MICHIGAN CHILD CARE
TASK FORCE
Meeting Minutes for JANUARY 9, 2002
Minutes taken by Norma Eppinger, Michigan 4C
Association
The meeting was called to
order shortly after 9:30, each person gave a brief
self-introduction and the group adopted the agenda.
GUEST
SPEAKER: TONY DEREZINSKI
&endash; Director of Government Relations, Michigan
Association of School Boards. MASB represents 630 school
districts and intermediate school districts around the
state. Mr. Derezinski discussed a new report from the MASB
Education Issues Committee, "Early Education and Care:
Healthy and Ready to Learn" (copies were given to everyone).
MASB consulted with early childhood education and care
(ECEC) experts in producing the report. It contains three
main talking points:
1) Early Education Care is NOT babysitting (which is not
known by many school boardmembers);
2) Programs Yield Amazing Cost benefits &endash; MASB used
the Perry Preschool research to
show this;
3) Embracing your community &endash; it takes a whole
community to make ECEC successful and schools can serve as a
focal point. MASB's Issues Committee hopes to expand this
effort by having regional meetings and conferences based on
the information in the report.
To get a
copy of the report,
contact Tony at tonyd@masb.org. Request the Issues Committee
report on Early Education and Care give your name and
address, and MASB will mail you a copy.
MASB plans to address other issues &endash; in particular,
student expulsions, which is a major issue that's creating a
generation of throw away children." MASB is holding a
symposium on expelled students in Lansing, March 4. For
information on this symposium call MASB at 1-800-968-4627,
ext.238. It will be held in Lansing, March 4 at the Lansing
Center, 12:30-5:30 PM, Rooms 203-205; cost is $30 per
person.
In
answer to questions,
Tony said MASB is beginning to promote universal ECEC. MASB
will consider making ECEC one of its priorities for the
legislative cycle of 2003-04. MASB always sets priorities
for each legislative cycle. MASB will work hard to protect
the "foundation grant" that school districts expected to
receive from the state, $6700 per pupil. This amount is now
in jeopardy and could remain at $6500, the level for this
fiscal year, or even be cut.
Regarding HBs 4617 and 4619 (Before- and after-school
programs), MASB will closely monitor the situation to see if
the failure of these bills adversely affect school
districts. A member of the audience said that these bills
might pass in the Legislature after the November elections,
during the "lame duck" session. Tony agreed it might be wise
to say " birth-12" rather than "K-12" in getting people to
realize that education begins before
kindergarten.
BUSINESS OF THE
TASK FORCE
Senate Bill 817 &endash;
This welfare policy bill increased to 40 hours the maximum
amount of required work (or other activities) welfare
recipients have to perform. This will increase problems for
some parents who will have increased transportation and
child care needs. Head Start is drawing attention to policy
inconsistencies as the state increases the time burden on
welfare parents while cutting wrap around day care. The
House Committee on Family and Children Services promised
that a task force consisting of FIA staff and child
advocates would, by April, make recommendations to the
Legislature about how to make sense of this bill. Send any
stories about welfare parents having trouble with current or
new welfare provisions to Kristen at kristen@mhsa.ws or to
Steve @smanchester@miaeyc.org
Department
of Education Report:
Barb Roth
Grants and Reports involving MDE's Community Needs Resource
Assessment must now be submitted on-line. MDE is rapidly
moving to require all reports and applications to be done
on-line.
The Collaborative Conference, held in late January, is full;
those interested in a similar conference are being referred
to the Head Start conference, February 27-March 1
(WWW.MHSA.WS), and the MiAEYC conference, March 21-23
(WWW.MiAEYC.ORG).
Much new federal legislation will affect Michigan; details
are still unavailable. The Task Force will provide
information in the weeks/months to come.
OTHER
UPDATES
The email network contains
just under 900 members. You are asked to recruit just one
new member to the network so that we can go past the 1000
mark.
Susan
Safford from Representative Godchaux's
office dropped off
up-to-date copies of "A Citizen's Guide to State
Government." Call your legislator: some legislators say
there were no budget cuts to Early Childhood Education.
Instead, they believe that no programs were hurt because the
total K-12 budget is higher than in the previous budget
year. We need to talk to them about the cuts in Michigan
School Readiness Programs, especially the full-day programs,
and cuts to ASAP-PIE. Federal welfare reform (TANF) and the
Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG) will be
reauthorized this year in Congress. Go to WWW.CLASP.ORG to
obtain numerous good articles on these two programs. Mark
Sullivan said that CDF (Children's Defense Fund) is working
on CCDBG and wants to see: (1) The quality set-aside
increased from 4% to 20%; (2) Stories about kids &endash;
both positive and negative &endash; that demonstrate the
importance of the CCDBG.
Playground
equipment: Steve
Manchester and Mark Sullivan will meet tomorrow with Sen.
Hammerstrom's staff and DCIS staff to discuss playground
equipment. There is a chance that legislation may be
introduced to deal with current interpretations of
playground equipment rules. It appears that this task force
has no formal position on playground equipment issues.
Paul
Nelson, Director of Child Development and Care,
FIA, announced that
Michigan will receive $186 million in TANF funds and $146
million in CCDBG funds for child care. He also said that a
handout on how FIA will implement employment provisions of
SB 817 was available in the back of the room. The internet
billing system for day care provider's should be available
this month. It will be universally available to everyone
Market
Rate Survey &endash;
Mark Sullivan asked people receiving a survey questionnaire
to please fill it out and send it back. Without completing
this survey, we cannot hope to see increased compensation
for child care providers. This survey will be mailed to
about 5000 providers in about two weeks; it should be mailed
back within about two weeks.
Mark Sullivan said that a press release on the Earned Income
Tax Credit was being released today. For more information on
the EITC, Call the Michigan 4C office (1-800-950-4171).
The meeting adjourned at noon.
NEXT
MEETING: Wednesday,
February 6, 2002, 9:30 a.m. - noon, State of Michigan
Library; Lake Ontario Room, Lansing.
GUEST
SPEAKERS: LARRY SCHWEINHART, Senior Research Scientist,
Research Division, High/Scope Educational Research
Foundation. Larry will
share research findings on the Michigan School Readiness
Program that demonstrate MSRP is effective and that positive
outcomes for children who experience MSRP last as the
children advance through school.
JANE
ZEHNDER-MERRELL, Senior Research Associate, Michigan League
for Human Services; Project Director, Kids Count in
Michigan. Jane will
discuss the most recent "Kids Count in Michigan" report and
the recent report, "Right Start in Michigan." "Right Start .
. ." deals with urban communities and the conditions for
mothers and infants that give infants the right start toward
a good life.
In MARCH
(March 6): TOM WATKINS, STATE SUPERINTENDENT of PUBLIC
INSTRUCTION will be our
guest speaker.
Kristen McDonald-Stone,
Michigan Head Start Association
Lisa Brewer, Michigan 4-C Association/T.E.A.C.H.®
Co-chairs, Michigan Child Care Task Force
o Please FORWARD THIS NOTICE
TO OTHERS; we invite people to join this email network.
o Comments, suggestions, or requests to be removed from this
list should be directed to smanchester@MiAEYC.org.
o This message is made possible, in part, by generous
support from the Frey Foundation of Grand Rapids.
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