|
Kristen McDonald-Stone, Task
Force Co-chair, called the meeting to order shortly after
9:30 a.m. Each person gave a self-introduction; the agenda
was reviewed and approved.
ANNOUNCEMENT
Jane Zehnder-Merrell,
Michigan League for Human Services, announced the recent
release of the "Kids Count in Michigan: 2000 Data Book" and
handed out an executive summary. She pointed out that
Michigan children have shown recent gains in selected areas
of educational performance and decreased mortality rates.
Children have shown declines in the percent of their mothers
who receive adequate prenatal care and, for many children,
declines in their family's income. For information on Kids
Count, contact jbenson@mlan.net or go to
www.mihs.org.
UPDATES ON
THE BUSINESS OF THE TASK FORCE
Child
Care Legislation
Michigan Department of
Education: All Students Achieve Program - Parent
Involvement & Education - Lindy Buch reported that 53
valid grant applications had been submitted by 52
Intermediate school districts and one school district
(Detroit). Total requested funds were $98.3 million,
which are competing for $45 million. Scoring of the
applications will take place in the coming weeks with
applicants notified of the scoring results by February 1,
2001.
SB 1317: School Age,
school-based, before- and after-school education and
care; exempt from licensing as a day care center - This
bill is expected to die in this legislative session,
which ends next week. The issue will arise next spring,
with a serious examination of taking such programs away
from day care licensing and regulating it through the
School Code Act.
Child Care Center Rules -
DCIS may change its position on playground equipment; it
may permit existing equipment to continue in use though
it does not meet federal standards required for newly
installed equipment. (NOTE: DCIS has now made this
change.). DCIS Budget: Funding for 20 additional staff,
Division of Child Day Care Licensing - DCIS has not
indicated whether it plans to use available funding to
hire additional staff.
Monitoring Implementation
of Child Care Center Rules - Sixteen center directors
have agreed to report on how the rules affect their child
care center. The reporting will occur in January using a
form that will be developed in December. (Since this
meeting, the number of directors has grown to about
25.)
UAW/Ford Family Learning
and Service Centers (FLSCs) - UAW and Ford Motor Company
have announced plans to establish FSLCs in 30 communities
in the USA. A FSLC will offer Ford employees (and others
in some circumstances) a broad array of community based
services for people of all ages. One service will be
child care networks comprised of very high -quality child
care centers linked to a network of high quality day care
homes. Michigan sites for FSLCs will probably include
Dearborn, Sterling Heights, Wayne, Utica, Woodhaven and
Ypsilanti. People seeking information or interested in
employment with the FSLC program should contact Patricia
O'Connor at poconnor@brighthorizons.com or go to
www.familycenteronline.org. Action Alert Network - It has
569 members hooked up by email and 87 who receive
information by regular mail - a total of 656 members. The
CCTForce hopes to increase the network to 1000 people by
next summer. A "Thank you" goes to those who have
recruited people to the network.
PRESENTATION
BY PAT SHAFER
Executive Director,
Michigan Association of Community and Adult
Education
Pat discussed the shifting
priorities of MACAE, which have moved strongly in recent
years to linking adult education, especially of parents, to
early childhood matters. MACAE has a wealth of experience in
community education, which involves bringing together local
resources to meet local needs. With the recent heightened
awareness of early childhood development sweeping the nation
and Michigan, community educators have been quick to realize
that they can play an important role in early childhood
education and care matters. Mr. Shafer shared lessons he has
learned through many years of developing community education
programs that serve the unique needs of unique
communities.
MICHIGAN
CHILD CARE POLICY RESEARCH PARTNERSHIP
Peg Barratt, Ellen Kossek
and Darrell Meece from Michigan State University, presented
information about a new research partnership. This
partnership links MSU with partners from government and
nonprofit organizations. It will soon conduct two research
projects on interest to the task force: (1) The child care
arrangements that low income families make when they need
infant care; (2) The way in which families use "informal
care," particularly informal care that FIA reimburses. You
can get information about this partnership from Peg Barratt
at 517-353-6617 or mbarratt@msu.edu.
REVISING THE
TASK FORCE'S LEGISLATIVE AGENDA
Mark Sullivan presented the
compiled data obtained at the November meeting, arranged
into the main advocacy areas that the task force identified.
After a brief discussion of the advocacy areas, and after
the group added a few more areas for consideration, the task
force voted via sticky dots (called "dimpled chads" for
purposes of this exercise) by affixing the dots next to
preferred action items (each person had six votes/dots).
Mark said the results would guide the next step of
determining the legislative agenda. He will report at the
January meeting.
The meeting
adjourned at approximately 12:00 noon.
NEXT
MEETING
The next meeting of the task
force: Wednesday January 3, 2001; State Library, Lake
Ontario Room (third floor); 9:30 a.m. - noon. The guest
speaker will be SHARON PARKS, Senior Research Associate,
Michigan League for Human Services. She will discuss the
effective use of federal funds (including TANF money) for
early childhood programs and comment how effectively
Michigan uses such money and ways to ensure that Michigan
draws down as much federal funding as permitted by the
law.
If you have comments,
questions, or wish to be removed from this communication
network contact: Steve Manchester at 800-336-6424 or Kristen
McDonald-Stone at 517-374-6472.
The Michigan Child Care Task
Force email network is supported, in part, by a generous
grant from the Frey Foundation of Grand Rapids,
Michigan.
|