NMAEYC Board Meeting Agenda
Saturday, January 10, 2015, 8:00 to 1:00; NMAEYC Office, Albuquerque, NM
Voting Board Members Present: Alberto Mares, Ann MacVicar, Michelle Staley, Paula Steele, Betty Lansdowne
Voting Members on Phone: Joanha Strelow (Lordsburg), Cindy Cicero (Portales), Karen Smith (Bloomfield)
Staff Present: Baji Rankin, Olivia Natalie, Dan Ritchey, Susan Perry, Bobbie Bailey, Kindra Hill
Others Present: Joel Casas, Paloma Gonzalez, Claire Dudley, Everette Hill
8:00: Networking / Coffee / Tea / Refreshments
8:30: Opening
· Welcome, Chairs remarks, Meeting Called to Order
· Introductions
o Board members introduced themselves and shared a memorable moment.
· Pass around: Attendance, Political Activity Log, In-Kind Log, Duty of Work
· Approval of Agenda
o Motion to approve by Paula Steele
o Ann MacVicar second
o Approved
8:50: Consent Agenda:
· Approval of Minutes: The minutes were reviewed
o Motion made by Betty Lansdowne,
o Seconded by Paula Steele
o Approved
· Executive Director’s Report
· Administrative Coordinator’s Report – Correction - Under Vice President for Public Policy add the name Kathy Strickland-DeSoto
· Committee Reports
· Council/Affiliate/Chapter Reports
9:00 to 11:00 – DISCUSSIONS and APPROVALS
§ Review and Approve 2015 NMAEYC Public Policy Agenda
o Presentation of Child Care Accountability Act: Claire Dudley and Katherine Freeman
§ Claire Dudley explained how United Way of Santa Fe is different in how they operate than other United Way organizations that the individuals present might be familiar with. Their area is in Santa Fe and focuses on early childhood programs in Santa Fe, and has moved early childhood high quality learning through NM Early Care and Education Cost Model, Early Childhood Education Cost Analysis and Recommendation, Early Childhood Education Revenue Options, Early Childhood Care and Education Act and Home Visiting Accountability Act.
§ Currently are focusing on supporting the Dual Mission of Child Care which supports providing quality care that emphasizes school readiness and supporting working families. The task force developed a Child Care Statement of Principles which include:
· Increase access to high-quality child care for low and moderate income families
· Maximize resources by supporting parent's work and children's development and education simultaneously
· Recognize and support teachers and providers
· Incentivize quality through tiered reimbursement rates
· Advance Learning and development benchmarks
· Foster partnerships to support access to high quality services and
· Focus on program evaluation and return on investment
· The task force has three focus areas:
o Stability for Children and Families
§ This group looked at the challenges of applying for and keeping child care assistance.
· How can this be more family friendly way of applying such as being able to fax in an application or other method rather than a face to face process for applying.
· Consider if there is a way to improve the methods used to recertify.
o Workforce Development
§ Reviewing how to support high quality qualified staff
o Program Effectiveness
§ This group reviews how to move what is working to other communities.
· The task force completed its work in September. A full report is available at www.nmfirst.org that should be reviewed by members to provide the support needed on this potential bill.
§ House Bill 56 Senate Bill 86 is the incentives funding. It is important to be aware how the state is distributing the Child Care Block Grant
· Paula asked if there were representatives from CYFD and Clair identified those involved. Paula asked about the CSEFEL Master Cadre, Rob Corso has been training about 13 individuals with the idea that these individuals will train others to improve work force development. She wonders if the Task Force was aware of this group and how they have been utilized for support. Betty and Paula brought up the concern that Systems are not talking to each other.
§ A full report is available at www.nmfirst.org
o Discussion and approval by board
§ Child Care Accountability Act which would be structured much like the Home Visiting Accountability Act, and are spending time developing a definition section, development of an outcome measurement plan and will require annual reporting.
o Clare clarified that the Bill would ask for funding to support outcome development and that within one year a plan will be developed. Senator John Sapien is wanting to move this forward. Draft language is being developed and Claire asked for the support of NMAEYC. She understands that not having the bill to review but is hopeful NMAEYC will provide their support.
o A discussion occurred in how Early Childhood is defined in New Mexico, which does not always include infants, toddlers and children with disabilities.
§ Public Policy
o The committee has met several times to develop the Draft 5 NMAEYC Early Childhood Legislative Agenda for 2015. Several items are ongoing such as TEACH etc. It was considered that with the number of new legislators coming on board it will require educating this new individuals and that was considered in the development of the legislative agenda.
o Karen noted that the numbers of children enrolled in Health services they are looking at there is hearing, vision, health screening.
o It was questioned if we could expand the support Pre-K funding offers to include child care, although this may be a baby step but Baji asked for clarification when we had the conference call around this topic. We discussed the exemption around gross receipts tax that would include programs that are receiving child care assistance funds. Currently we are just looking at Pre-K funds but we are discounting a large group of programs that are having difficulty staying open and there is a ripple effect. It was agreed by those present to:
§ To restate
o Support a bill to allow exemption from the gross receipts tax (GRT) on NM Pre-K and child care assistance funds that taxpaying early childhood programs receive from the State of New Mexico.
o Susan asked how this document will be used. It does go into the packets for the legislative leadership group. Can it be updated and may it be impacted by what other early childhood programs are supporting?
§ Baji clarified that this agenda will change and drew attention to the fact that this agenda will change and updates will be available at www.nmaeyc.org
§ Voting board members need to check email often to be able to approve these changes with a very short turn around.
§ AFT is going to study the cost of implementing the twelve month eligibility. They will introduce a bill to create a department of early learning, there are no bills at this point, but early learning would be a separate department from CYFD. They want an incentives based program that would give incentives and benefits to staff. A bill that would allow Pre-K funds to allow public schools to contract with private providers. This would use land grant permanent funds. It was agreed this one would need to be reviewed before the board would support this.
§ OLA is working with Parents Association. They work closely with AFT and they have a Montessori recognition act. Montessori is not recognized by CYFD so programs approved by Montessori cannot be recognized as a 5-Star Program. This is also one Bill that would generate 100 Million by taxing corporations over 1 Billion dollars in revenue and pay staff less than ten dollars per hour.
§ They feel the land grant permanent fund language is sufficient to insure that money will go to private of early childhood programs.
§ Partnership for Community Action – introducing a policy or strategy for any new percentage to go
§ Child Care Association national accrediting agencies that says any national accrediting recognized by three other states will also be recognized by NM
§ Susan stated that we can consider that there is a NMAEYC Agenda and other early childhood agendas and some will overlap and we can outline the NMAEYC agenda
§ It is important for the board to understand that this is not a prioritized list although some is tied to bills and it is all important.
§ It will be added pending receipt and review of language on Child Care accountability act
· Consensus was obtained
· The committee will review input and consider how to use that in the future
o Motion to approve as amended by Paula Steele,
o Seconded by Betty Lansdowne
o None opposed
§ Review and approve Slate for new officers: Treasurer, VP Public Policy and VP Professional Development
Slate of officers is on the administrative report.
Michelle moved the slate be accepted. Second Ann MacVicar. Motion passed.
Updates from strategic plan
Everette was present to revisit the chart to Phase II, which will be on the website. He reported that they are trying to get as many voices as possible during this process. All this information will come to a place where it can be cross walked. He has learned what products NMAEYC has, and it gives him an idea what evidence based is missing. He has gathered information regarding staff board members etc. He clarified that it can be uncomfortable but asks that we remember that he wants to see what the organization wants to do and determine does the organization have the support and capacity to support that desire.
Everette traveled to Farmington, he will be meeting with finance committee on the 10th of February. He has come to understand that people like to meet in focus groups and that works for the process. We will continue with document review, traveling and data gathering. He is reviewing the previous strategic plan and will determine what parts of that plan are working, what can be changed.
The strategic planning event will be a high level overview. This data gathering will support the March 27th and 28th meeting. It is scheduled so people can travel in and leave in a manner that will not stress them. As the planning group gets more information a more concrete agenda will be developed. Part of this will include visioning and model building, integrating what are priorities etc. It has been questioned if the amount of time scheduled for this planning event is necessary and Everette discussed that a nice space, a place that you can connect to activities, that is a place that few have an opportunity to enjoy. It provides incentive and represents appreciation for the amount of work those participating have put into this process.
He provided a handout entitled Board Responsibilities and Structures FAQs. He asked the board members to spend some time with this article and pointed out that one of the responsibilities of the board is to participate in strategic planning. He wants to make sure that as we interview board members the questions asked will support developing board and staff strategies. The sense of ownership is important and he noted that we have been lucky to have the resources that has allowed us to do a participatory, extensive strategic planning process, noting we would have had to complete this process whether there was funding or not. He did clarify the investor does not drive this process. What is developed during this time is will guide our work over the next three to five years.
Board Source https://www.boardsource.org/eweb/ is free to join and is a good resource for anyone interested.
Betty asked if this was the general best practices, we will determine what makes sense and what the capacity is. The travel schedule is posted on the NMAEYC website, although it is not extremely detailed
Demographics – who we are and our makeup will need to be captured. One of the goals of the board needs to be that they are able to say who is on the board what their backgrounds are. This is needed for recruitment and grant writing, and the creation of a progression plan.
Surveys went out to 18 voting members, two did not respond. There are 18 voting members to our board although it varies between regions.
The questions was raised that board members are expected to make a financial contribution, Susan asked about contribution of five dollars a month since the board does not necessarily need the money and the greatest contribution of the board members is being there. Then the small donations could be directed to where the board considers the money is needed. Everett noted you can designate a process to determine where the money goes, it can even go to an endowed fund.
FINANCIAL REPPRT
Baji provided both a general business board report and a detailed report
Policy for NMAEYC acting as a Fiscal Agent for project/grants was distributed. It was noted that no administrative fee was taken from the WOL. Since this did not happen the finance committee suggested a letter be written to the board requesting an exemption. The letter was reviewed by those present. The discussion which followed voiced the concern of board members if they were being asked to approve not following NMAEYC policies and procedures. It was recommended that the board seek advice from the auditor and the finance committee should seek legal advice and then go to the Executive Committee prior to bringing back to the board. Since Jerry Arnold is on the advisory board of the board, perhaps he would be a support in understanding the ramifications of the request from Wonder of Learning.
Important Meeting Dates:
2014-2015: NMAEYC Board Meetings: March 7; May 30
2015 NMAEYC Preconference / Conference: Friday, March 6 & Saturday March 7
2015 NMAEYC Strategic Planning Event: Friday and Saturday, March 28 & 29
2015 NAEYC PDI: June 2015, New Orleans
The meeting was adjourned.
Respectfully Submitted,
Michelle Staley
NMAEYC Board Secretary