Santa Clara County Office of Education and First 5 Santa Clara County’s survey of kindergarten parents in the Fall of 2020 has just been released. You can find a copy of the report here. The report gives a comprehensive account of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on parents of young children in our community, […]
The Santa Clara County Office of Education’s new Government Relations team, led by director Amanda Dickey, is shepherding a substantial package of sponsored and co-sponsored bills through the State Legislature, as well as advocating for early learning in the State Budget and keeping track of Federal funding for ECE and education. SCCOE is sponsoring bills […]
Kids in Common, a program of Planned Parenthood of Mar Monte, held the 14th Annual Santa Clara County Children’s Summit on March 19, 2021. The virtual event featured the release of the 2021 SCC Children’s Data Book and the presentation of the Bold Steps for Children Awards to youth and family organizations that have worked […]
Recent research has underlined the difficulty ECE providers face in finding and retaining qualified staff, especially during the COVID pandemic. A recent article in EdSurge cites findings that annual turnover rates in licensed ECE facilities of between 26 and 40 percent – which significant implications for program quality, continuity of care, and the benefits of […]
The Center for the Study of Child Care Employment has released its 2020 Early Childhood Workforce Index and the authors do not mince their words: “Continuing to pay early educators poverty-level wages out of an expectation that women, especially women of color, will continue to do this work for (almost) free … perpetuates sexism, racism, […]
Children Now has released their 2020-21 California County Scorecard of Children’s Well-being, an incredible county-by county compendium of the metrics that really matter in ensuring children have the strong start they need for a safe, healthy and happy future. The scorecard presents data across four domains: health, education, child welfare and early childhood. On the […]
The end of the year typically marks a time for reflection for early learning policy, as well as everything else, and the release of NIEER’s annual State of Preschool Yearbook. Across the 44 states, DC, and Guam that funded a preschool program in 2019-2020, just 34% of 4-year-olds and 6% of 3-year-olds were enrolled, numbers […]
On December 1, Governor Newsom announced announced the release of the state’s Master Plan for Early Learning and Care. The plan, which builds on the work of recent efforts including the Assembly Blue Ribbon Commission, the Lifting Children Out of Poverty Task Force, California’s Transforming the Workforce for Children Birth Through Age 8, and the […]
California is one of the few states that has a paid family leave program (PFL), in additional to disability insurance, that allows parents and caregivers to provide care for a new child, or for a seriously ill family member. Last year’s budget extended the duration of the leave from six to eight weeks – with […]
The California Child Care and Referral Network has just released the 12th edition of the biennial California Child Care Portfolio, which tracks the changing child care landscape by county and statewide. Santa Clara County’s numbers show a continuing pattern of families, particularly low-income families, leaving the county. The number of children in the county continues […]