January 7, 2020

Sponsored by the Early Learning Coalition of Northwest Florida and the State of Florida, Office of Early Learning

February Board Meeting

Please note there is no Board Meeting in January.

Next month's Board of Directors Meeting will be on February 12, 2020 at 11:00 AM.

This meeting will be held at our Panama City office.

If you would like to attend but cannot do so in person, you can call in at:

(646) 558-8656 using meeting ID number 365 921 3194.

New Coalition Office Hours

• We are excited to announce the Coalition’s Family Support and CCR&R teams expanded its office hours effective January 6th.

• The Coalition’s Panama City and Marianna offices will be open 7:30 am to 5:30 pm Monday thru Thursday.

• These offices will remain closed to the public on Fridays, however, we can accommodate a limited number of customers on Fridays by appointment only, under special circumstances.

• The new office hours will allow the Coalition Family Support and CCR&R teams to be available to customers and providers a full 40 hours per week.

Community Information

Children's Week 2020

Time is running out!

Children's Week will be January 26 - 31, 2020. You can begin crafting hand artwork

as soon as you would like. This year we are asking that each program string together

their hand art onto 8- to 10-foot strands/strings and attach a name card including the

program name, program city, class name and class age group. We want our

legislators to spot hand art from their hometown.

Thank you to those of you who have sent art in! For those of you who have not,

strands of hand art can be dropped off at our Panama City and Marianna offices until

January 10, 2020. You may also mail your children's hand art directly to the ELC of

the Big Bend Region. For more information on the locations of our Coalition offices

visit www.elcnwf.org.

Please visit the official Children's Week website for statewide information.

If you have any questions or need additional information about Children's Week,

please email the Redline.

Celebrate Literacy Week 2020

January 27 - January 31, 2020

ELCNWF Staff will be delivering The Grumpy Bird and Roosters Off to See the World, along with a packet including the OEL recommended activities, this week. Please use these materials, and this time before Celebrate Literacy Week, to include the use of the books into your planning.

In exchange for the books, we ask that you simply submit photos and videos of the activities being done and/or the books being read through the redline for use in a social media photo contest. Details are in the packet you will receive with your books.

2020 Provider Update

January 1- May 31, 2020

We are currently waiting for the button for your 20-21 profiles to be activated by OEL. Once it is in the portal, we will give you instructions about when to start updating your information.

FYI: When you participate in the Annual Provider Update, our CCR&R staff can

• Inform communities about child care and the cost of care.

• Offer accurate customized child care listings based on the needs of families.

• Provide a FREE marketing tool for ALL legally operating child care providers in Florida.

Bonus Info: Your profile must be in ACTIVE status in order to be included when CCR&R staff are generating custom child care listings for families.

Monthly Teacher Spotlight – Dana Blount

Mrs. Blount has been with Palm Bay Elementary since the school opened. She is married to her high school sweetheart and has two teenaged daughters. Mrs. Blount has been an Early Educator for over 21 years. She first got her CDA certificate from EEC and received her directors license from Haney technical school. In 2015 she graduated from Gulf Coast State College with her AS in Early Childhood Education & Child Development. She plans to teach PreK until she’s old and just can’t teach anymore.

Mrs. Blount has been instrumental in building our VPK program at Palm Bay Elementary. Our program was up and running and when Hurricane Michael hit, many of the materials and furniture were destroyed. She was able to network to receive grants and donations to replace the items that were lost due to the storm, as well as enhance the classrooms with additional materials and furniture. We are very fortunate to have Mrs. Blount as our director of our program as well as one of our VPK classroom teachers.

- Principal Patty Phillips, Palm Bay Elementary

VPK Information

VPK Enrollments as of December 31, 2019

Age Bay Calhoun Franklin Gulf Holmes Jackson Washington Grand Total

School Based 567 23 49 24 82 180 112 1,037

Non-school Based 419 17 21 43 50 99 31 680

986 40 70 67 132 279 143 1,717

VPK Preliminary Readiness Rate – Dispute Process

The 2018-19 VPK Preliminary Readiness Rates have been released.

You can access the information via the secure login functions for the VPK Provider Kindergarten Readiness Rate website, https://vpkrates.floridaearlylearning.com. Please note that this is a new URL for the website, however the old URL, https://vpk.fldoe.org, will point to the same website.

Once logged in, each provider should complete the following:

1.Child Verification: Review the list of children who attended your program last year and ensure that the data is accurate. You may edit the name, gender or date of birth for the children who attended your 2018-19 VPK program.

2.Hours Attended: Review the hours attended for the children in your program. You can make changes to hours of attendance only when the change results in the hours of attendance being greater or less than 70 percent of the program hours. For school year programs (540 hours), 70 percent is 378 hours of attendance. For summer programs (300 hours), 70 percent is 210 hours of attendance. All changes to the hours of attendance require coalition approval.

3.A provider wishing to file a dispute may do so during this period. A dispute may be filed for any of the following reasons;

•number of children served,•number of children screened,•number of children meeting substantial completion,•number of children included in the readiness rate calculation, or•a change of ownership.

4.You may also use the dispute form to provide information about children who are showing as not having participated in the kindergarten screening if the provider has information about the school the child is attending kindergarten.

VPK Readiness Rate – Dispute Process

Week of Dec. 9-13, 2019 Preliminary readiness rates released21-day window following Release (will not close before Jan. 13, 2020)

Provider Verification and Dispute Process open

10-day window to review verification (will not close before Jan. 22, 2020)

Coalition review period open

Jan. 22, 2020, through Jan. 31, 2020 OEL review and resolution of disputesLast week of Jan. 2020 Final readiness rates released

Provider and coalition tasks and target dates are listed below:

PROJECTED 2018-19 VPK READINESS RATE TIMELINE(Dates shown are target dates and subject to change)

VPK Attendance Submissions

Voluntary Prekindergarten Sign In/Sign Out Sheet Rules:

• VPK Providers using the Short Form must have additional back up documentation validating childattendance. For example: Daily sign in/out sheets and (or) teachers’ attendance records.

• VPK Providers that use a method other than a daily sign in/out sheet, such as attendance logs, theprovider must ensure that parents certify the students’ attendance each month using the Long Form.

Short and Long Forms must be signed and certified by the parent/legal guardian no earlier than the last school day of the month and no later than five (5) calendar days into the following month.

For example: The month of January 2020 can be verified and signed between the days of January 31st and February 5th

VPK Attendance Submissions

While processing VPK Reimbursement, we are finding children’s Legal names are being shortened, middle names or Nick names are being used on the Sign-in/Sign-out sheets, Teacher daily attendance logs, Long Forms and Short Forms in place of Legal names.

Please see the below listing of guidelines to assist providers in successfully meeting the requirements.

Sign in/out sheets must include:1. Name of child (must match name on the ELC Enrollment Certificate) that will match child's name on EFS MOD Roster as well2. Date3. Time in (must be accurate to the minute, may not be rounded up or down)4. Time out (must be accurate to the minute, may not be rounded up or down)5. Signature of person signing child in (in ink)6. Signature of parent or person authorized by the parent to pick up child (in ink)7. Name of Facility/Provider9. Month / Year

SR Information

SR Attendance

As a reminder, School Readiness Attendance is processed every month using the Sign-in/Sign-out sheets.

All Providers should upload the Attendance Documentation (to include Sign-in/Sign-out Sheets, Rilya Wilson forms, and Doctor Notes/Absence Documentation) by the 3rd business day of each month.

Please ensure that you are uploading the Attendance Documentation to the correct folder in the Coalition Document Exchange (Sharefile)

If you have children who no longer attend, please reach out to the Eligibility Case Manager (assigned by Child’s Last Name) so they can terminate the children prior to submitting your rosters online.

Child Screening Requirements (ASQs)

The 2019-2020 SR contract requires providers to complete the initial ASQs, if the Coalition is not successful in having the parents complete them.

The Coalition has partnered with OEL and Brookes ASQ online to provide online access to our SR Providers to complete ASQs. A special thanks to all those Providers who have set up their ASQ online accounts.

Creating this online account, and submitting ASQs electronically, will make accessing children's results easier and be a time saver for providers.

Child Screening Requirements (ASQs)

Please ensure your online account is activated. As of January 1, 2020 all ASQ screenings must be submitted online through the Provider’s ASQ Brooks online account.

If a Provider is having login issues, they can email implementation@brookespublishing.com, or if a Provider is having specific questions about using ASQ Online, they can either call or email technical support: email: https://www.asqonline.com/supportPhone: 1-866-404-9853

Sharing ASQ Information with Parents

Providers must provide, in writing, the results of the ASQ screening to the child's parents.

To do this, the provider will be able to print the summary sheet (results/score page) of the ASQ and have parents sign that it has been reviewed with them.

All School Readiness Providers must maintain this documentation for SR Contract monitoring.

Printing ASQ Results for Parents to Sign

1. Click on the link that opens the results page.

2. Once the results page opens, click "print information summary" from the quick link on the left-hand side of the page.

QUALITY SERVICES

Communities of Practice (CoP)

2

Winter TSGs Checkpoint Period Due January 31, 2020

REMEMBER: A child must be enrolled for a minimum of 60 days before the end of an assessment period to be considered eligible for that period.

Rule 6M-4.500 requires that only teachers reliable on the provider's chosen assessment tool conduct child assessments. Providers without reliable teachers in each classroom shall have reliable teachers assigned to conduct child assessments in each room and input child assessment data into the assessment system.

Winter Behavioral Conference February 22, 2020

Keynote Speaker: Ron Shuali, M.Ed

Click HERE to learn more about our keynote speaker.

Service Numbers

SR Enrollments as of December 31, 2019

Age Bay Calhoun Franklin Gulf Holmes Jackson Washington Grand Total

Infant 59 6 0 0 8 29 10 112

Ones 134 6 1 3 13 58 28 243

Twos 190 6 9 5 22 87 39 358

Threes 177 10 3 6 18 95 36 345

Fours 161 8 4 7 26 67 33 306

Fives 54 3 0 4 6 30 8 105

School Age 190 17 6 1 28 98 57 397

Special Needs 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

965 56 23 26 121 464 211 1,866

SR Wait List as of December 31, 2019

Age Bay Calhoun Franklin Gulf Holmes Jackson Washington Grand Total

Infant 3 0 0 0 0 0 0 3

Ones 2 0 0 0 0 0 2 4

Twos 3 0 0 0 0 0 1 4

Threes 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

Fours 3 0 0 1 0 0 0 4

Fives 15 1 1 1 3 3 1 25

School Age 137 10 1 2 16 41 16 223

163 11 2 4 19 44 20 263

Wait List Placement Update

• On December 17th and 18th, 283 additional children were sent funding notifications from the wait list under the BG8-ECON billing group

• Between the November and December funding notifications, more than 575 new children have been offered School Readiness funding in our seven counties.

• As of December 31st, 71 children have been placed, 78 are in process of review or waiting on additional information from the parent, 7 are waiting provider approval, 3 are looking for a provider (2 infants and 1 toddler), 21 stated they no longer needed care, and 21 were not eligible.

• The Coalition is making multiple follow up contacts with parents to ensure they are aware of the funding notifications and submit their required documents.

Reimbursement Information

SR Reconciliation

Questions and Adjourn