Legislative Work GroupAugust 11, 2014
Participants: Donald Sysyn, Christine Fehst, Nancy Melquist, Betty Uehling, Mike Brown and Mary Owen. This date did not work for all participants who attended the first meeting, but meeting notes will be available on the WIKI.
Purpose of group: To help MDE in rolling out the new legislation to ECFE programs in a way that will be understandable and manageable.
Goals of the meeting: Determine what will be required of districts in meeting the new legislation requirement of conducting a community needs assessment.
ECFE EnhancementAreas draft document was reviewed : this had been shared with the ECFE 2.0 group and MNAFEE board members.
New Regional Networking Groups: the new groups are based on the regions used for the scholarship distribution areas. This group will also be utilized for communication in regards to the new legislation, as needed.
Toolkit for Coordinators: what will be included to help programs in meeting the new legislative requirements?
Community Needs Assessment
What do we want this to accomplish? Serving more families and/or providing programming services to families with diverse needs. The assessment will help to find families in our communities who are not currently attending and reasons for their lack of participation.
What data or information will legislators ask for? Legislators will ask if we are serving more families. However, we need to make them aware that we may not be serving more families, but serving them better (i.e. family literacy classes, culturally specific classes). Family risk factors—what are they and how do they influence a child’s readiness for school. Lastly, what are barriers for family participation (i.e. transportation, work schedules). Home visiting and outreach-type classes should be included as ways to also involve new parents/families.
They will also want to know how did MDE respond to legislative changes and how did programs respond to our guidance.
What data will be reported?
A suggestion to have not only quantitative, but also qualitative data included.
- New and underserved community families: look at individual participants compared to the overall population in the community (American Community Survey)
- Parent Education Needs in the community
- Use of topic finders by parent educators
- Ask other community agencies for their list of parenting topics/issues; as well as the staff from your elementary schools.
Suggestions for Communicating with ECFE Programs (from this group)
Points to make to programs before starting:
Based on the demographics of your particular community, who are the underserved? (for example, grandparents raising grandchildren).
This community assessment will not only assist your ECFE program in identifying who is not attending your program, but also be a valuable piece of information, once completed, for your school district. Please be sure to share the reasons for the assessment and the data received with your school district..
Be prepared to share the story of a family and/or working with another community agency that you encountered while conducting the community needs assessment.
MDE will:
Provide a template for conducting a community needs assessment and include:
- Basic requirements which should be part of the assessment
- Strategies for implementation – (i.e. working with another agency who has or is doing an assessment)
- Open Format –
- FAQ – possible questions that you may have about the assessment and other legislative changes affecting ECFE; formatted under individual pieces of the legislation
- Highly encourage programs to get started now
Year One (2014-2015) : Conducting of community needs assessment and gathering baseline data. This information will be requested by MDE at the time of the July 15, 2015 data submissions annual report.
Year Two (2015-2016) Last year’s baseline data will become the basis for possible changes to your current program classes, parenting education, services to families, etc. Keep your data accessible from year one after submitting your ECFE annual report.
Other Places for MDE to provide support
MNAFEE Regionals – a Q & A
MCEA Fall Regionals – the half hour prior to the conference
Next Steps for Legislative Workgroup
- Look over the document to be sent to district ECFE programs
- Representation at the next 2.0 group to share questions
- Re-gather to figure out questions being asked from program
Head Start Community Needs Assessment
- a place to start gathering basic requirements