Exploring the Early Childhood Workforce Shortage - Part 2

Transcript:

Kavitha Kailasam

I'm Kavitha Kailasam. I'm part of the Butler Coaching Collaborative with the Butler Institute for Families. I am helping today to facilitate this conversation on early childhood. This episode is the second in a two-part series that explores challenges and opportunities for the early childhood workforce. Our conversation today will look at what the state of Colorado is doing to support and expand a diverse quality and well-compensated early childhood workforce.

We are joined today by Dr. Lisa Roy, who is the first executive director of the new Colorado Department of Early Childhood, which launched in 2022. Dr. Roy previously served as the director of program development for the Buffet Early Childhood Institute and as the executive director of Early Childhood Education for Denver Public Schools. She has a doctorate in leadership and educational equity from the University of Colorado at Denver and has been deeply involved in the early childhood world for over 30 years. Welcome, Dr. Roy.

Just to start with, we'd love to learn more about the Colorado Department of Early Childhood and yourself. I understand that the Colorado Department of Early Childhood is a new cabinet-level department within the state. Can you tell us more about the department, why it was created and what its main functions are?

Dr. Lisa Roy

Absolutely. I'm so excited to be with you today. Thank you so much for inviting me.

The Colorado Department of Early Childhood was started by a bipartisan legislature and Governor Polis. If you remember, when he ran for governor in the state of Colorado, he made a couple of promises related to children and families. One was that we would have full-day kindergarten. He did that right away.

His next promise was to do a universal preschool program. Out of that, we passed a tobacco tax and passed legislation. My understanding is this is the largest statute ever to go before the legislature, over 500 pages, to discuss what would go in a new department of early childhood. I think it's also important to understand that this was the last possible department as far as governance would go, that the state of Colorado would have.

Again, the governor and bipartisan legislature decided to ensure that children 0 to 5 had supports located in one place and managed by one department, and that's the Colorado Department of Early Childhood. We have everything from home visitation, family resource centers, early childhood councils that we support, early childhood mental health. We also obviously have licensing and quality standards for childcare as well as a new workforce division and then the launching the universal preschool program.

Kavitha Kailasam

Yes, so not a small agenda.

Dr. Lisa Roy

Nothing little about this job. Exactly.

Kavitha Kailasam

I'm curious if there are a couple of programs or initiatives, in particular, that you could describe briefly that would help us get a feel for some of the vision of the work of the department or the day-to-day work of the department, what it looks like?

Dr. Lisa Roy

Well, yes. I actually like to just start off by pointing out with our universal preschool program the reason why this seemed to be a great place for it to land was because the Office of Early Childhood, from a foundational perspective, had already combined a lot of programs when they were housed at the Department of Human Services.

Having licensing and our quality standards for childcare, along with our attention to that workforce and having that work together to launch the universal preschool program, has gotten us a lot further than any other ways that we could have done this. When you're utilizing a licensed mixed-delivery system, you need to ensure that home-based, center-based care, along with our providers that are in school systems, are all working together.

So, we were able to launch local community organizations, and many of those are early childhood councils statewide, to help manage the system at the local level. Another thing that's important, as far as how Colorado operates, is that we are local control, so we're devolved to the county level. At the state, we do general guidance and support for our local communities to make decisions.

Everything we do from home visitation, as I mentioned, on to support children birth on up, including our early intervention programming, we really do want the local community to help with the decision-making about how best to support them and their goals.

Kavitha Kailasam

That's really helpful because I was just wondering if any part of that was unique to Colorado and if these programs and initiatives are being implemented here.

Dr. Lisa Roy

Yes, there's a lot of uniqueness. A mixed-delivery system for preschool is unique as a statewide program. We've had the Denver preschool program running for many decades. The Colorado universal preschool program is different from the Denver preschool program, but the mixed-delivery system is what they do have in common, and not very many states do that.

Kavitha Kailasam

In our last episode, we learned broadly about some of the challenges and opportunities related to the early childhood workforce across the country. Within Colorado, what are the primary early childhood workforce issues that the department's currently focused on?

Dr. Lisa Roy

Post-pandemic, we're all dealing with the same workforce issues as you could imagine. It's attracting and retaining talent. Unfortunately, in the early care and education workforce, the pay is low. Very few receive benefits, retirement health benefits. So, we really tried to concentrate with our stimulus dollars on supporting our early childhood care professionals with everything from free coursework to forgiving loans in the situation with opening up preschool slots. We wanted to ensure that we retained infant toddler care, so we gave bonuses for those who are able to do both. We're trying to ensure that there is a focus on paying a living wage for the workforce and that, whenever it's possible, people in our profession have benefits.

Another way that we did that was when we did our rate for the universal preschool program. We pay the same rate per child, whether it's home based, center based or school based. We're trying to pay for the cost of quality. So, that's another commitment that we made. Our workforce division is really trying to do a lot of different things, but all of it leads to ensuring that our workforce feels supported.

We have many of our early care and education professionals, especially in the childcare side of the house, that might have taken coursework, but it has not articulated into a degree. That's one thing we're trying to think about credentials, stackable credentials, any way that we can support people who have been in the field 10, 20, 30 years that aren't degreed but are incredible professionals in our workforce.

On the other side of the fence, there are people who did go to school and maybe didn't finish or finish and have an incredible amount of debt, and though we’re not able to pay significantly more, getting rid of their debt is a huge way to help them economically. We're trying to think about different points of intervention, I would say, and ensuring that our workforce feels supported.

Kavitha Kailasam

A lot of that seems very mindful of equity considerations.

Dr. Lisa Roy

Absolutely. Absolutely. If you look at our workforce, our workforce is more diverse in the childcare setting than it is in the school setting. Again, we're taking into consideration historical inequities that have happened but also just trying to meet people where they are to ensure that children have the highest quality settings possible with well-supported staff.

Kavitha Kailasam

I love that. I'm curious why the early childhood workforce is more diverse comparatively.

Dr. Lisa Roy

Well, many of the people in the childcare side are running their own businesses. Even I was what we call a family friend, a neighbor provider. I was home with three little children, and I provided childcare for a baby and, for a young boy, before and after school care. Again, it helped me as a young mom to take care of my three children and also bring in a little income to help support the family. At that point I didn't have my degree, but I was great with children, so I did something that I felt would benefit myself, the community and my family, and so many people make those kinds of decisions to either start a home-based program; they might be an entrepreneur and run a center-based program. You don't have to have a degree necessarily to do that to be successful.

On the other side of the fence, you have to have a degree to work in the schools, and, in some places, you have to be a licensed teacher and licensed not only in pre-K through third grade, for instance, but you might have to have other licensure like early childhood special education to work for a school district. So, the on-ramp is much more different than getting into the childcare arena.

Kavitha Kailasam

It sounds like it's supporting a lot of infrastructure that already exists.

Dr. Lisa Roy

Yes. Yes. I mean, people get into childcare for many different reasons. Some love children, but for those who might not have had the advantage of going right out of high school into college and into a school setting or even working for a childcare program that is more comparable in pay to a school district.

There's a lot of diversity within a mixed-delivery system and why people are doing it. Our ability, as a department, to not only know what coursework people have taken over time to understand what we can do to support teachers where they are along the continuum is important.

Kavitha Kailasam

Is there anything else in terms of equity that you would add to what are the core challenges in recruiting and retaining this diverse workforce?

Dr. Lisa Roy

Well, paying a living wage and benefits would attract and retain a diverse workforce nonetheless. I think our goal around the department is to just make sure that anyone who desires to be in early care and education sees a pathway forward, and that could start in high school.

We have some programs around the state that actually have high school students working with young children. When they graduate from high school, they might have an associate degree in early childhood or what we call a child development associate, which is about, I think, 12 credit hours plus experience of hours in the classroom. So, there's many different pathways. We have seniors that are going back and supporting early care and education programs.

Our goal is no matter where you are along the continuum, if you're interested in doing this work, we want to make sure that you have the training you need. We have coaching post-pandemic. We have early childhood mental health supports for providers and families. All of those things are important right now.

Kavitha Kailasam

How do wages for the early childhood workforce compare to those of K-12 educators?

Dr. Lisa Roy

About 50%. It's very significant.

Kavitha Kailasam

Yeah. And what are the implications of low wages for the workforce and for the early childhood sector overall?

Dr. Lisa Roy

The implications for some of our providers is that they also qualify for TANF or childcare funding or SNAP or, you know, all of our safety net programs because they're not quite making enough money to help support their families.

It's important that they make a living wage. It's important that we figure out a way that, at age 65, they have a path forward to retirement. If they are not paying into Social Security or they don't have a retirement plan that they've been putting into and getting matching, which is not the case for most of our providers. They're working much longer, and our health changes over time.

Even the healthiest person lifting a two or three year old up day in and day out is probably not the way you imagine yourself doing over a long, long period of time. So again, these pathway opportunities into leadership and other types of roles is important. I'm one of those people, right? I did my associate, bachelor’s, master’s and doctorate.

I got my doctorate by the time I was a grandmother, but I was someone who started off in family, friend and neighbor care, then did what we call itinerant childcare. I moved around from space to space doing childcare, then started running the HIPPY program. I can go on and on and on. But I had opportunities within the early care and education field to keep continue on, not only with my degrees, but also the types of opportunities I had.

Kavitha Kailasam

I think you painted the impact on providers, both if there's opportunities and if there's not opportunities for a living wage and for pathways within this professional space.

Dr. Lisa Roy

I think that part of the myth is that there aren't opportunities. There are so many different kinds of businesses in early care and education. You might end up selling products to other early care and education providers.

There's vendors that actually specialize in books and toys and playground equipment, curriculum. So, there's that. You could end up becoming a teacher or a professor at the community college, college or university level. You could become the head of the early childhood department for the state or work for the mayor with his children's division. There's just so many things, so many different kinds of roles that we don't really talk about in early care and education because we assume that the only one is direct provision, which is an important one.

But there are all kinds of opportunities for those in the field. And I would say with school districts, you could be the principal, you could be the superintendent, and there's no one better suited for these types of leadership roles and districts than those who understand early care and education. Because, for one, they understand parent involvement, they understand community involvement, and they're more likely to grow up in their community and those leadership roles.

That's the principal you're going to see at the supermarket or church. That's the principal you're going to see playing with their own children at your playground. That's why those types of things are important. And I call it Grow Your Own. You know, it's of the community by the community that these leadership opportunities happen. And then there's the nonprofit arena, which I also worked in. Tons of different types of nonprofit jobs, including home visitation that people work in.

Kavitha Kailasam

And in all of these settings, living wage is critical, right?

Dr. Lisa Roy

I would say, yes. My running the HIPPY program right after doing family, friend and neighbor was definitely a jump in my pay. I had benefits. You're not going to get rich in early care and education unless you're inventing toys, but you can make a living wage or write a book, a bestselling book for kids.

Kavitha Kailasam

What are the implications of low wages for the sector overall—so we know what the implications are for providers specifically and then for the sector and maybe even the community beyond that for children and their families?

Dr. Lisa Roy

There are so many implications. From an economic perspective, if you make more, you pay more in taxes, so that benefits everyone. It benefits the community, benefits schools. You're able to pay more to police and fire. You're able to put more into the school system itself. That's a great thing.

It impacts families in a different way. With a mixed-delivery system, the reason why we wanted to pay the same amount per child is because many of our providers, especially home-based providers, are only able to charge what a parent can pay. So, they are grossly underfunded, in a sense, for their business.

And so that opportunity to figure out ways where it's literally public-private. There’s public funding coming from the state through either our grants or our preschool funding, and then the parent is still paying tuition. So again, making sure that our providers are not overcharging, but that they are charging for the cost of quality, is one way to get to a living wage.

Kavitha Kailasam

We may have touched on this question already a little bit, but I'm going to put it out there in case there's anything else you want to add to it. With all of these big issues facing the early childhood workforce, what kinds of strategies is the department investing in to recruit and retain more talented professionals in the early childhood field?

Dr. Lisa Roy

I think it's important to understand that we actually aren't doing the recruiting. We're giving the tools to local communities through grants to attract and retain with bonuses with some of the other things I mentioned, like free coursework or loan forgiveness. For us, the recruitment is something we track over time, but it's not something we actually do. We provide the resources, and we listen to our communities throughout the state of Colorado, to our stakeholders when we make decisions about how to utilize our statewide resources to support local communities.

Kavitha Kailasam

Have there been any particularly successful or interesting strategies that communities have tried?

Dr. Lisa Roy

There have been a lot, but I'm going to go back to the three courses. We offered ECE 101 and 103 and the guesstimate was that 900 people would take advantage of it. Do you know how many people took advantage of that program?

Kavitha Kailasam

It must have been a lot more.

Dr. Lisa Roy

Yes. Just take a guess.

Kavitha Kailasam

I'm going to say 1,500.

Dr. Lisa Roy

5,000 and counting.

Kavitha Kailasam

Wow. OK.

Dr. Lisa Roy

Another thing that we've been very successful with, and I don't have the numbers with me today, but it's our ECPC, early childhood professional credential. It was a tax credit that we gave for up to $1,500, and we had tens of thousands from last year and on point again for this year. That's another exciting program that, again, puts money back into the pockets of our providers. It might not have been through increasing their pay hourly, but those bonuses make a huge difference. And the tax credits make a big difference. And the loan forgiveness makes a big difference.

Kavitha Kailasam

We haven't talked a whole lot about the universal preschool program implementation. Can you tell us more about Colorado’s new universal preschool program, how that implementation is going?

Dr. Lisa Roy

It’s going well. We’ve had over 38,000 children who are now in seats, and we are paying for their parents’ choice and a mixed-delivery system. That's very exciting. There have been some glitches, as there always are, with starting a new program, so we are learning from some of those first-year implementation issues.

Just as we speak, we're planning for year two and at the same time trying to incorporate lessons learned. What I would say has gone well is that there's a lot of ease for parents to apply for the funding and to be matched. For some of our providers, there have been some challenges based on, I would say, especially some of our school districts, with ensuring that they could place children in a way that supports English language learning, children with disabilities, making sure you have a mix in every way that you can imagine for an inclusive classroom.

So, we have done some manual work to support ensuring that that happens. But again, we'll be utilizing lessons learned to make some changes, I would say, in the next couple of months to make it easier for parents and providers this next year.

Kavitha Kailasam

If you could, give us a brief overview of when the program started and who's eligible.

Dr. Lisa Roy

There's different components of when the program started. Every child in the state of Colorado, in the year before they enter kindergarten, is eligible for up to 15 hours. And I say up to 15 because our statute guaranteed 10. We gave another five, four districts and providers who could and had the availability to offer up to half day of 15 hours of preschool. So, we're very excited about that. We didn't have enough funding this year to offer full day to all of our children who qualify for 270% below the poverty line. Almost 50% of our children qualified for that. So, you can imagine that was a big shock. It was a big shock that we had over 50% of our population even apply for universal preschool.

We're at about 59%, so that extra 9% is significant. Then, the fact that so many of our children qualified, income wise, was a big factor, too. We'll be looking at some shifts to our rulemaking that was just announced and looking at an income threshold of 100% of poverty, that children 100% of poverty that would qualify for Head Start. Hopefully, most of those children would also apply for Head Start—because Head Start has great comprehensive services—and would get up to 30 hours of preschool this coming year.

Kavitha Kailasam

Within universal preschool, how does the mixed-delivery approach to service delivery impact the workforce? We've talked about this a little bit and having all the variety of options. Is there anything else about that that you think from the provider perspective, or even the children and family perspective, would be important to talk about?

Dr. Lisa Roy

Well, Kavi, as you know, parents are making these choices all along. Before universal preschool came into existence, parents knew whether or not they could drop a child off at nine, pick them up at three, whether or not their school or school district had before and after care, if their choice was a school-based provider. Or they went with a home-based or center-based provider because they need longer hours because of their work schedule. They need someone with their kids during the breaks and during the summer, so they're more likely to be full day, full year. The difference is, is that it's not based on anything but the parents’ choice of where they choose to put their child, and they get funding to support that choice.

The exciting thing that we learned from the Denver preschool program was that if the funding is there, it increases quality for all children. But what we learned in a mixed-delivery system is that by even focusing on supporting preschool, it helped to lift the quality for all children, no matter what the age is. So, if the center or the home had children ages birth to 5, it increased quality for all.

Kavitha Kailasam

You're making me very inspired about this, Dr. Roy. It's very exciting. It's so fundamental for everybody.

Dr. Lisa Roy

It's true. Our mission is to support children and families and early care and education professionals. Everything we do is trying to take those three groups into consideration.

Kavitha Kailasam

We have a little bit of time left. Is there anything of particular importance or something that you're really excited about that we didn't cover in the way you would have liked to so far in our conversation?

Dr. Lisa Roy

Kavi, when you asked me about some of the things that we were able to do for our workforce, I was recently at a meeting, the National Association for State Leaders in Early Education, so NASLEE. Most of the people that were there, their early childhood departments were in the department of ed. They really didn't have that mix like we have here in Colorado, childcare and preschool in the same department. I asked how many of them had been able to utilize their childcare block grant funding from stimulus to support their early childhood workforce. Not a single one raised their hand. We were able to because, again, we have that continuum within the department. We can forgive a loan for someone who's working in the school system, especially our paraprofessionals, who aren't making quite as much as the teachers.

That makes a huge difference. So, when we say we support early care and education professionals, it's across every kind of setting. And it's not just those who work directly with children. It's leadership. It's people who do speech and language therapy. I mentioned early childhood mental health earlier, social workers, all kinds of folks who have a specialty in early care and education. We are very committed to their well-being.

Kavitha Kailasam

What advice would you give to someone who perhaps isn't aware of the opportunities for them in the early childhood work space? There are opportunities, and there are more opportunities, it sounds like, through the work of the department. So, what advice would you give to someone who perhaps doesn't yet know how to get involved?

Dr. Lisa Roy

Well, I'm going to answer your question in phases. I think if we start with middle school and high school students, helping them to understand the different types of opportunities. My grandmother was a teacher, my great grandfather was a superintendent. I didn't want to be a teacher personally, because it's God's work and it's draining. It's a beautiful thing. But I knew I didn't have what she called a gift to do that full time.

But, if someone had told me, well, you can still go into education and that these are the kinds of things you could be, I sort of fell into it, sort of what I would call dumb luck. Literally, I was an advocate, actively involved in my community, actively involved with my children. And these different opportunities kept coming up. And I know I have this passion around families with young children.

So, it just manifested itself, but doesn't have to be the way things happen. We can educate young people about their options. For someone who's considering it now, whether they're in college and trying to figure out what kind of coursework they're taking or they're a stay-at-home mom like I was or a grandmother who's trying to figure out what their next steps are, they can contact our PDIS system or someone in our workforce division to find out what opportunities are available for them as far as an educational trajectory coursework that we have available for free, both through our PDIS system or in collaboration with the community college system right now. You can get a free associate degree in early care and education. Thank you, Governor Polis. There are so many different opportunities based on your age and your experience. That's why I can't answer your question exactly. But we're willing to help you to figure it out no matter where you are on that continuum.

Kavitha Kailasam

We have a little bit more time. Is there anything else that you want to share or say?

Dr. Lisa Roy

I appreciate the opportunity to lead this work for the state of Colorado. I feel like I have lots of lived experience, even watching my own children and their struggles with getting childcare for my grandkids and trying to figure out the right preschool for them, the right school for them up until third grade.

It's so important to our birth to third grade because it is an incredible time of growth for children, and we want to make sure that Colorado has lots of options and that every family feels that this is the best place to raise a child.

Kavitha Kailasam

It is really exciting to know about all of this. Dr. Roy. So, thank you for sharing it. Thanks for describing your own experience through the workforce, how you've grown throughout it, and how your role and work has grown throughout it. Thank you so much.

Dr. Lisa Roy

Thank you so much.