Date: 09/28/2015

Final
Breakout Sessions

EARLY CHILDHOOD AND SCHOOL READINESS

Votes: View--> Action Taken:
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01:58 PM -- Breakout Sessions

Senator Martinez Humenik asked Anna Jo Haynes, Co-Chair of the Early Childhood Leadership Commission (ECLC), to come to the table to speak about a letter sent to commission members from the ECLC. Ms. Haynes read the letter aloud and a copy was distributed to the members (Attachment G). Ms. Haynes answered questions from the commission members regarding the specifics of the letter. Senator Martinez Humenik announced that the breakout groups would meet for one hour and then come back together as a group to present what was discussed. She reviewed the ground rules and goals for the breakout groups.

15EarlyChildhood0928AttachG.pdf15EarlyChildhood0928AttachG.pdf

02:17 PM

The commission recessed so that the breakout groups could meet.


03:09 PM

The commission came back to order. Representative Singer provided a summary of what was discussed by the breakout group focusing on teachers. He said that the group did not come up with any ideas for legislation, but did identify a number of issues, including recruitment and retention; House Bill 15-1001; a lack of diversity amongst early childhood teachers; and the need to examine whether teacher pay or increasing professional development credentials makes more sense.


03:12 PM

Senator Hudak came to the table to provide an overview of what was discussed by the breakout group focusing on equalizing access to care. She stated that the group came up with three ideas for legislation. She asked Thamanna Vasan, a representative from the Colorado Fiscal Institute, to join her at the table to explain one of the ideas, which is to remove a trigger from the Child Tax Credit which was established by Senate Bill 13-001. The representative provided a fact sheet (Attachment H) and explained that the trigger is dependent upon the implementation of the Marketplace Fairness Act or similar legislation which has not yet occurred. She said that the premise would be to remove that trigger so that families can begin claiming that tax credit. Senator Hudak explained that the second bill suggestion is to expand the number of Colorado Preschool Program (CPP) slots by 3,000, and that the group's third suggestion is to remove the requirement that preschool through second grade teachers be evaluated by student growth scores from assessments.

15EarlyChildhood0928AttachH.pdf15EarlyChildhood0928AttachH.pdf

03:27 PM

Senator Marble told the commission that her breakout group which focused on child welfare did not have any suggestions for legislation to bring forward. Senator Marble answered questions from the committee.


03:34 PM

Emily Bustos, Executive Director of Denver's Early Childhood Council, presented the ideas from the group that focused on family, friend, and neighbor (FFN) care. She told the commission that the group discussed changing the definition of exempt providers to see if it can be expanded to better serve the FFN population. She said that it is possible that this may be able to be done by a rule change and therefore the group is not recommending legislation. She said the next idea the group discussed was about staff qualifications, but they decided they needed to do more research about this topic before recommending legislation. Ms. Bustos told the commission that the only piece of legislation the group recommends pertains to the expansion of the cliff effect pilot program and the need to have a realignment to get the appropriate number of participating counties in order to gather enough data.


03:40 PM

Chaer Robert, representing the Colorado Center on Law and Policy (CCLP), came to the table to present a bill suggestion from CCLP. She distributed a handout (Attachment I), and explained that the bill would create a task force to evaluate the best way for state agencies to coordinate to address the child care needs of low-income parents of young children who wish to advance their education. Ms. Robert explained the components and mission of the task force in further detail and answered questions from the committee.

15EarlyChildhood0928AttachI.pdf15EarlyChildhood0928AttachI.pdf