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What's Happening?
Collective Bargaining for Child Care Home Providers In February 2008 Governor Ted Strickland signed an executive order to allow independent child care home providers to collectively bargain. At the beginning of April 2008 an election was held and identified AFSCME Council 8 as the union representative for the 8400-plus family child care providers covered by the executive order. Click the link below to see the executive order.
Executive Order - Collective Bargaining for Child Care Home Providers
Help Me Grow Review Process Due to the importance of the Help Me Grow system and achieving the goals Turnaround Ohio, the Early Childhood Cabinet will undergo a review of the Help Me Grow system and its services to children and families. The initial recommendations are expected to be generated by the summer of 2008. For more information please see the letter below that was distributed by the Early Childhood Cabinet.
Infant and Toddler Program Standards A collaboration between ODE, ODJFS and ODH is spearheading a process to create program standards for out of home settings serving infants and toddlers. The work group is proposing will use four organizers for this work: Learning Places, Nurturing Places, Safe Places and Healthy Places. The standards will be drafted by May, with a release scheduled for June 30, 2008. West Ed, the creators of the Program for Infant and Toddler Care, will facilitate the process. West Ed assisted Ohio with the development of the IT Guidelines and the training of the Infant and Toddler Specialists. The term that has been adopted to describe professionals working with babies is “infant care teacher.”
National Governors' Association (NGA) Early Childhood Advisory Councils The NGA Center is inviting governors to apply for $10,000 competitive grants to support State Early Childhood Advisory Councils (ECACs) in up to eight states. This grant will support states in executing critical tasks associated with the formation of a new early childhood advisory council or the implementation of an existing ECAC (or other named entity). The intent of such collaborative bodies is to advance a state policy agenda for at-risk children ages birth to five and promote linkages to family support, health, mental health, and other developmental services. Ohio submitted a proposal and received notification on April 15 that Ohio was awarded a grant.
Policy Matters In 2005, Ohio participated in Policy Matters, a pilot project to develop a policy audit for the early childhood system. Lynn Kagan, from Teachers College at Columbia University, led the project with assistance from Jacqui Romer Sensky and a team of state agency staff. The audit allowed policy makers to see how Ohio's policies for young children stacked up against national recommendations. The audit was useful in making decisions about policy changes and future investments.
The Sisters of Charity Foundation in Canton, one of the original funders of this work, has approved funding to allow us to complete an update. The purpose of the update is to: 1. benchmark progress over the last 3 years; and 2. assist the Early Childhood Cabinet with the identification of potential areas of improvement Recommendations and findings will be presented to the EC Cabinet in May.
Special
Quest
For more information visit www.specialquest.org.
Teacher Licensure ODE held a stakeholder meeting on March 4 to discuss the proposed changes to the teacher license bands. The proposed bands will create a new requirement for ODE to license teachers beginning with “birth”. ODE has laid out the following rationale statements: Rationale for rethinking Ohio’s teacher licensing systemIt has been several years since Ohio has reviewed the grade band structure of its teacher licensing system. It is time to take a fresh look at the current structure for several reasons:
For more information visit www.schoolreadiness.ohio.gov
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