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Early Intervention & Inclusion Equity (EIIE) Taskforce

Founders & Leads:

Dr. Yohana Quiroz, Felton Institute
Cheryl Horney, Wu Yee Children’s Services
Heidi Lamar, Compass Family Services

Early Care Educators of San Francisco (ECESF) Board:

ReGina Chavez*
Steven Corona*
Bethica Quinn*
Merced Rocha*
Madonna Stancil*
Suzy Yu*

*SF Early Care Educators

Inclusion and Working Conditions

What do we need to create effective inclusion practices at ECE sites?

A conversation for on-site ECE teachers

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Presentation Resources

ECESF

QR code to ECESF Updates with today’s presentation (comments include additional links) and past ECESF conversations.

EIIE Taskforce

QR code to the EIIE taskforce full presentation & white paper are embedded at the

bottom of their

Infographics:

CPAC Policy Platform:

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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.
Listen & hear, then speak: Seek first to understand, then to be understood.
Expect non-closure: We’ll create opportunities to continue discussion and collaboration in future meetings.
Respect confidentiality: Whatever is said here stays here, whatever is learned here leaves here.

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ECESF’s Mission

Hold space for early care educators of San Francisco to come together in order to secure excellent working conditions, promote the understanding that good working conditions are foundational to the high quality early care and education services San Francisco’s diverse young children and families need, and build unity with families and community allies to shape program, policies, and access needed resources.

ECESF’s Mission is to hold space for early care educators of San Francisco to come together in order to secure excellent working conditions, promote the understanding that good working conditions are foundational to the high quality early care and education services San Francisco’s diverse young children and families need, and build unity with families and community allies to shape program, policies, and access needed resources.

——————

ECESF community-identified essential components of quality working conditions include: recognizing and strengthening the agency of early care educators at ECE sites and in the broader community; educators’ direct participation in defining and implementing quality, shaping and accessing needed support, programs, policies, and development pathways; and wages and benefits that sustain an educator and their family’s current well-being and long-term needs.

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Intervention & Inclusion Equity Taskforce

Mission

Ensure that every child has access to timely [within required timelines], place-based specialized support services, through system-wide service coordination, resource allocation, and mutual agreements centered on the needs of each and every child with special needs so they can thrive and reach their full potential.

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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

ECESF work to-date

Quality & Work Conditions

The ECESF story of how we came to develop quality essentials/Introduction of 4 Quality Essentials points, this slide, and 5 areas of support to get us there on the next slide.

ECESF story: how our conversations grew

Out of our community discussions last year, we develop the ECESF Quality Essentials. As we bring more people into the conversation, we continue to present these to measure resonance and add new voices.

A little background first . . . (Use, shorten, or bullet any of the below to make it your language/your story)

Why we developed quality essentials

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. You can see from the highlights of past ECESF discussion, available on the ECESF website, the focus has always included a wide range of workplace conditions and quality concerns.

Though we’re far from a compensation goal, some progress has been made, we also want to be sure we’re bringing in the other issues that the ECE community raises and which significantly impact our work and job satisfaction. The issues raised include supports to improve on-site and community communication, decision-making, setting priorities to promote the agency of the people at the forefront of doing the daily work: the teachers.

Last year we planned ECESF conversations to take 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. 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.

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 has worked on some process proposals emphasizing the importance of educator involvement in defining and implementing quality (agency or autonomy), and presented these to the group—which stimulated a lot of last year’s conversation last year—and became a core part of our work.

BOTH because work conditions and quality are core to the focus of ECESF’s past work and Mission, and because DEC was working on both workplace conditions and quality of service (and continues to work on both of these this year) — these conversations were both timely, and an good opportunity to bring forward conversations ECESF held. We decided to deepen, document, and share our conversations. We shared with DEC and CPAC.

(As an example of how intertwined work conditions and quality services are, another comment on compensation … tho wages have improved, living in SF is not possible on $28/hour, and our skills are also comparable to tech workers, as are public school educators, who are also underpaid. (The goal of parity with current public school educator salaries was choses as a comparison that read well in the community & by politicians, but was a first step, and is a too low bar.) Too often the wage ladder proposals echo the past broken wage structure, with teachers on the lowest rung and no way to move up and stay in direct connection with children and families in the classroom. Quality services, including strong inclusion practices, depend on teachers developing through experience and professional development and keeping their expertise in the classroom with the children, families, and to mentor other educators. What do we need from compensation to allow educators to stay there as they deepen their pockets?)

This is the context that shaped our work last year.

Why we’re continuing this work

We think the ideas developed by the ECESF community last year, with over 35 discreet sites, and over 50 educators participating, are important to DECs decision-making about their work in both quality and workplace initiatives. ECESF conversations are a significant compliment to surveys (including those be EIIE Taskforce), and an offering of deeper conversations and ideas developed by those working directly with children and families at our sites.

We need to continue to share our priorities in many ways, and to include San Francisco educators who have not been part of the conversation to add their voices. Ongoing conversations as an educator-community further develops each of our thoughts—as well as the collective ideas we generate. The conversation we have today will be part of the process—today focusing on inclusion. If you’re new or re-entering tonight—we invite you to jump into the conversation and our advocacy together.

Read the full document!

Available below and on the ECESF website
ECESF Quality Essentials link:

Summary of slide & key points

Four Main points we identified as Essential to Quality

Educator-caregiver working conditions are fundamental to program quality, and a key element of 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. Next slide - The document also links to 5 key areas we identified as supporting us getting to quality.

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Effective quality development requires educator-caregivers’ involvement at each step: defining, assessing, and implementing

Program quality standards as a living document to be fully defined and realized at the site level

Robust, inclusive site-level self assessment process focused on growing skills and resources

Facilitation skills and support for conversations at and between sites

Onsite capacity for specialization and collaboration, including staff and compensation

What do we need?

Structures that support the inclusion of all voices, recognizing existing power dynamics & barriers

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

Our quality essentials conversations focused on addressing the process needed to get to quality—but with that focus—we realized we had to get at what a teacher needs, because it is essential to quality. Note what onsite capacity includes for onsite specialization and collaboration: — sufficient staff and compensation.

We also think it’s necessary to talk about good workforce conditions as a right of workers as a stand alone, and too often it is presented as if these are two competing things, competing for limited resources, rather than necessarily connected, especially for work that requires your full mind and body, such as education and caregiving. Teachers need to be at the center of defining what structures are needed to support educators in doing excellent work.

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EIIE work to-date

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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

Review of Advocacy & Policy Development to-date

Overview of advocacy & introduces today’s discussion. Slides 10-14.

Review of advocacy to date…

ECESF shared quality essentials with DEC and ECE community
EIIE shared survey outcomes and recommendations with DEC and ECE community
CPAC’s policy platform top 5 policy goals include Early Intervention & Inclusion (as #1) and Workforce Compensation, Working Conditions, and Career Pathways (as #4)

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

And, see this slide, Does anyone remember this slide from 2022 or other presentations?

Past plan from DEC included Phase 3, not yet rolled out.

Four phases, phase 3 never happened. Many have been waiting. This is a crucial area to support what happens at the site level across ECE, and where workforce conditions supports practice and is the foundation to high quality services including strong inclusion programming.
Last year SEQUAL survey was conducted to create baseline, and quality policies are being developed that rest on what the workforce is supported and able to provide.
What’s the importance to you of remembering and reminding others about this as a commitment of Prop C spending, part of what the $500M could fund and as part of CPAC’s focus on Accountability, #3 of CPAC’s Policy Platform?

Slide from Workforce Compensation Phase II T5 Sept 2022 Final: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1gr3IRcdxoWAPs_Ln-4uY4ZmqdC-4ZHuq/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=105406345603023119034&rtpof=true&sd=true

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Effective

inclusion services require educator-caregivers’ involvement

at each step: identifying need, partnering with families, and providing individualized services.

Educator-caregiver working conditions include access to information, resources to support children and families, and agency.

Effective inclusion services depend on educator-caregivers’ work and working conditions.

There is no one size fits all solution to inclusion

Inclusion & Work Conditions

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Discussion

What do teachers need to provide effective inclusive services?

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Effective

inclusion services require

educator-caregivers’ involvement at each step:

identifying need, partnering with families,

and providing individualized services.

Identifying need

Partnering with families

Resources

Onsite capacity

What do we need?

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Effective

inclusion services require

educator-caregivers’ involvement at each step:

identifying need, partnering with families,

and providing individualized services.

Identifying need

What do you need to …

Support you in identifying need?

Work with family and child while learning more about needs and working toward services (without burning out)?

Partnering with families

What do you need to …

Provide more information to families about GGRC & SFUSD processes, and support transitions?

Understand family experience to support and improve process?

Resources

What do you need to …

Access and develop effective collaborations with Specialists?

Continue services outlined in IEP/IFSP?

Build your capacity to serve children with diverse needs?

Onsite capacity

What do you need to …

Further define what inclusion looks like at ECE sites. Address elements like:

Class size
Ratios
Instructional design
Onsite specialization

What do we need?

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Priorities for Advocacy

What do we want to take back to the advocacy session?

Who is/are the principal change maker(s) or allies we want to address?

What else do you want to do or know?

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Presentation Resources

ECESF

QR code to ECESF Updates with today’s presentation (comments include additional links) and past ECESF conversations.

EIIE Taskforce

QR code to the EIIE taskforce full presentation & white paper are embedded at the

bottom of their

Infographics:

CPAC Policy Platform: