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Steve Manchester called the
meeting to order shortly after 9:30 a.m. Each person gave a
self-introduction; the agenda was reviewed and
approved.
UPDATES
ON THE BUSINESS OF THE TASK FORCE
Susan
Safford, from the office
of Representative Pan Godchaux, provided an update on the
Legislative Children's Caucus. Representative Mark Shauer is
the new House Democratic co-chair of the caucus. The 11th
annual Michigan Child Care Challenge, sponsored by the House
Republican Caucus, will take place on May 8, Michigan
Chamber of Commerce, Lansing, at 9:00 a.m. This program
recognizes employers that take special efforts to make child
care available to their employees. For more information
contact the Office of Rep. Godchaux at pgodcha@house.
state.mi.us or 517-373-0824.
Paul
Nelson, FIA, Child
Development and Care, discussed the hearing on the state
Child Development and Fund Plan that will the subject of a
public hearing on April 4 in Lansing. A draft of the plan
can be found at www.mfia.state.mi.us; click on "Studies,
Reports, Plans & Manuals"; click on "State Plans &
Federal Regulations"; click on the draft plan. The draft was
not available on March 7, but was expected to be available
soon. Other hearings around the state are expected after the
hearing in Lansing.
Cheryl
Hall, Michigan
Department of Education, Early Childhood & Parenting
Programs, gave a brief update. Go to
http://www.state.mi.us/mde/off/staa/earlychild/index.htm for
information about the numerous grants that Cheryl's office
is handling. In particular, grant readers are
needed.
Child Care
Center Rules, Playground
Equipment - Steve
provided a two-sided hand out that contains the recent
statement by DCIS on its new implementation of the
Playground Equipment Act (PA 16 or 1997) and a copy of the
act itself. Confusion about playground equipment still
exists in Michigan and the handout can help clarify things.
For a copy of the handout, contact Steve.
Jan Long,
Children's Trust Fund,
displayed the new "Children's License Plate" that is now
available for a $35 fee, part of which supports CTF. Jan
briefly mentioned a number of recent changes with CTF and
agreed to come back at a future meeting to discuss CTF at
greater length.
Important
Days of Special Celebration
- .WORTHY WAGE DAY - May 1, www.ccw.org; PROVIDER
APPRECIATION DAY - May 11,
www.ProviderAppreciation.org.
Steve reported that the
petition drive to overturn the "Carry Concealed Weapons"
statute had gathered about 140,000 signatures as of late
February. The petition drive has hired a companyto help
gather signatures. Steve indicated that the petition drive
looked like it had sufficient support and money to gather
the needed signatures.
The Task Force
communications network has 613 email and 119 regular mail
members for a total of 732.
Brad
Long made brief comments
on a new product his company, Kinderstreet, has produced
that will help child care businesses manage data on their
children and parents and streamline the use of that data in
filing government-mandated reports of all kinds.
PRESENTATION
BY PATRICIA O'CONNOR, Bright Horizons Family Solutions (BH).
Pat is the Operations
Director for a UAW/Ford Motor Company venture that is
establishing "Family Service and Learning Centers" (FSLCs)
in southeast Michigan. Pat gave an overview of BH, its work
providing child care for corporate America, its commitment
to high quality child care with strong emphasis on well
trained and compensated staff, its commitment to first rate
facilities, and lessons learned in working in the business
world. She described the FSLC project being organized
through UAW/Ford. It deals with a broad range of services
for people of all ages, with child care a very important
service. BH and UAW/Ford recognize that bringing a large
system of well compensated, high quality child care into a
community can create some initial concerns of drawing the
best staff to one program. At the same time, BH is committed
to challenging the community to step up to quality and sees
its work as speeding up significantly the day when Michigan
and the nation will have broad based high quality
care.
The types of care available
will be: Center and home-based care; back-up care; get-well
care, and school age care. Each type presents interesting
challenges.The project will build seven centers in the
metro-Detroit area. The capacity of each will be 220-225
children and will operate up to seven days a week, 24 hours
per day depending on demand. UAW/Ford will subsidize 60-70%
of costs. The first new center will be completed in early
August and the second one in the fall. A grand opening of
the first two centers will occur in November. BH will hire
people to work in this child care system. For information,
contact: UAW/Ford, Heather Schemmel Knop,33330 South Manor
Drive ,Apt. 102, Farmington, MI 48336. Phone: (248) 442-9993
or hknop@brighthorizons.com.
The following web addresses
should be of interest: http://www.brighthorizons./com
careers/index.html; to apply for the UAW/Ford job(s)
http://www.brighthorizons.com/; for general information on
Bright Horizons http://www.familycenteronline.org./;
information on Family Service and Learning
Centers
ANNOUNCEMENTS:
The next meeting of the task force is: Wednesday, May 2,
2001; 9:30 a.m. - noon, State of Michigan Library, Lake
Ontario Room, 3rd Floor, 717 West Allegan,
Lansing.
HIGHLIGHTS
OF THE AGENDA: Our guest
speaker: MIKE FLANAGAN, Executive Director, Michigan
Association of School Administrators. Dr. Flanagan is also a
founding member of the Ready to Succeed Dialogue/Partnership
with Michigan. He recently moved from Wayne RESA, where he
was the Superintendent, to MASA. He has a deep commitment to
early childhood education and care and brings an ECEC
perspective to the roughly 600 school district
superintendents who form the membership of MASA.
Also - information, updates
and action on:
T.E.A.C.H.
- Michigan 4C was the successful bidder to run this program
in Michigan. MARK SULLIVAN will provide an overview of what
will happen.
House Bill
4619, which will change
the way that school age child care is regulated in schools.
STEVE MANCHESTER will have details on how both early
childhood and K-12 educators are working together on this
issue. o And more . . .
FUTURE
MEETINGS OF THE TASK FORCE:
June 6, Wednesday - State of
Michigan Library, Lansing
July - NO MEETING IN JULY
and August - NO MEETING IN AUGUST
Sept. 5, Wednesday - State
of Michigan Library, Lansing and continuing through the next
9 first-Wednesdays.
Steve Manchester, Michigan
AEYC and Kristen McDonald-Stone, Michigan Head Start
Association
Co-chairs, Michigan Child Care Task Force
Please FORWARD THIS NOTICE
TO OTHERS; we invite people to join this email network.
Comments, suggestions, or requests to be removed from this
list should be directed to
smanchester@MiAEYC.org.
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