7.2 Use of Quality Set-Aside Funds

Lead Agencies must use a portion of their CCDF expenditures for activities designed to improve the quality of child care services and to increase parental options for and access to high-quality child care. They must use the quality set-aside funds on at least one of 10 activities described in CCDF and the quality activities must be aligned with a Statewide or Territory-wide assessment of the State's or Territory’s need to carry out such services and care. 7.2.1 Quality improvement activities a. Describe how the Lead Agency will make its Quality Progress Report (ACF – 218) and expenditure reports, available to the public. Provide a link if available. The Lead Agency will post its annual Quality Progress Report (ACF - 218) and CCDF expenditure reports on the Lead Agency website (https://www.louisianabelieves.com/resources/library/early- childhood-policy-guidance). b. Identify Lead Agency plans, if any, to spend CCDF funds for each of the following quality improvement activities. If an activity is checked “yes”, describe the Lead Agency’s current and/or future plans for this activity. i. Supporting the training and professional development of the child care workforce, including birth to five and school-age providers. [ ] No plans to spend in this category of activities at this time. [x] Yes. If yes, describe current and future investments. The Lead Agency supports the training and professional development of the child care workforce through multiple strategies: The Lead Agency contracts with Child Care Resource and Referral agencies to provide group training and professional development to the child care workforce that includes best practices related to child development, curriculum, and teacher-child interactions. Furthermore, one-on-one in-field coaching in child care sites provides support tailored to the specific needs of the recipient inclusive of modeling lessons, co-teaching, lesson planning, and providing feedback opportunities. This practice-based coaching model addresses improving teacher skills and learning environments, high-quality instruction, and the assessment of children’s developmental needs and improving directors’ instructional leadership. The Lead Agency contracts with a mental health consultation vendor to provide program-, classroom-, and child-centered services designed to support all staff with children at an early learning site and assess and make recommendations for particular children. In conjunction, the mental health consultants collaborate with community networks and Child Care Resource and Referral agencies and provide information to inform and improve their work in training, coaching, and supporting early learning sites. The Lead Agency developed Louisiana Early Childhood Key Training Modules to increase the quality of training available to early childhood teachers across the state and offers those modules or the materials for those modules through the Lead Agency website. In addition to these key training modules, the Lead Agency developed Key Orientation Training modules, which are accessible through the Lead Agency website, as an orientation mechanism to assist early learning centers and family child care sites to meet licensing requirements and to prepare teachers and leaders to offer a quality environment from day one. The Lead Agency offers early childhood sessions at a Lead Agency-hosted annual professional learning conference. The conference brings Louisiana educators together with content experts in order to share knowledge, learn new skills, and prepare for the next academic year. The conference aligns with the Lead Agency goals and vision while allowing educators to attend sessions with high-quality strategies, resources, and alignment to Louisiana's top educational priorities. The Lead Agency also approves additional training hours for early childhood- related conferences as well, to offer a range of opportunities for providers to obtain continuing education hours that can be used to meet the requirements within Bulletin 137. Presenters must include a resume or Pathways provider ID and description of the workshop in order to receive approval. Additionally, the Lead Agency developed Workforce Support Modules that aim to support and improve the recruitment, hiring, retention, and evaluation of employees. The Lead Agency will offer these modules in multiple modalities over the next three years and ensure that every Child Care Resource and Referral agency offers multiple opportunities for directors to participate. The modules incorporate realistic scenarios and reflection on personal practices that come from Louisiana child care providers and module participants, national/statewide data, and, for modules that are presented by a trainer/facilitator, resources to guide discussion and collaboration amongst participants, to share best practices. The Lead Agency may offer these modules through a virtual option that can be taken asynchronously, as well as incorporate shorter lessons from the modules into recurring webinars, such as the Monthly Provider Update Webinar. The Lead Agency intends to incorporate follow-up with all participants to track the impact of these modules on teacher retention, quality of instruction, and teacher turnover over the next three years. Further, the Lead Agency will continue to invest in scholarships for Board- approved Early Childhood Ancillary Certificate programs available statewide, to ensure lead teachers have the professional learning necessary to provide high- quality care and education. ii. Developing, maintaining, or implementing early learning and developmental guidelines. [ ] No plans to spend in this category of activities at this time. [x] Yes. If yes, describe current and future investments. The Lead Agency offers early childhood sessions at a Lead Agency-hosted annual professional learning conference. The conference brings Louisiana educators together with content experts in order to share knowledge, learn new skills, and prepare for the next academic year. The conference aligns with the Lead Agency goals and vision while allowing educators to attend sessions with high-quality strategies, resources, and alignment to Louisiana's top educational priorities. Information related to Louisiana’s early learning and developmental guidelines is shared through the conference. iii. Developing, implementing, or enhancing a quality improvement system. [ ] No plans to spend in this category of activities at this time. [x] Yes. If yes, describe current and future investments. The state's unified quality rating and improvement system is administered statewide for all publicly-funded programs, including Early Head Start and Head Start sites, school-based pre-K, and child care centers accepting public funding such as the CCAP subsidy. Results from the Louisiana QRIS are posted on Louisiana's School and Center Finder as well as on the lead agency website: https://www.louisianabelieves.com/early- childhood/performance-profiles. Through the state's unified quality rating and improvement system, each site receives multiple CLASS observations throughout the course of a typical academic year, with every classroom receiving an observation in the fall and in the spring. These observations are averaged to generate the ratings for sites; additional informational metrics on the use of best practices are collected and published including information about curriculum, assessment, and educational attainment and certification of teachers. Through the state's QRIS, teachers in early learning sites receive feedback, both from local community observers as well as from independent third-party observers. This feedback provides pathways for teachers to improve and checkpoints to understand how much they have improved. The process of combining local and third-party observations of classrooms ensures that there is significant capacity in local communities to understand what quality in early childhood classrooms looks like and how to promote it in individual classrooms and sites, as well as across communities more broadly. Annually the Lead Agency uses data-driven determinations from Performance Scores to determine sites that are high-priority for quality improvement support by CCR&Rs and/or the mental health consultation program. Sites identified as high-priority receive ongoing quality improvement support, which includes individual or small group training and coaching to improve teacher-child interactions and high-quality experiences as well as program leaders’ abilities to support quality. iv. Improving the supply and quality of child care services for infants and toddlers. [ ] No plans to spend in this category of activities at this time. [x] Yes. If yes, describe current and future investments. To assess the quality of child care services for infants and toddlers, all child care centers accepting public funding such as the CCAP subsidy are required to participate in the state’s quality rating system. Results from the Louisiana QRIS are posted on Louisiana's School and Center Finder as well as on the Lead Agency website: https://www.louisianabelieves.com/early-childhood/performance-profiles. Through the state's unified quality rating and improvement system, each publicly- funded site’s infant and toddler classrooms receive multiple CLASS observations throughout the course of a typical academic year, with every classroom receiving an observation in the fall and in the spring. These infant and toddler teachers receive feedback, both from local community observers as well as from independent third-party observers, that provides pathways for teachers to improve and checkpoints to understand how much they have improved. Annually the Lead Agency uses data-driven determinations about infant and toddler care and education from Performance Scores to determine sites that are high-priority for quality improvement support by CCR&Rs and/or the mental health consultation program. Sites identified as high-priority receive ongoing quality improvement support, which includes individual or small group training and coaching to improve infant and toddler teacher-child interactions and high- quality experiences as well as program leaders’ abilities to support quality in infant and toddler classrooms. v. Establishing or expanding a statewide system of CCR&R services. [ ] No plans to spend in this category of activities at this time. [x] Yes. If yes, describe current and future investments. The Lead Agency continues to work to optimize the CCR&Rs’ available capacity through monthly administrative community of practice events, Master Coach Professional Learning Community meetings and trainings, and in-field monitoring of key activities. Monthly and additional biannual reporting by the CCR&Rs provides additional opportunities for the Lead Agency to directly or indirectly promote the CCR&Rs’ strategic planning that includes community-level footprint, efficiency, programmatic relationships, resource and referral management for families, and advanced coaching and training to the field. vi. Facilitating compliance with Lead Agency child care licensing, monitoring, inspection and health and safety standards. [ ] No plans to spend in this category of activities at this time. [x]Yes. If yes, describe current and future investments. CCDF funds will be used to monitor all licensed CCDF and non-CCDF and certified sites for compliance with the health and safety standards and to provide on-site technical assistance and provider orientation training regarding health and safety standards. vii. Evaluating and assessing the quality and effectiveness of child care services within the State/Territory. [ ] No plans to spend in this category of activities at this time. [x] Yes. If yes, describe current and future investments. To evaluate and assess the quality of child care services, the state's unified quality rating and improvement system is administered statewide for all child care centers accepting public funding such as the CCAP subsidy. Results from the Louisiana QRIS are posted on Louisiana's School and Center Finder as well as on the lead agency website: https://www.louisianabelieves.com/early-childhood/performance-profiles. Through the state's unified quality rating and improvement system, each site receives multiple CLASS observations throughout the course of a typical academic year, with every classroom receiving an observation in the fall and in the spring. These observations are averaged to generate the ratings for sites; additional informational metrics on the use of best practices are collected and published including information about curriculum, assessment, and educational attainment and certification of teachers. This data supports the Lead Agency in evaluating and assessing the quality and effectiveness of child care services within the State. viii. Accreditation support. [x] No plans to spend in this category of activities at this time. [ ] Yes. If yes, describe current and future investments. ix. Supporting State/Territory or local efforts to develop high-quality program standards relating to health, mental health, nutrition, physical activity, and physical development. [ ] No plans to spend in this category of activities at this time. [x] Yes. If yes, describe current and future investments. The Lead Agency plans to continue to develop high-quality child care provider program standards through monitoring for compliance and on-site technical assistance visits. This includes ensuring that there are written and implemented procedures for health and safety; that all meals and snacks provided by the center meet the requirements of the USDA CACFP; and that there are written and implemented procedures for physical activity for a minimum of 60 minutes per day, which includes providing children under age 2 with time and space for age-appropriate physical activity both indoors and outdoors and providing children age 2 and older a combination of both teacher-led and free play, both indoors and outdoors. x. Other activities determined by the Lead Agency to improve the quality of child care services and the measurement of outcomes related to improved provider preparedness, child safety, child well-being, or kindergarten entry. [ ] No plans to spend in this category of activities at this time. [x] Yes. If yes, describe current and future investments. The Lead Agency has developed key training modules as part of quality improvement activities to build knowledge regarding best practices in early childhood health and safety, instruction, administration, and other relevant topics for early care and education, to ensure child safety, well-being, and preparedness for kindergarten entry. These modules are available through an online platform that allows for flexibility of training, accessibility of certificates, and monitoring of training quality to align with federal guidelines and the Lead Agency’s regulations. 8 Lead Agency Coordination and Partnerships to Support Service Delivery Coordination and partnerships help ensure that the Lead Agency’s efforts accomplish CCDF goals effectively, leverage other resources, and avoid duplication of effort. Such coordination and partnerships can help families better access child care, can assist in providing consumer education to parents, and can be used to improve child care quality and the stability of child care providers. Such coordination can also be particularly helpful in the aftermath of disasters when the provision of emergency child care services and the rebuilding and restoring of child care infrastructure are an essential part of ensuring the well-being of children and families in recovering communities. This section identifies who the Lead Agency collaborates with to implement services, how match and maintenance-of-effort (MOE) funds are used, coordination with child care resource and referral (CCR&R) systems, and efforts for disaster preparedness and response plans to support continuity of operations in response to emergencies.