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All ECESF Meeting Agenda

Welcome & Introductions
ECESF program at a glance
ECESF Quality Essentials

Considering Teacher Agency
Considering Retaining Skills

Opportunities for Impact
Next Steps/Next meetings

Introduce interpretation/Drop, then Drop Sign-in Survey form below.

This meeting is accessible in English, Spanish, and Cantonese. To select the language you want to use for the meeting, please click on the globe at the bottom of the screen then click the language of your preference. In order to hear the interpretation of the presentation and as well as our multi-lingual community dialogue all participants must select a language (Chinese, English, or Spanish) and not “Original audio (interpretation off)”—this includes all English speakers, you must select English.

Note: Selecting a language (and not “Original audio”) allows you to hear the presentations, as well as translations of speakers in a language other than the one you selected. If you do not select a language, you will hear silence and miss translations of fellow-educators' comments.

Drop

Sign-in & survey: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdsJ_OHBveTEChkavHF8KGfsSqYVSY-Jg0vXwRMq_dhFqaMlQ/viewform?usp=header

Submit before or at the end of the meeting, then come back to it if you want, or email me. We need your sign-ins to support continued funding for ECESF work, and to offer PD hours.

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Group Agreements

No one knows everything, together we know a lot: Sharing what you know and your questions fosters peer learning.
Move up, move back: If you have had opportunities to speak, refrain so that others can be heard and allow for quiet moments to form thoughts.
Embrace vulnerability: Owning your own story can be difficult, however, it builds a trusting foundation.
Voice disagreements openly, but respectfully: Acknowledge that the intent and impact of our actions are different. Be patient with emotions that mix with ideas.
Listen & hear, then speak: Seek first to understand, then to be understood.
Add to the “garden”: Often when talking about one topic, really important things surface. We capture topics we don’t have time for in the garden to keep us moving.
Expect non-closure: We’ll create opportunities to continue discussion and collaboration in future meetings.
Honor time limits: Arrive on time and respect everyone’s time and commitment.
Respect confidentiality: Whatever is said here stays here, whatever is learned here leaves here.

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ECESF’s Mission

… is to work for the highest quality early care and education for all of San Francisco’s diverse young children and their families and the quality of work and life of early care educators by strengthening the agency of early care educators in the workplace and community, and building unity across educators and with families and community allies to access needed resources and shape program and policy.

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ECESF Program Overview

Where & How

All ECESF, Teacher, & Special ECESF Meetings – monthly or every other month

Outreach (taking it on the road) visiting sites & college classes, together we:

Create plan & talking points to facilitate visits
Communication plan, for outreach and social media

ECESF representation at/collaboration with ECE community leaders and at policy meetings.

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Community ECE Policy Meetings

UPK Workgroup
***SF QRIS Consortium (this Thursday, 12/18)
***Quality Pilot Design
SF ECE Advocacy Coalition, holding a Policy Retreat, Saturday, January 24, 2026 (planning meetings every other Weds)
CPAC meetings (General, Policy, UPK, Workforce, more)
DEC, COAC & CFC Meetings (DEC oversight bodies)

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Register today!

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ECESF & ECE Events

ecesf.org/events

… and while you’re there, take a look around the ECESF website too!

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ECESF Program Overview

Mission driven: educator-caregiver voice, identified needs & priorities
What allows you to provide quality care and education?

Workplace conditions — supporting SEQUAL
Communication & decision-making
Sustainable work: compensation - wages & benefits
Access to resources & skill development: specialists, professional development, higher education, mentors, apprenticeships, colleagues in the workplace & community

We, as ECESF, have been holding conversations focused on what allows you to do your best work for years, and sharing highlights with DEC. Focus on workplace conditions and quality became particularly important last year as DEC focused it’s work on quality development and workforce initiatives — we’re still waiting for them to roll out.

A partial list of past workplace condition needs from past discussions…

Drop: https://ecesf.org/ecesf-discussion-highlights/

Brief overview to remind people, and catch newcomers up on our work last year.

ECESF’s mission, to bring educators voice to the forefront of shaping policy and program that impacts ECE work, and to advocate for the resources we need — in the workplace and community— we carry out by:

Driving on-site direct educator community discussions to identify and deepen ECE-educator community needs, particularly center teachers, but also small-site supervisors, coaches, directors — those not regularly attending CPAC meetings.

Also collaborate with the FCCA SF for FCC needs and priorities, as well as other community organizations.

Conversations range in focus, but get at what you need to provide quality care and education. This includes (all on the slide above.)
We were asked by DEC to help get out the word about a survey that measures key factors in the adult workplace environment, SEQUAL, Supportive Environmental Quality Underlying Adult Learning. This aligned with our mission, so last year we agreed to support DEC in promoting it in SF. (We’re hoping for final release of that date in February—and these community discussions will also add nuance and detail to whatever the SEQUAL results are.)
This was only part of the work we’ve done around workplace conditions. We also held our own discussions asking what workplace conditions and quality improvements educators in the discussion wanted to see. This led to our developing the ECE Quality Essentials -
Before we dive into those, I want to share the next slide …

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ECE Workforce Compensation Initiative

Phase One:

Workforce Compensation – primarily classroom teachers

Phase Two: Compensation for eligible non-classroom teachers and/or Benefits

Phase Three: Improving Workplace Conditions

Phase Four:

Workforce Educational Pathways to educational/ degree attainment and PD

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ECESF Quality Essentials

A little background . . .

Why we did this work

Why we’re continuing this work

Read the full document!

Out of our discussions last year, we develop the ECESF Quality Essentials. As we bring more people into the conversation, we want to know how these resonate with you, and how you rank them as your priorities for work condition improvements, and essentials to move toward quality services.

Share: ECESF Quality Essentials link:

English: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1_YaB9gqkt1Kv1rGUFdXi_mHkpWzeV0ykySBQyouEU4o/edit?usp=sharing

Chinese: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1uXFroZBwpsJd03fjU3XN0Xo719DzCcdH/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=105406345603023119034&rtpof=true&sd=true

Spanish: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1esF_pi4bNZqkusnwzu9L9QRcqfaEmgF3/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=105406345603023119034&rtpof=true&sd=true

Leading up to and with Baby Prop C’s passage, the ECE community had a strong focus on compensation, particularly wage increases because wages were so low—program operators could not attract staff. But you can see from the highlights of ECE discussion, (Drop: https://ecesf.org/ecesf-discussion-highlights/) ECESF discussions have always included a wide range of workplace conditions and quality concerns.

Though we’re far from our compensation goal, some progress has been made. Still, living in SF is not possible on $28/hour, and our skills are comparable to tech workers, as are public school educators, who are also underpaid. (Parity with current public school educator salaries is a too low bar.) We also want to be sure we’re bringing the other issues that impact our work forward. Supports to improve on-site and community communication, decision-making, setting priorities, agency of the people at the forefront of doing the daily work: the teachers.

Last year we started our ECESF conversation taking a deeper dive into some of the issues that have come up in these other areas (additional to compensation) that improve workplace conditions and quality of early care & ed. Educators from SF Ed for Equity (SFEE aka FROGS) were part of the conversation. (Frogs: A warning to notice when the water you’re sitting in is heating up.) The Frogs worked up some process proposals emphasizing the importance of educator involvement in defining and implementing quality, and presented to the group—this stimulated a lot of last year’s conversation last year—and became a core part of our work.

BOTH because it was core to the focus of ECESF’s work and Mission and because DEC was working on both workplace conditions and quality of service— these conversations were both timely, and an good opportunity to bring forward conversations ECESF has held.

In our ask of the educator group gathered a year ago, we asked all to focus on what their priorities were for improving their work conditions, and found we could not talk about the quality of our workplace environments without talking about the quality of our service. These two are entwined, inseparably; they impact each other. One can not feel good about the work they do if they do not feel heard; if they do not feel like they can use their expertise to shape the work they are doing, and the decisions that are being made daily.

This is the context that shaped our work last year.

This year, DEC continues to work on quality, revising the QRIS system along with state revisions, and this will be implemented in SF. There are a couple of groups DEC is working with to develop this. (We’ll take a look)

We think the ideas developed in the ECESF community last year, with over 35 discreet sites, and over 50 educators taking part, are important to DECs decision-making about their work in quality and workplace initiatives. And we need to continue to share our priorities in many ways. Ongoing conversations as an educator-community further develops each of our thoughts—as well as the collective ideas we generate. The conversation we have tonight will be part of the process. If you’re new or re-entering tonight—we invite you to jump into the conversation and our advocacy together.

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Effective quality development requires educator-caregivers’

involvement at each step: defining, assessing, and implementing

Educator-caregiver working conditions include recognition and agency

Program quality depends on educator- caregivers’ work and working conditions

There is no one size fits all solution to program quality

Quality & Work Conditions

We’ve shared the link to the full document. I hope you’ve already read.

Four Main points we identified as Essential to Quality

Educator-caregiver working conditions are fundamental to program quality, and a key element in good working conditions is having a say over our work, knowing that if we see something that needs improvement we can say so and work with a team to change it, knowing what we think and say matters, as well as all the other supports that help us come to work feeling well rested and not stressed, such as compensation. Educators need to know and feel that their experience, knowledge, and skills actually shape the work being done. Creating a community of educators that experience and expect this will bring the highest level of quality.

And since educators’ viewpoint and assessment of what is needed is a key to what a site, a child, an educator needs next, that is, there is no one-size fits all—the educator must be centrally involved at each step of designing, assessing, and implementing quality improvements.

These 4 key quality essentials work together. The document also links to 5 key areas we identified as supporting us getting to quality.

Five key areas we identified as supporting us getting to quality.

I want to note that our conversation was focused on addressing how to get to quality—but within that—you get to what a teacher needs, because it is essential to quality. Look at what onsite capacity includes for onsite specialization and collaboration: sufficient staff and compensation.

We also think it’s worthwhile to talk about good workforce conditions as a right of workers as a stand alone, but too often it is presented as if these are two competing things, rather than necessarily connected, especially for work that requires your full mind and body, such as education and caregiving.

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Is this meaningful to you?

How? Why?

What does it look like at your site?

ECESF discussions identified teacher agency as an important underpinning of quality as well as needed for improving workplace conditions.

What does teacher agency mean?

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How does/will teacher agency support quality & improve workplace conditions at your site?

Increases dedication to their work. Retention.

Teaching staff in direct relationship with child has the lens on what is happening

Job satisfaction

(without: depression)

Room to flex schedule in response to child’s needs.

How does/will teacher agency help?

Child

Allows responsiveness to different developmental age and learning needs

Strong teaching team makes a strong program

Multiple lenses, knowledge, culture

Teachers are at the forefront, need agency for direct relationships with children.

Educator-

Caregiver

Supporting individual teachers’ agency builds teamwork.

Team of teachers exercising their agency makes program stronger.

Multiple lenses, knowledge, culture

Family

Teachers are at the forefront, need agency for direct relationships with parents.

Multiple lenses, knowledge, culture

Strong teaching team makes a strong program

Direct relationship with child’s family strengthens trust.

Staff that have specialization in the areas that the children need.

Collaborative team brings different perspectives

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What blocks teacher agency?

Teaching staff in direct relationship with child has the lens on what is happening

Job satisfaction

What blocks teacher agency?

Child

Educator-

Caregiver

Family

Staff that have specialization in the areas that the children need.

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Is this meaningful to you?

How? Why?

What does it look like at your site?

ECESF discussions proposed building up skills at sites, and retaining them there to work with children directly—through paid apprenticeships and specialists embedded at ECE sites, including multidisciplinary teaching teams

Anything we need to unpack or define?

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How does retaining skills onsite, including transdisciplinary teams support quality and improve workplace conditions?

How does retaining skills onsite including transdisciplinary teams help?

Child

Educator-

Caregiver

Family

Staff that have specialization in the areas that the children need.

Reflective questions:

What do current wage and career ladders look like?

Past comments to share: With the current wage ladder, the more you want to get paid, the less you want to work with children. Not everyone wants to work in the office or administrate. Tricky to have to decide both what you want to do, and how to make a living that pushes away from what you most want to do.

__________________________________________________________________

Proposal made 11/17 - retaining skills onsite, apprenticeships, creating transdisciplinary teams at the site level

Why?

With current classrooms having over ½ children with special needs, we could have an on-site apprenticeship offering “clinic hours” with supervision by “specialists” to support on-site teaching staff adding to their specialization. Once embedded, these specialists would in turn supervise new incoming educator-apprentices in the respective specializations. We could create transdisciplinary teaching teams at the ECE site level. What does this look like?
Builds career pathways for educators and other specializations into the classroom, not out when they achieve additional skills
Strength in unified proposals. The ideas that came up last year: supporting diverse learning needs, safe outdoor space and supports needed onsite to improve working conditions: additional staff for professional needs.

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What else do you need a little bit more of?

to support you, the children in your care, the families you work with

What drives your biggest burnout?

What would support look like?

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Past discussions. Anything you would add?

(Time check)

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What if we were allowed to dream?

What one or two things would you love to see/have when working with children with diverse learning or functional needs where you work in order to…

Make every day a child spends in your program just a little bit better?
Make your own day working just a little bit less stressful, and a little more joyful?
Strengthen and support the families you work with just a little bit more?

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What would most support educator-

caregivers, families with children, and children with diverse learning or functional needs requiring additional support?

Job security.

Aide that are onsite that can support child, not specialists, but can work 1:1

Paid apprenticeships

A dream is to have somebody working with a child, one to one

Supporting Diverse Learning Needs

Child

On-site specialist visitations with time & support to work it into curriculum

Timely response to needs!

Not too many at once!

Someone who speaks child’s home language

Educator-

Caregiver

Staff that have specialization in the areas that the children need.

More staff to support diverse attention and learning styles across ages

Not too many people all at once!

Good retirement plan.

Family

More convenient access to services: whatever they may need, food service, OT, PT, etc

One-stop, services at the ECE site.

Trauma/ICE

More ways to communicate, support parent understanding of child’s need (other in addition to GGRC)

Clear opportunities to increase skills to best support the children I work with.

Staff that have specialization in the areas that the children need.

Career & wage ladders with specializations in the classroom

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What if we were allowed to dream?

What can move us from where we are now to retain and increase onsite specialization?

What could this look like?

What would you/your site need to make it happen?

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What can move us from where we are now to retain and increase onsite specialization?

Consistency in specialist

Becoming a special training site with specialized staff to take on appre

Paid apprenticeship.

Funding to support onsite mentoring/apprenticeship needs.

Retain & Increase onsite skill & specialization

Your sites needs?

Apprenticeships increase expertise in the field whether they stay at one site on not.

Agreements to stay for some time period

Capacity/funds to reduce ratio when children with diverse learning needs

Educator-caregiver

On-site learning

Specialized learning sites

Education that leads to real legit certification or degrees!

Develop multi- or transdisciplinary teams

Small sites

Additional staff if children need support

Support from specialist at neighboring sites

Compensation at levels to retain specializations

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What if we were allowed to dream?

What one or two things would you love to see where you work in order to…

Make every day a child spends in your program just a little bit better?
Make your own day just a little bit less stressful, and a little more joyful?
Strengthen and support the families you work with just a little bit more?

�

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What are the conditions that lead to well-being for children, families and educators in a program? How are they connected?

Consistent planning time

Ample outdoor space to share with safety and pleasure — without time conflict or access barriers.

More staff support

Schedules that allow smooth transition and deep exploration

Quality

Child well being

Time and staff support for children to explore nature & neighborhood

Shorter child care days

More naturalistic play areas/Nature exploration

Sufficient teachers to take care of me

Educator well being

Good natural environments for children

Lower ratios, more time to help individual child

Shorter hours

Social emotional supports among staff

Family well being

Decrease digital divide

Home language resources

Shorter hours or work week/same pay

Family caregiver room for connection with others and more time to separate.

Social emotional support

(New educator) Strategies for supporting SEL and reading

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Opportunities to make change

Budget & Baby Prop C funds - Funds not accessible during lawsuit, now grown with interest — $500M+
Collective on-site educator priorities:

January Workforce Initiative sessions (17 & 31)
January SF ECE Policy Coalition Retreat (24)
CFC/COAC - DEC oversight bodies
SEQUAL - February presentation of results

Consolidate on-site educator priorities
Collaborate: CPAC, Inclusion Workgroup

Drop CPAC Policy Platform: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ilWrTV9uPIzt78ieCP1WzvPYjcqjybU8/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=105406345603023119034&rtpof=true&sd=true

DEC’s Director, Ingrid Mezquita states — Board & Mayor won’t approve annual expenditures, must be one-time!

Deepening skills are one-time, but last over time once there.

On-site skills can be strengthened over next 5+ years, then after initial resources put into educators, keep growing the field. Educators reimbursement needs to rise with growth of experience and expertise.

One-time doesn’t mean in one year. (Thus the apprenticeship to embedded staff positions suggestion.)

Awareness of $500M —in the media & at City Hall—Is what you need being spoken to?

The $500M+ has been announced in the media, and at meetings. There are different opinions of the impact this will have on decisions made to use funding, from finally getting some spent on ECE, to having it spent on other than ECE and swept from DEC, to having it hurried out faster than meaningful programs can be developed, to a little of all of this.

On-site educator priorities

Your naming what you need onsite will be meaningful especially the more we are in agreement. Onsite educators are still among the least heard from, and many will respond.

Collaborate

CPAC has developed a Policy Platform, workforce is in the top 4 as a stand alone item — but our understanding of workplace conditions improvements really integrates it into other areas of the CPAC policy platform: Early Intervention and Inclusion- some of the things long asked for to address workplace conditions, ie planning time, sufficient staffing, strong substitute support, avenues for educators to raise programmatic changes and needs (teacher agency); accountability to a past commitment of Baby Prop C funds to workforce initiative phase 3. Important for us to get to more specific ways to do this. (Opportunities here, at WI listening sessions, Jan 24 workshop)

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Budget Timeline

Dec-Feb - DEC budget presentations (CPAC & CFC/COAC)
Jan-Feb - Meet with supervisors. CPAC has been. Jen Low invited teacher organizations. How do our priorities align? Where are they different?
March 1 - Department budget proposals to City Hall
March - June - Mayor’s report, March 31 updated 5-year plan; May 1, select department budgets; June 1, Mayor proposal to Board
June - Budget negotiations

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Next Steps

Sharing the conversation in the community/with experts/at policy tables

ECESF & Inclusion Workgroup breakout: SF ECE Policy Retreat, Jan. 24

Next All ECESF and teacher meetings will be announced in the New Year!