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Erin McGovern and Steve
Manchester, Task Force Co-chairs, called the meeting to
order shortly after 9:30 a.m. Each person gave a
self-introduction; the agenda was reviewed and
approved.
Child Care
Legislation
- DCIS Budget: Last month,
Steve Manchester reported that this budget included $1.4
million for an additional 20 staff in the Division of
Child Day Care Licensing; however, some people fear that
DCIS might not hire these 20 people. Two weeks ago, Steve
had a phone conversation with Carole Engle, Director of
the Bureau of Regulatory Services about this matter. Ms.
Engle said she had not started the process for hiring new
staff because the fiscal year, which begins on October 1,
had not begun. Steve said the CCTForce would write her a
respectful letter to lobby for hiring all 20 staff and
placing most of them in consulting roles. (This letter
had not been written as of October 4.)
- SB 1317&emdash;This bill
would exempt from regulation (under PA 116 of 1973, the
child care licensing act) after-school "community
education" programs for school-age children. People
working on this bill have not reached agreement on how to
define "community education." On September 27, the bill
passed the Senate Committee on Families, Mental Health
and Human Services without amendment. The parties working
on this bill agreed to let it pass the committee with the
understanding that it would not be passed by the Senate
before the pre-election recess unless all parties agreed
on it. (The Senate recessed until November 9 without
voting on the bill.)
- Other early education
and care budget items - Kristen McDonald-Stone presented
a written summary of all ECEC items passed in the FY 2001
budgets, including those discussed above, plus items from
the FIA budget. (Note: the handout correctly mentioned
that the legislature wished to fund increased eligibility
for child care to 200% of poverty, but omitted that the
Governor vetoed this item.)
Michigan
Department of Education matters
Barb Roth-Grondin
reported on various competitive grants that her unit
handles, including information on Technical Assistance
(TA) meetings to be held for prospective applicants. TA
meetings will be held as follows:
- ASAP-PIE (All Students
Achieve Program - Parent Involvement and Education)
Monday, October 16, 8:30 am - 3:00 pm, Lansing, Holiday
Inn South. ***** NOTE: The ASAP-PIE TA meeting probably
has some openings even though the MDE web page says
registration closes on October 10. *****
- CNRA (Community Needs
and Resource Assessment) Full-day MSRP and Head Start
School Age Child Care TA sessions for these three
programs will run concurrently as follows: Monday,
November 27 - all day, Lansing Wednesday, November 29 -
all day, Grayling Thursday, November 30 - all day, Troy
Thursday, December 7 - all day, Marquette.
- You can obtain further
information about specific sites and times at
www.state.mi.us/mde; click on "Grants and Finances" click
on "Early Childhood and Parenting Programs"; OR phone
517-373-8483.
Task Force
Matters
- Action Alert Network -
It has 525 members hooked up by email and 82 who receive
information by regular mail - a total of 607 members. The
CCTForce hopes to increase the network to 1000 people by
next summer. Please help us reach this goal.
- Task Force Logo and
Letterhead - Erin McGovern announced that the logo and
letterhead should be announced at the November
meeting.
- Coming and Going - Erin
announced that she had taken a new job with the Kent
Intermediate School District. She will not be able to
serve as chair of this task force as she had announced
last month. The Task Force thanked Erin for her work as
co-chair of the group and wished her will in her new
position.
- CCTForce Chair - Steve
Manchester will continue to serve as Chair. (Right after
the meeting, Kristen McDonald-Stone offered to serve as
Co-chair, an offer that was gladly accepted.)
PRESENTATION
BY CARL ILL, Director of Early Education Services, Allegan
County ISD
Mr. Ill began as a high
school English teacher. He gravitated to lower and lower
grades as he discovered he was receiving pupils who had
fallen so far behind they were likely to fail in school. He
ended up working with preschool age children.
Children who enter school likely to fail in school commonly
have two main problems: (1) arrested language development,
including small vocabulary and an inability to construct
complex statements; (2) a lack of self-confidence that
correlates with an inability to focus on classroom tasks.
Most schools lack the resources to succeed with children who
begin school significantly behind in these two areas.
Carl described a study that compared children in families
that varied in the number of words spoken to children during
their first five years. Among the children studied, by age
four the number of accumulated words they heard ranged from
10 million to 50 million. The 50-million-word children were
far ahead of the 10-million-word children upon kindergarten
entry.
The same study also examined the amount of positive feedback
("encouragements") and negative feedback ("discouragements")
children receive in early childhood. By age four, children
whose parents are encouragers receive up to eight times as
much positive support as children whose parents are
discouragers. Discourager parents provide over twice the
negative feedback that encourager parents provide. Children
who begin kindergarten having received little encouragement
and much discouragement begin with a great disadvantage.
Mr. Ill discussed the implications for such findings in
helping children reach school "ready to succeed." He also
discussed some of his efforts to get K-12 educators to pay
more and more attention to preschool age children.
The study discussed by Mr. Ill: Meaningful Differences in
the Everyday Experience of Young American Children by Betty
Hart and Todd R. Risley.
The meeting
adjourned at 12:00 noon.
The next meeting of the task
force will be November 1. 2000 at the State Library, Lake
Ontario Room, 9:30 a.m. to noon.
The main speaker will be
Paul Nelson, Director, Child Development and Care, Michigan
Family Independence Agency. Paul will update us on childcare
programs funded through his office in the FIA budget and
discuss possible legislation that his office might
administer (e.g., background checks on childcare staff and
volunteers).
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