, it's the first time in history Texas has done this. It's not through the Senate yet and we have an uphill battle there and we know that. But but at the house, you know, we just started asking for money last session um and making them aware that this is an a need and um kudos to all of us um and especially David who who's worked tires tously on this um to to to really share our stories and making sure our uh representatives know um what the needs are of families and providers out there. Um and so um and kudos to TWWC for having a a great program that they they trust to invest in and that's that's kudos to the whole system. So um super excited about that. Um so uh some bills that

116are moving. Um so the the top uh the top three have companions um and have been have been the focus of our prenatal 3 um collaborative and children at risk. So um Senate Bill 972 and House Bill 2294 was looking at reimbursement rates. This is allows local workforce boards to fill in the gap from the the providers charge parents and what the the uh TWWC's established rate is with with local dollars. So, it's just making it permissible. Um us long-term childcare advocates, we want the big thing. This is the small thing. Um but it's a it's a thing that needs to get done so the big thing can eventually happen at some point. So, um it was heard in two both the House and Senate committees. Um uh uh so we are hope hoping that

117that one continues to move through the process. Uh Senate Bill 5 uh 59 599 and HP 4127. This is specifically around family childcare homes. We are still seeing a decrease in our uh childcare homes from 2019. um it's still going in the wrong direction and so this is hoping to reduce local restrictions on uh uh on childcare homes on top of minimum standards. So keeping minimum standards is the same but sometimes cities and counties add additional things that as prohibitive and so this would eliminate that piece. Those are also um um both been heard in committee. 59 is now over at the house side. So we hope to do a little swap throughoo and um get this approved on that that end. and then um on to the House floor full approval. So um Senate

118Bill 462 and HB 3807. This is the one that was on sher on uh Stephanie's slide as well. Um it is um prioritizing child care professionals that are working in child care that meet the income eligibility getting them prioritized on the weight list. Um so um I know this has been um um excited uh excites all of us to to have this possibility. Again, it's um been heard on both sides, out of committee and the Senate. Um and so they they are both moving as well. The other five bills are also bills that we are watching closely. Um and it's House Bill 117. This is coming from the governor's office creating a task force looking at early child governance. Um uh this has been something that we have in the advocacy community have talked about

119for years and the governor um pulled it together this year. So, um, so we're excited about this piece, but it'll give us time in the interim to really dig into, as we all know, uh, child care touches multiple estate agencies. Um, and so talking about how can we, uh, what what that best governance structure would look like and have discussions around that. Um, House Bill 175 is specifically, this is exciting for those of us that were on the TRS work group. We talked about badging and getting additional um, badging that has been um, uh, popular in QRS systems. Um, and this is one on children with special needs. Um, and so, uh, um, that center can choose. It's optional. Um, uh, so looking forward to see where that one goes. 460 is around, uh, a

120study on the cost of child care in comparison to family income. Um, really looking at what is that, what would the cost be if we wanted to really, um, uh, serve everybody on that weight list, what would that, and then how does that compare to family income and and and so forth. Hospital 2271 is looking at our uh requiring centers to have enrollment data collected. We now look at um capacity data data but don't have truly what programs have for enrollment. And then House Bill 3191 is Button's big ominous bill. It's got that part of that employer website that we talked about earlier. It also has uh an employer match program um for employers and states and parents um collectively to pull money towards. There's some franchise tax initiatives for for businesses. Um and then

121there is also a pilot project similar to the Tarant County Prime um uh budget or uh pilot that they're doing up there. So, lots and lots of good stuff in that one. Um so, those all were just heard this week. So we will uh be watching and seeing what the next steps are for all of those. So lots of good bills. There's over 60 bill six 60 bills in early childhood filed this year. So we are keeping our eyes on trying to track all of them. But these are the ones that are particularly moving. And Megan, I'm going to ask you to remind me of the number for the the EIDS one because I did not add that to the slide. 30 3963 3963. And that one's also in the moving along in the process

122as well. So that um and those of us that were on the EIDS subcommittee of Telk um it is uh pushing that work forward as well. So yeah and I I will say that the childcare priority bill passed the Senate yesterday. So that that bill has already made it out of out of one chamber. So that one appears to be to be moving moving too. See things move so fast you just can't keep up. I know. I know. All right. you want to work on a slide and it's, you know, obsolete by the end of the day. So, so, so by the next time we meet, we'll know which of these things actually made it all the way through. So, lots happening and more to come in the in the coming months. Thanks to both

123of you for these updates. Appreciate it. Um, okay. So, we are going to go to some other TEC member updates. Um, our first one is from TWWC. Kathy, you've got an update for us. Yes. And for the first part of this update, Kim set us up um really well. So, um, she mentioned the the kind of declining family child care home um, providers. And so, this one is partially aimed at bringing that back up. So, we're excited to talk about um um our statewide family childcare network and we have um awarded SOATAS strategies early start. Some of you will remember them as they uh um they were administering the um business coaching and also childc care um expansion initiative during um our co stimulus dollar days. So um they are going to be um also

124implementing this family childcare network in partnership with Shine Early Learning and United Way of Texas. So um all three great organizations that um I look forward to seeing um how they implement. And I want to mention just a few of the things that um that homebased childcare owners will now have access to. So, it will be um online business resources available in English and Spanish, group one-on-one uh business coaching, shared services, which will include childcare case management system, uh um healthc care access and technology access. They'll have um in-person regional meetings in 10 areas across the state and two special statewide events. gives a opportunity for that networking that a lot of family child care providers um don't have. They're often one person alone with the children all day long. So, uh um we're really

125excited about having these opportunities and um that's going to be every month. Uh um and then um to to help build the the supply of child care, we're offering many grants of up to $15,000 for new licensed or registered homebased providers. Uh um or those moving from maybe listed to registered or listed um or registered to licensed. So um we're excited about that. that it's really to help reduce the burden, you know, that kind of comes with with some of the licensing regulations to help them make sure that they are meeting those and um can help cover the cost if that bill that Kim mentioned doesn't move um forward. This would help cover the cost of some of those zoning fees and things like that um and permitting fees that they might have. And um

126and Kathy, I know the second one we talked about at the last meeting. We only have four minutes left. So if you can I hate to rush you, but we have one more update after you. Yep, no problem. Yeah, I just wanted to mention that the network is going to include an advisory board of homebased providers. So uh um that's going to be a really great update. So um watch out for this to launch in the summer. Uh um and then yes, we mentioned the early educator pathways program last time. I just want to mention that the application deadline is May 31st. So please um encourage any uh um any colleges and universities that you know that have um early childhood pathways to um to put in an application. Thank you. Thank you very much,

127Mandy from TEA. Over to you. Hey, good afternoon. Happy beautiful Friday. Um the uh the two things I want to talk about today is um some resources that we just launched on our Texas sped support site. The uh determining the least restrictive environment in preschool is an excellent guide. Um this is for educators. It's for um people who serve on AR committees and talks about continuum of services and pl and placement determinations to support those AR committees. So I I uh absolutely I'm requesting please share this information um with anyone you can. The link is on the on the bottom of this slide here. And then the the second thing, I think that Terry probably already announced this last time, but we have an ECSE, an empowering ECSE educators to improve student outcomes grant. And

128the application closed on March 7th for this for this year. And we had three times the amount of monies requested. Um, and we're trying to to pull money into that one so that we can we can give uh give out as much money as we can through these grants. Um, but we we suspect there'll be a significant amount of uh interest for next year and the opening date for that 2526 school year has not been determined yet. However, we plan on um opening it very early uh much earlier than than the first window that that happened in 2425. So, please get this information out. It is it is a great grant to help eleas and ESC's um push out professional development for ECSE educators as well as get uh these professionals uh duallyy certified. Um

129so check it out. It's great. Thank you. Highly competitive grant. People should take a look at it early so they're ready to apply because sounds like there's a lot more demand than you have funding. Yes. Uh there was. But we we hope to get more funding for next year. So, we didn't realize the the interest would be so large. So, all right, Mandy, thank you very much. Okay, questions for our last two presenters from any council members. We will move on to updates on early childhood events. Shruuthy, I believe you have an update for us. I do. Um so the Texas developmental screening and surveillance um we call it echo is housed through UT um school public health. We are having um webinars the second Friday of every month um from 1 to 2 p.m.

130So if anyone is interested u we can share the link so you guys can register for those webinars. That's great. Is that something you can drop in the chat? I can. Wonderful. Thank you very much. No problem. Um, do any other members have updates on upcoming events? Rean, I'm dropping in the chat. Our spring Texas tour starts next week. Um, so, uh, it's virtual. So, um, um, you can register and find the city near you. Um, we are also doing a statewide one in at at the end of the tour. So, I think it's May 6th. Um, so if you can't make your city, you can come to the statewide one as well. So, um, so there's that. All right, wonderful. Any other members have updates? And um Megan, why don't we we'll leave the

131meeting up for a little bit so people can get into the chat and get those links? All right, any other updates? Okay, folks. Thank you for the sprint at the end. Apologies to our last few presenters, but we managed to conclude at one o'clock. Reminder that our next meeting is scheduled for August the 8th. Members, thank you very much. It's 1:00 and the Texas Early Learning Council meeting is adjourned. Thanks everyone. Thank you.