Early Learning Action Alliance

October 8, 2009

Coalition Meeting Notes

1pm-4pm
United Way of KingCounty

Attending: Leslie Dozono, Lauren Platt, Cathy Garland, Joel Ryan, Nancy Ashley, Carol Wood, Sarah Francis, Ruth Schubert, Laura Wells, John Bancroft, Janice Deguchi, Elizabeth Mendoza, Margie Reeves, Karen Tvedt, Pat Dickason, Hannah Lidman, Molly Boyajian, Kathy Zeisel, Lisa Norton, Kelly Phanco, Sarah Borgida, David Beard

On phone: Dorothy Gibson, Erica Hallock, Agda Burchard, Vic Coleman (CCF)

  1. LEGISLATIVE UPDATE
  1. Update on Assembly Days:
  2. Work session in House Committee on Early Learning & Children’s Services
  3. First half of the work session focused on the state’s Early Literacy projects. Jill Sells presented information on Reach Out and Read and Nina presented on Thrive’s Culture of Literacy work.
  4. Second half of the work session was dedicated to QRIS, where Nina Auerbach and Bette Hyde presented an update on the demonstration communities, the logistics of the contracts through Thrive, and testimony from 2 coaching-provider pairs from ClarkCounty and Yakima.
  5. Reiterated that the state’s commitment to QRIS is important for the Early Learning Challenge Fund
  6. Senate Democratic Caucus: Early Learning has been states as their priority for the 2010 session
  7. ELAA members (Jon Gould, Hannah Lidman, Dorothy Gibson) met with the new chief of staff, Carolyn Busch, to talk about our site visit plan and to present a general outline of our legislative agenda.
  8. House Education Committee hearing on gang violence:
  9. Marcie Maxwell is on this committee, so we have an opportunity to connect with her on the research behind early learning and gang prevention.
  10. Neither Sullivan nor Priest (also both on the House Education Committee) said anything about early learning and dropout prevention, so we have some education to do here.
  11. Quality Education Council Meeting:
  12. Great representation from ELAA members, thank you to all who testified!
  1. Updates/information sharing on Legislative contacts from ELAA members:
  2. Advocates for home visiting (Laurie Lippold, Lonnie, Kathy Zeisel, Teresa Mosqueda, and fiscal analysis folks from House Ways & Means) are planning a November meeting on home visiting. For more information: contact Kathy Zeisel:
  3. Janice Deguchi (Denise Louie) is working with Pettigrew to have a meeting with Susan Dreyfus (the new DSHS secretary),Bette Hyde and 10 providers from South Seattle to talk about subsidy issues.
  4. Representative Goodman has expressed interest and enthusiasm in being a champion for early learning and taking greater leadership on early learning issues, especially in relation to the Governor-directed legislation that comes out of the recommendations of the December 1 Drafting Team. Not exactly sure what that means at this point, but we will be doing work to connect with him as things progress to foster a relationship with him as an important advocate for early learning in the House.(Update: Children’s Alliance and Children’s Home Society met with Goodman on 10/14 to get a sense of his upcoming work)
  5. Still hearing some anxiety in the House over the Governor’s veto, which points to the need for us to connect House and Senate leaders to foster a coordinated and constructive approach to moving past the veto.
  6. Molly Boyajian from Thrive by Five and Sonali Patel from DEL took Ways & Means staffers and Terry Price (with the Washington State Democratic Caucus)to site visits with an ECEAP provider and QRIS sites in a home and a center, where staffers also met with John Bancroft from WCELI.
  7. Steve Olsen: event honoring RepresentativeHaigh on Oct 15th at early learning center in SheltonSchool District. She will also come to a Thurston Early Childhood coalition meeting on Oct 22nd.
  8. Kelly Phanco: community celebration in PierceCounty on Oct 22nd and Senator Regala has RSVP’d to join.
  9. The Economic Opportunity Institute is working with WEEL/AFT and child care center providers who are participants in the Career and Wage Ladder to start a new advocacy campaign to blend personal stories with the report on the Career and Wage Ladder that will be released. Phase 1: postcards to legislators across the state with personal stories from providers about what the wage ladder means to them. For more information, contact Hannah Lidman:
  1. Site visit planning/Senate Outreach
  2. Currently, we have two dates solidified for Senate site visits: Senator Ranker on the 20th in Mt.Vernon and Senator Tom on the 27thDavid is currently working on getting the rest of the site visits dates/times/locations solidified.
  3. Announcement: Please congratulate David Beard, who has recently taken a position with PreK now at the Pew Charitable Trust in DC! It is bittersweet as we congratulate David on this opportunity, realizing that we will no longer be working with him on a day-to-day basis through the coalition. However, we look forward to keeping in touch with David in this new capacity and wish him well as he transitions in early November.
  4. Transition plan for site visit coordination efforts: Children’s Alliance staff will continue coordinating this work after David leaves.
  1. ELAA LEGISLATIVE AGENDA UPDATE
  1. Mobilization/Communications planning
  2. Background: At the retreat, we discussed possible budget scenarios, and identified the need for a coordinated campaign to protect early learning in the Governor’s budget, which is scheduled to be released on December 8th. At this point, we know that we are facing more cuts in Governor’s budget, especially since she will not be considering new revenue sources in her proposal.
  3. The extent to how much early learning gets cut has a lot to do with what we, and our partners, do in the next couple of months to influence her budget.
  4. Want a campaign around early learning to have breadth and depth. Different organizations would help tailor the message and get it out to networks and the Governor.
  5. Proposal for Coalition review: 3 larger strategies focused on 1) grassroots advocacy 2) coalition letter to the Governor and 3) focused messages from a range of constituencies. Among member organizations present, there was general approval of this mobilization plan.
  6. Outreach component to the focused messages: each “sector” or constituency group would take on peer-to-peer conversations with folks outside ELAA to do a “sign-on” approach.
  7. Potential for press releases around these letters to highlight these constituencies if they are successful, much like the Fight Crime Invest in Kids model.
  8. Next steps:
  9. Need ad-hoc committee to review overall theme, goal, and messages
  10. Accelerate an ELAA-branded format for the grassroots letter to the Governor for the upcoming WAEYC conference, where WAEYC can provide opportunities for providers to write handwritten letters.
  11. Update: Children’s Alliance developed a postcard that will be used at the WAEYC conference, with the goal of getting 750 messages sent from providers.
  12. Sarah Francis to set up Google spreadsheet where organizations can pledge contacts and update it with what actually gets done. Leslie Dozono to coordinate expectations and goals for member organizations.
  13. Children’s Alliance staff, Laura Wells, Sarah Francis, and Erica Hallock will take this initial proposal and elaborate on the themes presented
  1. Budget – see mobilization plan
  2. NO on 1033 Campaign Update:
  3. Phone banks – Children’s Alliance hosting one on the 15th at the Vance building from 6-8:30 pm.
  4. Connect directly to the campaign at
  1. Revenue
  2. Next steps: Draft statement for the agenda, which specifically calls out the need for new revenue,needs to be sent to the coalition for members to see if they can or cannot support this.
  3. As with our advocacy around the budget, our short-term energy should be focused on defeating Initiative 1033 if new revenue is to remain a long-term solution to the budget crisis!
  1. Subsidy
  2. Still considering components that were presented at the retreat
  3. Lonnie checking in with Kauffman and Pettigrew on details
  4. Information gathering is continuing on the different proposals
  5. Next meeting TBD.
  1. Federal
  2. Update on the Early Learning Challenge Fund from our partners at the First Five Years Fund
  3. Current looming question: Whether or not there will be anational definition of quality. On the House side, the states would negotiate quality in the grant contract.
  4. FFYF position: if we’re striving for high quality, there should be a national standard.
  5. Level of funding: House version includes $8 million, and the Senate is trying to push this level to $10 billion, but word is that the Senate proposal may get scaled back to $9 billion.
  6. A continued challenge for this legislation is that it is contained within a larger, more contentious bill (the Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act) which is getting pushback from banks. Therefore, Senators that have high numbers of bank employees are in a hard place even if they’re supportive of the early learning provisions contained in the Early Learning Challenge Fund.
  7. Concern on federal level: if the Sally May proposal moves (an alternative piece of legislation which is also aimed at student lending practices), it would put the early learning challenge fund at risk.
  8. Possible that the ELCF could get wrapped up in a reconciliation bill, since it would then need fewer votes to pass the Senate (as opposed to a committee vote). It’s also possible that the Democrats will try to roll this into health care reform. If this happens, we will have an even harder time highlighting this issue.
  9. Timeline is hard to predict. Original deadline: October 15th, not sure what the deadline is now.
  10. What are the WA talking points?
  11. A version of the Student Aid bill (with the ELCF) needs to get through the Senate, and Sen. Murray is on some key committees, so we need to be contacting her NOW.
  12. Push for the $10 billion! This level of funding is still in play on the Senate side.
  13. Make a case for jobs that come from early learning to tap into the concern that we would see a decrease in jobs within the banking industry.
  14. FFYF will pass along messaging.
  15. Also becoming clear that to evaluate a state’s eligibility for the larger, renewable grants, they may use a “scale” for factors, so not necessarily to put so much emphasis on statewide QRIS – there may be other things that would balance this out if, for example, your state meets the criteria for a professional development system.
  16. Home Visiting
  17. Senate Finance Committee to vote on their bill on Tuesday of next week – home visiting made it into their version.
  18. 3 house versions: home visiting in 2 of the three so as they work to reconcile these versions, need to make sure that home visiting makes it into the final version.
  19. Colleague- to colleague advocacy effort is becoming increasingly important here; Rep. Kagi to talk to McDermott, for example.
  20. Innovation Funds (already enacted) – grants from the Dept. of Education for innovative programs in advancing student achievement specifically for collaborations between non-profits and school districts.
  21. Federal rules are now available – school readiness called out much more than it was previously. Still have to be in consortium with an SEA or an LEA (have to be in partnership with public schools) to be eligible.
  22. Appropriations process: real fight will be next summer, once the ARRA funds go away, since we’re spending more time on policy currently.
  23. Advocacy around the president’s budget – advocacy to get them to consider the base + stimulus funds is the carry forward amount
  24. Message for EHS/HS: money went to adding children; it was an investment in our future, not one-time funding.
  1. 0-5 EARLY LEARNING SYSTEM
  1. Drafting Team update: Molly Boyajian, Thrive by Five WA
  2. Currently, the December 1 drafting team lookingat ELP policy positions are lining up with other opportunities and being mindful of what the financing approach could be for each policy.
  3. On October 22: there will be some narrowing and prioritization of policies and approaches. However, all the work group templates will be in the overall long-term plan. Documents for this meeting will be shared on DEL’s website for the early learning plan.
  4. Criteria for the Drafting Team’s prioritization process: looking at strategies that address the preparation gap, policies that address all, some, or few (what programs are universal and which are targeted), and what makes the most sense to forward to the Governor for short-term policies.
  5. Outlines for Dec 1 recommendations to the Governor and ELP are available on the website – these outlines indicate the structure of both documents but do not provide policy content.
  6. Financing subgroup of the drafting team, led by Bonnie Beukema, is collecting information on revenue, tax proposals, financing mechanisms for a universal pre-k program, etc. Contact Bonnie for more information.
  1. Long-term plan working group updates:
  2. Timeline info: all strategy templates for the working groups are due October 15th. Between the end of October and November 17th is the time to provide our input so the document can be written up for the Governor.
  3. Community engagement workgroup update from Leslie Dozono – considering the outputs and how they’re being processed and how they’re available to different communities. Contact Leslie for more information.
  4. If you have comments or questions on work put forth in the working groups, between now and Oct 22ndcomments should go to Leslie. After that: we will let you know.
  1. PEW UPDATE
  2. The Children's Alliance got the green light from the Pew Charitable Trusts to begin working on an application for funding to support home visiting advocacy from Dec 2009 to Nov 2010. Of course, we hope that funding will endure beyond the first year. Pew has indicated this to beat least a 3-5 year initiative. Other states being considered for funding are NC, OH, and LA (the state, not city). Our proposal is due Oct 14th, a very short turn around time. For asummary of the narrative questions we are replying to and a draft goal, activities, and expected results contact Jon Gould.

Next Meeting - RESCHEDULED FROM NORMAL TIME

Thursday, November 12th

1pm-4pm

@United Way of KingCounty

Call-in option will be available and sent with agenda in November