Quarterly Council Meeting

Quarterly Council Meeting – February 22, 2013

Quarterly Council Meeting

May 31, 2013

Austin, Texas

Attendees

Council Members: Michele Adams, LaShonda Brown, Mary Capello, Elsa Cardenas Hagan, Deborah Cody, Ana De Hoyos O'Connor, John Gasko, Angela Hobbs-Lopez, Reagan Miller, Elaine Shiver, Kim Wedel

Guests: Howard Morrison (TEA)

Staff: Don Titcombe, Jennifer Lindley

I.Welcome

Presenter: Don Titcombe

II.Public Meeting

Presenter: LaShonda Brown, Don Titcombe

A.Project Updates

Project Updates Don presented updates on the Council's initiatives.

B.Public Testimony

No public testimony was offered at the meeting.

III.Post-ARRA Funding Discussion

Presenter: Don Titcombe

The Council discussed next steps after the ARRA funding is gone on August 31. The discussion focused around several topics:

Will we continue to hold meetings?
How often will we meet?
What are our goals for the future?
How will be work without a dedicated staff?
Where will our initiatives and products live online?
How can we partner with other organizations?
How can we leverage our positions in our own agencies/organizations to share the products that the Council produced over the last three years?

The Council acknowledged that we cannot look the same after the ARRA funding is gone. Instead, the Council will shift our focus from product development to outreach and implementation. Major decisions about the Council, post-ARRA funding:

The federal government plans to use the State Advisory Councils in several initiatives in the future coming out of the Department of Health and Human Services. Therefore, the Council needs to exist in Texas as an advisor for these new opportunities. The Council's federal mandate and appointments from the Governor will remain after the ARRA funding.
The Council will continue to meet on a quarterly basis in Austin, with conference calls or webinars between the meetings.
The Council will maintain the subcommittee structure.
The Council will agree to a set of bylaws that includes attendance requirements for conference calls and meetings. Staff will create a draft for the Council to review.
The Council will work with the Governor's office for new appointments.
CLI will provide limited staff time for the Council to plan and organize the meetings and conference calls, and provide help as needed.
Staff will continue the Council's website and monthly newsletter, providing updates on our initiatives.
CLI and THSSCO should be able to find funding for Council members' travel to meetings.
Many of the Council's products and initiatives already have a home online, including the website, comparison tool, ITELG website, BEECH, and others.
Staff will create an implementation agenda for the next 2-3 years for the Council, including ways to monitor the impact of our initiatives, such as ITELG, BEECH, and use of the online trainings (Core Competencies and ITELG.)
Staff will continue to produce an annual report that details our impact and outcomes, which could be known as the State Report on ECE Systems Integration.
The Council will commit to locating new funding sources, coordinating with new state initiatives, and pushing and monitoring implementation efforts.
The Council will explore new opportunities to commit our efforts, such as special education, developmental delays, ECCS, and CCDF.

Next Steps:

Staff will create a document that describes the new Council plan. This document will resemble the information you received at the first meeting in 2011 and include draft bylaws, organizational structure, goals for post-ARRA funding focused on implementation, and sustainability plans for each of the current initiatives and products. This plan will be emailed to the Council by the end of June. The Council could announce the future plans at the meeting on August 6 in Austin, and hand out the new plan to participants. (This meeting will be invite-only. We will send out information in a Save the Date soon. This meeting will replace the meeting that was planned for August 9.)

IV.QRIS Discussion

Presenter: Don Titcombe

The Council reviewed the draft QRIS recommendations prepared for the meeting. The goal for the discussion was to get some agreements on the finer points of the recommendations. The Council discussed the extent that HB 376 should or should not influence the Council's QRIS recommendations. (HB 376 restructures TWC's Texas Rising Star program to include four reimbursement tiers for providers based on their rating in the system, very much like a QRIS. TWC will convene a workgroup on the restructuring soon.)

Major decisions for the Council's QRIS recommendations:

The Council's recommendations will be written, to some extent, to assist the TWC workgroup as they restructure TRS, capitalizing on our opportunity to influence their decisions. The recommendations will also be an advocacy document, outlining the Council's ideal scenario for a QRIS in Texas, which will not exactly mirror the elements of the new TRS.
The Council will look for opportunities in the recommendations to relate some of the Council's other initiatives to TRS and a statewide QRIS. For example, the Couuncil could recommend that all TRS participants register with TECPDS to catalog their professional development.
The Council's recommendations will be multi-sector (including public pre-k, child care centers, home-based care), not just for TRS.
Although the restructured TRS will be four tiers, the Council will recommend five tiers.

The Council reviewed each point of the draft QRIS recommendations. Below are the decisions on the draft recommendations. If something isn't mentioned below, the Council approved the draft recommendations as written.

SCOPE: The scope of the Council's QRIS recommendations will be focused on programs that care for children 0-5. We recommend the system have five tiers, with the first tier as Licensing compliance.
CENTRALIZED/DECENTRALIZED SYSTEM: The Council recommends a decentralized system with consistent quality criteria to be implemented across the state.
DESIGNATED AGENCY: The Council will recommend that TWC be the designated agency to house the QRIS.
PUBLIC-PRIVATE INVESTMENTS: The Council will recommend that TWC create a proposed strategy for public-private partnerships and investments for the system.
SYSTEM FUNCTIONALITY: The Council will recommend that moving between tiers 1-3 will involve structural improvements. Tiers 4 and 5 will be process improvements.
TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE: The Council will include a fiscal recommendation for the cost of technical assistance/quality improvement.
TIERED REIMBURSEMENTS: The recommendations will include an explanation for the higher reimbursement rates for the top two tiers, which is based on the higher cost of process improvements for programs, such as mentoring.
ACCREDITATIONS: Programs with national accreditations will be automatically accepted in the QRIS, but not higher than tier 3. The Council will recommend that TWC choose which national accreditations will be accepted.

PROGRAM MARKETING: The Council will recommend that TWC create policing that force any program that is under investigation must remove any banners and promotional materials that feature their star rating.
SYSTEMS EVALUATION AND PILOTING: The Council will recommend the pilot program in three communities: 1 rural, 1 semi-rural, and 1 urban. A cheaper solution, other than a pilot program, would be stakeholder surveys across the state with different populations.
To keep up with the federal push for data-driven decision-making and outcomes-based evaluation, the QRIS recommendations will recommend building an evaluation system into a statewide QRIS. The evaluation will be built into the system to help the state fix any problems or challenges with the system in the future.
ADVISORY COUNCIL MEMBERS: The Council will recommend that TWC choose the advisory council from among the list of representatives from state agencies, early childhood professionals, and advocates. The list will be amended to include representatives from colleges and universities.
PROMOTION: The Council will recommend that the QRIS be used to promote child care in local communities. The state should host a website with links to local areas through the Workforce Development Boards.

Next Steps:

Staff will revise the QRIS recommendations based on the decisions at today's meeting and send a new draft for the Council to review.

V.Conclusion

Presenter: Don Titcombe

Upcoming Dates:

Next Council meeting on August 6 in Austin. There will be a dinner reception on August 5.
We will send an email soon to reschedule the next Council update call, currently scheduled for June 28.
Look for lots of emails in the next few weeks about the annual report, QRIS recommendations, and plans for the future.

One person from the Data & QRIS subcommittee is invited to join the Texas Workforce Commission's workgroup on the changes to Texas Rising Star.