7.1 Quality Activities Needs Assessment

7.1.1 Needs assessment process and findings a. Describe the Lead Agency needs assessment process for expending CCDF funds on activities to improve the quality of child care, including the frequency of assessment, how a diverse range of parents and providers were consulted, and how their views are incorporated: The DEL utilizes multiple methods of qualitative and quantitative data gathering and analysis to identify priorities for quality improvement. The state’s 30 local ELCs and RCMA annually identify quality goals, strengths, and areas for improvement and develop local plans to address these needs as part of their local plans; these data and plans help to inform statewide priorities. The DEL has developed and maintains Florida’s Sunshine Portal, which provides extensive data and analysis capacity to track local and statewide quality levels of capacity, quality, and parent choice. DEL’s Sunshine Portal contains the FLICCA, version 4.2, an interactive mapping tool that allows users to view levels of access to quality child care for families enrolled in the Florida SR Program. The Sunshine Portal was created in partnership with the DEL and the UF AZCEECS can be found at Sunshine Portal | Anita Zucker Center (ufl.edu). Updated annually, the FLICCA contains a dashboard that allows quick analysis of individual ELC areas for the following indicators: provider permanency, provider by quality level (reflecting CLASS scores including composite scores required for SR contracting), enrollment by quality level, SR utilization rates, enrollment, enrollment drop, average attendance, and enrollment by care level. The Sunshine Portal is used extensively by local and state level policy makers to make data-informed decisions to improve supports and services for young children and families; ELCs utilize the Sunshine Portal to inform their local plans. incorporate stakeholder feedback and enhance the usability of the Florida Index of Child Care Access (FLICCA) to aid data-informed decision making by coalitions and the DEL. The following is an outline of the DEL approved activities for 2024-2025 related to the FLICCA: • Provider Quality Level Distribution • Enrollment by Quality Level Distribution • Enrollment by Care Level Distribution • SR Utilization Rate • Eligible SR family participation rate (reported by family-residence area) • Eligible VPK family participation rate (reported by family-residence area) • VPK utilization rate by provider type • VPK child participation rate (using subsequent year’s kindergarten enrollment compared with prior year’s VPK enrollment) • VPK participation by provider type • VPK attendance rate by provider type • VPK selection by quality (using user-defined cut score on CLASS score as designation of high quality) • SR Access to Quality Providers (Maintenance) • Infrastructure Update (Zip Code) • High-Quality SR Enrollment ((Zip Code) • Provider Characteristics - SR Access to Quality Providers (Enhancements) • Incorporate the recently developed measure of childcare affordability (Household Percentage Income, (HPI)) into the FLICCA affordability framework. - Pilot Study of Initial Implementation of True Measure of Supply and Demand Using ARPA funding, the DEL partnered with UF AZCEECS and UF Lastinger Center to conduct three studies in efforts to address needs assessment, specifically, the needs of parents/families, and providers, provide recommendations for an informal pathway, and determine professional learning opportunities offered by coalitions that produced the greatest impact on educators’ scores on the Classroom Assessment Scoring System (CLASS®) observation tool. ￿Understanding the Determinants of Parent Enrollment in Florida’s Voluntary Prekindergarten Education Program and Florida’s School Readiness Program,￿ used administrative data, survey data, and parent surveys to examine parental choices, specifically describing factors influencing enrollment. This report resulted in a comprehensive understanding of socio-economic and logistical factors influencing parental preferences and enrollment patterns. Subsequent research will undertake more targeted examinations of families' responses from selected ELCs, aiming to offer a more detailed understanding of regional dynamics. The second research study, conducted by the UF Lastinger Center for Learning, determined which coalition professional learning opportunities produced the greatest impact on educators’ scores on the Classroom Assessment Scoring System (CLASS®) observation tool. The findings from these analyses suggest that Certified Coaching Visits (CCV), CLASS Group Coaching (MMCI/CGC), and Coalition Approved Strategies (CAS), such as supplemental coaching visits or other local quality initiatives, are most effective at increasing CLASS scores. The study used three data sources; CLASS data from the Quality Improvement System (QIP), kindergarten readiness assessment scores and professional development activities offered by five of the ELCs. The third study engaged the Early Childhood Policy Research Group (ECPRG) at UF AZCEECS to develop recommendations for an informal pathway for early childhood professionals. Through stakeholder meetings with child care providers, ELC staff and other agencies and regular meetings with a Statewide Advisory Committee, the ECPRG created recommendations for an informal pathway for the early learning and before-and-after school workforce. The ECPRG conducted a comprehensive study involving an extensive literature review on elements of career pathways, Florida’s current professional learning systems, and other state models in Delaware, Illinois, Kansas, New York, Ohio, and South Carolina to identify current workforce and professional learning trends, structures, and promising practices. They also solicited feedback and extensive input through 23 statewide focus groups that included Florida teachers, directors, owners/employers, administrators, early learning coalitions and Children’s Services Councils and Trust leaders, 34 interviews with national and state early learning experts, 4 Statewide Advisory Committee meetings, 100 received responses to a Florida Educator Professional Learning Survey, and 2 presentations at the Association of Early Learning Coalitions meeting and the One Goal Summer Conference. DEL maintains partnerships with statewide child care advocacy groups and organizations and regularly consults these partners both informally and through ongoing formal advisory groups focused on key priorities (e.g., current advisory bodies include work focused on child progress monitoring, informal career pathways and professional learning). Rich contextual data is gained from these meetings and partnerships regarding issues related to staffing and maintaining quality. Quantitatively, DEL analyzes quality levels via the Web-based Early Learning System (WELS) by tracking CLASS composite scores annually. The DEL reviews data and conducts forecasting to ascertain local capacity annually to support our quality improvement goals including ensuring a sufficient supply of certified CLASS observers and certified coaches. Gold Seal accreditation numbers are also monitored on an annual basis. b. Describe the findings of the assessment, including any findings related to needs of different populations and types of providers, and if any overarching goals for quality improvement were identified: As indicated through the above-described assessment methods, the following targets have been identified for further quality investment by DEL. Supporting Access and Parental Choice Previous needs assessment activities related to the Sunshine Portal discovered further investigation and analysis was warranted. Although previous survey-based work has shown that families have been unable to find providers aligned with their needs, low response rates have prompted the exploration of data collection mechanisms that ensure timely insights and robust representation across the state. For 2024 -2025, DEL has approved the study titled ￿Understanding the Determinants of Parent Enrollment in Florida’s Voluntary Prekindergarten Education Program and Florida’s School Readiness Program: Ongoing Support for Family Enrollment in SR/VPK￿. This study will continuously capture insights from families who are determined eligible for VPK and SR programs by leveraging communication with CCR&R. SR data from FY 22/23 shows that one in five families found eligible for services did not enroll with a child care provider. Surveys were emailed to families that were determined eligible but did not enroll in SR or VPK. To ensure inclusive responses, both English and Spanish options were made available to parents. The low response rate and low total number of respondents for SR were insufficient for drawing reliable conclusions for why families chose not to enroll. The DEL will continue this research by reaching out to participants to improve the response rate so that more qualitative data can be provided. Professional learning (PL) for the child care workforce The informal pathway addresses critical challenges in Florida's early childhood education sector for workforce retention, kindergarten readiness, educational gaps, professional learning, program quality, and informing policy. This informal pathway will provide meaningful opportunities for early childhood educators to build the skills and knowledge they need to effectively partner with families and support the growth and development of Florida’s youngest children. Once established, this informal pathway will provide opportunities for career progression for the majority of the early learning workforce, which does not have degrees, and help build and retain a workforce prepared to meet the care and learning needs of young children. - Improve the informal pathway to ensure professionals have opportunities to work toward a CDA and equivalent credentials systematically; with a goal of maximizing informal PL and enable professionals to transition into college if they choose (the state mandates articulation into at least nine college credit for CDAs and equivalent credentials statewide). - Offer endorsements and specializations for child welfare and early literacy. - Expand opportunities to provide quality PL in languages other than English. The DEL worked with the University of Florida’s Lastinger center to evaluate the professional learning opportunities offered by ELCs and RCMA and their impact on educators’ scores on the CLASS observation tool. Three sources of data were used to conduct this study. The first source is CLASS data from the QIP system, obtained from DEL, the second source is kindergarten readiness assessment scores and readiness rates for the 2020/2021 academic year and datasets of professional development activities obtained from five large ELCs. The study demonstrated that the percent of providers scoring above the quality differential range has increased over time (i.e., 76% in 2019-2020 to 96% in 2022-2023). The most common strategies in QIPs have been Certified Coaching Visits (CCV) and CLASS Group Coaching (CCG/MMCI). Findings suggest that the most effective professional development strategies for increasing CLASS scores were CCV, MMCI/CGC, and Coalition Approved Strategies (CAS). Of the professional development activities offered by ELCs for providers both with and without QIPs, trainings had a small but statistically significant positive effect on composite CLASS scores. Workforce - Increase capacity/availability by utilizing the analysis identifying areas of high need and lower or non-existing capacity (child care deserts) and working with ELC’s to address these areas of need by supporting local innovative initiatives that target expansion of capacity/slots by working with existing providers and recruiting new providers. - Implement systems of quality improvement for child care providers and services. - Complete regular CLASS assessments of SR providers to implement effective and responsive adult child interactions and ensure the programs meet required threshold scores for contracting. - Implement targeted professional learning and coaching to support programs’ quality improvement goals. - Continue the development and maintenance of certified, reliable observers, CLASS Group Coaching facilitators, and trainers through a DEL-funded contract with Teachstone. Opportunities for observers to calibrate regularly are offered with results being reviewed during monthly program assessment meetings. Further training will strengthen observers' abilities to observe and code rooms with an objective lens. Coaches are provided with training to support them in giving CLASS related feedback. Developmental Screening and Early Intervention - Strengthen collaboration among all ELCs, early learning providers, parents, and other agencies. - Distribute information about the benefits of screenings and the referral process to parents and early learning providers. - Offer to ELCs ￿Developmental Screening Tools Train-the-Trainers Trainings￿ so they can help providers complete developmental screening services with high fidelity. - Continue and expand the statewide positive behavioral intervention and supports (PBIS) system which includes providing the necessary support to all children and teachers needed for enhancing the quality level of instruction in the classroom. Establishing or expanding a statewide system of CCR&R services - Expand CCR&R communication to continuously capture insights from families who are determine eligible for SR programs. - Establish an online system to expand parental choice. The new data portal will search child care programs using real-time data on a number of indicators. Improving the supply of child care programs and services - Continue to use The Sunshine Portal to identify areas where there are child care deserts and work with the coalitions and other stakeholders to encourage high-quality child care programs to serve the population. Coaching - Foster strong, collaborative, and statewide leadership of Florida’s early learning system for supporting the coaching efforts statewide. - Strengthen the state’s use of data about the existing available coaches, their location, their content training, and expertise statewide to determine areas for improvement in coach knowledge and skill in order to assist providers in all areas of child care. - Foster more access to high-quality professional learning for early learning coaches.