7:30am - 8:15am |
Registration - Pegasus South Foyer |
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Breakfast - Pegasus South/Patio |
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New Alliance Partner Breakfast - Pegasus East 3&4 |
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Breakfast for Foundation Partners (by invitation only) - Bordeaux Room |
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TA Consultation Meetings - Board Room B, Board Room C |
8:30am - 10am |
Opening Plenary – Dr. Manuel Pastor, University of Southern California
Looking Forward: A Changing America and the Context for Early Childhood Advocacy - Lagoon Pavilion
The United States is going through rapid demographic, economic, and social change, a combustible stew that has sometimes fed into national division and discord. Part of the shift is generational and racial: an older and whiter electorate is disconnected from a younger and more diverse America. Early childhood advocates are often on the cutting edge of these fault-lines and can be critical players in crafting a broader understanding of our common fate. How does such alliance-building happen? What lessons can state advocates and policymakers learn from metropolitan areas forging new understandings between groups, geographies, and generations? How can we bubble up those lessons to craft a broader consensus that equity and inclusion, particularly of the young, is key to the prosperity and economic stability of states and our nation?
Resources:
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10am - 10:30am |
Networking Break |
10:30am - 11:45am |
Breakout Sessions
Continuing the Conversation - Looking Forward: A Changing America and the Context for Early Childhood Advocacy - Board Room 1
Join us for a peer-to-peer discussion on how the themes and ideas from Dr. Pastor’s remarks apply to our work as early childhood advocates and as Americans.
- Lisa Klein, Alliance for Early Success
Getting to Root Causes of Suspensions and Expulsions - Board Room 4
Ameshia Cross, National Black Child Development Institute
Carey McCann, The BUILD Initiative
Multiple states passed bills last session to address expulsions and suspensions of young children from early learning programs, in part because of the evidence of racial and ethnic disparities in expulsion/suspension rates. Elected officials are reaching for quick fixes, like legislation that prevents these disciplinary practices, but the greater challenge is to address the underlying conditions that lead to expulsions/suspensions. NBCDI and BUILD will share how they are working in states to assess and identify policies that address racial bias, support teachers, and promote trauma-informed care.
Resources:
Leveraging the Local: A Means to Build Credibility and Expertise - Board Room 2
Dana Hepper, Children’s Institute (OR)
Amy O’Leary, Strategies for Children (MA)
Becky Veak, First Five Nebraska
Early childhood advocates are engaging more deeply at the local level to strengthen their state policy and advocacy efforts. Understanding community landscapes allow advocates to go beyond state-level aggregate data and bring issues closer to home for decision-makers. It also helps advocates use local results to inform policy development. This session focuses on ways advocates are building stronger cases, creating more effective and efficient policies, and informing state officials by using local data, cultivating relationships with local elected officials, and identifying local “movers and shakers.” Advocates in Nebraska, Massachusetts, and Oregon are making the issues REAL and building trust, credibility, and expertise through their local work. Come hear about strategies for leveraging the local to yield better outcomes for young children.
Resources:
Momentum Building for Paid Family Leave - Board Room 3
Leanne Barrett, Rhode Island KIDS COUNT
Ellen Bravo, Family Values @ Work
Washington State, New York, and Washington DC have joined California, New Jersey, and Rhode Island to implement paid family leave, doubling the number of states that provide this benefit. Are more wins on the horizon, paving the way for a national paid leave program? What does paid leave look like? How much is enough? And how do we pay for it? Learn how states are taking different approaches to answering these questions.
Resources:
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12pm - 1:15pm |
Lunch - Pegasus South/Patio |
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Alliance Investor Lunch (by invitation only) - Bordeaux Room |
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TA Consultation Meetings - Board Room B, Board Room C |
1:30pm - 2:45pm |
Breakout Sessions
Assessing Assessments: A Florida Case Study - Board Room 4
Brittany Birken, Florida Children’s Council
Karen Ortiz, Helios Foundation
Last year, the Florida legislature initiated the creation of The Committee for Early Grade Success. The committee’s charge is to create a road map for a coordinate child assessment system for (1) the child care subsidy program, (2) the voluntary state pre-k program, and (3) the mandatory kindergarten readiness assessment. Come hear a national perspective on what we’ve learned about assessment in the past few years, as well as how Florida is tackling both the technical and political challenges to coordinating multiple assessments in the state.
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Early Childhood Across the Aisle - Board Room 3
Stephanie Monroe, Wrenwood Group
Linda Smith, Bipartisan Policy Center
The current political and policy environment is increasingly polarized. But there is good news. Data from past and recent polls shows that early childhood is a bi-partisan issue. A new report on early childhood was recently released by the Bipartisan Policy Center. Linda Smith, formerly the deputy assistant secretary for early childhood development at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, is now director of BPC’s Early Childhood Development Initiative. Stephanie Monroe, President and founder of The Wrenwood Group, has deep early childhood knowledge from serving as Assistant Secretary of Education and working on the Child Care and Development Block Grant, the Head Start Act, and the Temporary Assistance for Needy Family Act among others during her 25 years on Capitol Hill. Join the conversation as Linda and Stephanie share perspectives on different ways to frame and message early childhood.
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Go Tell It On (this particular) Mountain - Board Room 2
Margie Newman, Intesa Communications Group
In this interactive communications workshop, you’ll learn about practical tips and tactics you can activate to create savvy, targeted, and memorable messages that advance your policy goals. Margie Newman is an award-winning, go-to communications strategist for civic leaders and early childhood development organizations across the country. Today, she’s focused on you.
Pathways to an Effective Early Learning Workforce: (Re)Calculating Route… - Board Room 1
Lauren Hogan, National Association for the Education of Young Children
Abbie Lieberman, New America
Ruth Schmidt, Wisconsin Early Childhood Association
Advocates and policymakers have long tried to develop a well-prepared, effective, diverse, and well-compensated early care and education workforce. States have implemented a variety of strategies, but thus far, advances have been slow or marginal. Are we putting our eggs in the right baskets, or too many baskets? Are we engaging the right stakeholders or pulling the most impactful policy levers? Are we confident that our strategies will bear fruit, or are we kind of muddling through? This session will use a policy scan that NAEYC and New America have conducted in states as part of the Power to the Profession project as a launching pad for discussing these questions. Participants from states will use portions of this tool to explore new questions, stakeholders, or policy levers that can enhance strategies to advance workforce policies related to educational attainment, professional licensure/credential, and leadership.
Resources:
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2:45pm - 3:15pm |
Networking Break |
3:15pm - 4:30pm |
Breakout Sessions
Early Childhood Advocacy Through an Equity Lens - Board Room 2
Jon Gould, Children’s Alliance (WA)
Jann Jackson, Annie E. Casey Foundation
Paola Maranan, Children’s Alliance (WA)
This session will discuss what applying an “equity lens” to our work means and how advocacy organizations that do this have (1) changed their staffing, governance, structures, or other internal operations to work towards their mission and (2) modified their advocacy process and goals to achieve more equitable outcomes. Advocates from Washington and other states will share strategies and tools that will help session participants identify potential ways in which applying an equity lens can change the way their organizations do business. Participants will also have the opportunity to do some self-examination with one of these tools and discuss lessons learned and next steps with peers.
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The Opioid Crisis: Who is Speaking for the Children? - Board Room 3
Cory Curl, Pritchard Committee of Academic Excellence
Samantha Sittig Goldfarb, Florida State University College of Medicine
Meaghan Sprout, Pennsylvania Partnerships for Children
States face a myriad of challenges from fiscal deficits to natural disasters, yet the opioid epidemic may be the most formidable. Six states have declared public health emergencies due to the overdoses from heroin and other opioids. Babies are born exposed, children are losing their parents to drug use or overdose, foster care caseloads are skyrocketing - these are a few of the devastating outcomes of opioid addiction. As decisions are made for how to confront and combat this epidemic, advocates need be at the table to ensure adequate supports are provided to children and families. Early childhood advocates can play a role in opioid addiction prevention and intervention decisions. Join advocates from Florida, Pennsylvania and Kentucky for a discussion on policy and advocacy considerations in the face of the opioid crisis.
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Policy and Advocacy Lessons from Efforts to Promote Pre-K Compensation Parity - Board Room 1
Mindy Binderman, Georgia Early Education Alliance for Ready Students
Caitlin McLean, Center for the Study of Child Care Employment
Sue Russell, T.E.A.C.H. Early Childhood National Center
Efforts to improve early childhood educators’ compensation have been most successful with state pre-k teachers thus far. This session will feature a recent paper by the Center for the Study of Child Care Employment and discuss a range of strategies that some states are implementing to promote more parity between the compensation of pre-k and K-12 teachers, and what it takes for advocates to make the case for such policies and investments. Participants will also discuss what lessons and implications these experiences have for improving compensation for child care and other early childhood teachers in the system. Experiences from Georgia and North Carolina will be highlighted.
Resources:
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4:45pm - 6:10pm |
Sneak Peek: ZERO WEEKS - Board Room 2
Enjoy a Sneak Peek viewing of a powerful new documentary, ZERO WEEKS, about America's paid leave crisis, the cost of doing nothing, and the movement to change that. The film weaves compelling stories with insightful interviews from leading policy makers, economists, researchers, and activists. It reminds us how much children's well-being is impacted by what happens to their parents at work. |
4:45pm - 5:45pm |
TA Consultation Meetings/State Team Meetings - Board Room B, Board Room C |
6pm |
Reception - Tropics Terrace |