Plan submission to school board due date:
June, 2022
Eligibility:
LEA’s
Total funding available:
$200 million dollarsBrief overview:
The 2021–22 State Budget package established the UPK Planning and Implementation Grant Program as a state early learning initiative with the goal of expanding access to prekindergarten programs at local educational agencies (LEAs). This grant program provides $200 million for the California Department of Education (CDE) to allocate directly to LEAs based on a statutory formula to support planning and implementation costs associated with expanding prekindergarten options, such as universally-available transitional kindergarten (TK), CSPP, and Head Start for eligible students, and other local and community-based partnerships.
Grant funds may be used for costs associated with creating or expanding CSPP or TK programs, or to establish or strengthen partnerships with other providers of prekindergarten education within the LEA, including Head Start programs, to ensure that high-quality options for prekindergarten education are available for four-year-old children. Allowable costs include, but are not limited to: (1) planning costs, (2) hiring and recruitment costs, (3) staff training and professional development, (4) classroom materials, and (5) supplies.
As a condition of receiving grant funds, state law requires each LEA to create a plan articulating, how all children in the attendance area of the LEA will have access to full-day learning programs the year before kindergarten that meet the needs of parents, including through partnerships with the LEA’s expanded learning offerings, the After-School Education and Safety Program, the California state preschool program, Head Start programs, and other community-based early learning and care programs (EC Section 8281.5).
Under state law, the plan must be developed for consideration by the LEA’s governing board or body at a public meeting on or before June 30, 2022, after which the LEA must provide data, as specified by the State Superintendent of Public Instruction, to the CDE. The CDE must encumber funds by June 30, 2024. LEAs will have until June 30, 2025, to use the funds.
Links to the CDE webpage and Planning templates:
Focus Area A: Vision and Coherence
Recommended Planning Questions
- What is the LEA’s vision for UPK? [open response]
- In addition to TK, what service delivery models will be integrated to offer UPK programming, including the nine hours of total extended learning and care programming around the TK instructional time for families that opt in? In developing this component of the plan, LEAs should include partners such as CSPP, Head Start, and other early learning and care providers to ensure local services and funding are maximized and coordinated in response to parental needs and choice. [open response]
- Describe the planned administrative structure that will support and monitor the UPK program and facilitate connections with the ELO-P as well as non-LEA-administered early learning and care programs that will support the extended learning components of UPK. [open response]
- Identify and assign each individual that will be responsible for key functions pertaining to implementing UPK (for example, academic or educational services, early childhood, facilities, human resources and labor, special education, English learner or multilingual programs, partnerships, including early learning and care and ELO-P, assessment and data collection, professional learning, workforce recruitment and preparation support, or others). [open response]
- Identify how UPK leadership will be integrated in the decision-making process at the executive or cabinet level. [open response]
- Describe how the LEA’s proposed UPK model will be integrated with the district’s LCAP. [open response]
- Describe how the LEA plans to ensure the inclusion of students with disabilities in UPK classrooms and who will be involved in the process. [open response]
- Describe how the LEA plans to support sites in building connections between them and ELO-P, as well as early learning and care partners. [open response]
How Learning Genie can help:
Whole-Child Approach, Connecting UTK,CSPP, ELO programs as well as CBO and SpecialEd under one child developmental profile and one assessment.
Learning Genie is an all-in-one platform for data-driven child portfolio and observations, assessment and lesson planning for early learning. It seamlessly integrated with all LEA’s student information system/data system and could be flexibly configured to connect multiple programs. It enables collaboration among LEA’s UTK program, CSPP program, ELO program, as well as SpecialEd inclusive programs to work on one child’s portfolio and assessment, and submit one child assessment report back to SIS. Our secured bridge feature also enables LEA and Community Based Partners, Head Start programs to share securely as well. This unique solution will support continuous education and collaboration across multiple programs to provide full-day learning programs (9 hours of education) under the new UTK requirement in one system with one child progress report card.
Focus Area B: Community Engagement and Partnerships
Recommended Planning Questions
- How does the LEA’s UPK Plan prioritize parental needs and choices? [open response]
- How does the LEA plan to meaningfully engage extended learning and care partners in the development of the LEA’s UPK Plan? [open response]
- What actions does the LEA plan to take to partner with local R&Rs; LPCs; and existing early education, child care, and expanded learning providers within the LEA’s attendance boundary to support parents to access services across LEA-administered and non-LEA-administered programs for extended learning and care and other supports? [open response]
- How does the LEA plan to create or grow partnerships with early learning and care providers serving children with disabilities (including how the LEA plans to collaborate with their SELPA to enroll more children with disabilities in inclusive UPK opportunities)? [open response]
- Develop sample program schedules that describe how the requirements of the ELO-P will be met for UPK, including the use of ELO-P funds or other fund sources; how they will be combined with the instructional day to offer a minimum of nine hours per day of programming (instructional day plus ELO-P or other supports); and how they will offer a minimum nine-hour summer or intersession day. [open response]
How Learning Genie can help:
Whole-Child Approach, Connecting UTK,CSPP, ELO programs as well as CBO and SpecialEd under one child developmental profile and one assessment.
Learning Genie is a platform of child’s portfolio and assessment, as well as teacher lesson planning tools. It seamlessly integrated with all LEA’s SIS and could be flexibly configured to connect multiple programs . It enables collaboration among LEA’s UTK program, CSPP program, ELO program, as well as SpecialEd inclusive programs to work on one child’s portfolio and assessment, and submit one child assessment report back to SIS. Our secured bridge feature also enables LEA and Community Based Partners, Head Start programs to share securely as well. Learning Genie thus will support various wrap-around settings to provide 9 hour of education under the new UTK requirement in one system and ultimately create one child report card.
Focus Area C: Workforce Recruitment and Professional Learning
Recommended Planning Questions
- How does the LEA plan to recruit the educators needed to implement its UPK Plan (including CSPP teachers, assistant teachers, TK teachers, and TK teachers’ instructional aides and assistants)? [open response]
- How does the LEA plan to partner with CSPP, Head Start, and other early learning and care providers to offer joint professional learning opportunities? [open response]
- What is the LEA’s planned strategy for providing professional learning for educators across the LEA’s P–3 continuum? Plans might include the following: [open response]
- Who will receive this professional learning?
- By role (lead teachers, assistant teachers, administrators, coaches, and so forth)
- By grade (TK staff, kindergarten through third grade staff, on-site preschool staff, off-site preschool staff, and so forth)
- What content will professional learning opportunities cover?
- Effective adult-child interactions
- Children’s literacy and language development (aligned with the California Preschool Learning Foundations and the California Preschool Curriculum Frameworks)
- Children’s developing math and science (aligned with the California Preschool Learning Foundations and the California Preschool Curriculum Frameworks)
- Children’s social-emotional development (aligned with the California Preschool Learning Foundations and the California Preschool Curriculum Frameworks)
- Implicit bias and culturally- and linguistically-responsive practice
- Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) and trauma- and healing-informed practice
- Curriculum selection and implementation
- Creating developmentally-informed environments
- Administration and use of child assessments to inform instruction
- Support for multilingual learners, including home language development and strategies for a bilingual classroom
- Serving children with disabilities in inclusive settings, including Universal Design for Learning
- Engaging culturally- and linguistically-diverse families
- How will professional learning be delivered?
- Coaching and mentoring
- Classroom observations and demonstration lessons with colleagues
- Workshops with external professional development providers
- Internally-delivered professional learning workshops and trainings
- Operating an induction program
- Partnerships with local QCC professional learning in CSPP settings
- In mixed groupings (for example, TK and CSPP teachers)
- How does the LEA plan to facilitate the development of a district early education leadership team (across grade levels and departments) and promote site-based horizontal and vertical articulation (P–3) teams to support student transitions, share strategies, and collaboratively monitor student progress?
How Learning Genie can help:
Learning Genie platform enables Preschool and UTK teachers to share age-appropriate lesson plans and activities from original creation or existing resources/curriculum aligned with California Preschool Learning Foundation and Preschool Curriculum Frameworks, as well as Common Core Standards.
Being the most comprehensive system used by California early learning educators and administrators, the Learning Genie platform has accumulated a rich library of best practices, lesson plans, and activities resources to support classroom and instructional practices, especially the social-emotional learning and executive function activities, for mixed/blended learning, and with learners with disabilities and multilingual learners.
The built-in ‘observe’, ‘reflect’, ‘plan’, ‘implement’ logic (cycle of inquiry), and auto-generated child’s development progress report will guide teachers to conduct more intentional teaching and focus on individualized plans for each child.
Focus Area D: Curriculum, Instruction, and Assessment
Recommended Planning Questions
- Describe how the LEA will develop or select a curriculum for UPK classrooms that aligns with the California Preschool Learning Foundations and California Preschool Curriculum Frameworks. [open response]
- Describe the intended timeline for curriculum implementation, including steps for piloting and gathering input from UPK teachers, and a process for ensuring curriculum fidelity. [open response]
- What actions does the LEA plan to take to support effective classroom organization practices and behavior management strategies to ensure a positive learning environment for a diverse population of UPK students?
- Describe how classroom practices for UPK (TK and other preschool programs the LEA operates or has on site) will be integrated and aligned.
- What instructional practices does the LEA plan to implement to support children with disabilities in UPK (for example, implementing Universal Design for Learning, providing specialized services in the classroom with peer models,implementing social-emotional strategies such as the Pyramid Model)? [open response]
- What instructional practices does the LEA plan to implement to support the language and overall development of multilingual learners? [open response]
- How does the LEA plan to assess dual language learners (DLLs) in areas other than English language acquisition? [open response]
How Learning Genie can help:
- UPK/UTK lesson planning, instruction and reflection platform aligned with California Preschool Learning Foundation and Preschool Curriculum Frameworks
The platform enables Preschool and UTK teachers to share age-appropriate lessons and activities from original creation or existing resources/curriculum. In this platform, resources are pre-aligned with CA preschool foundation DRDP as well as CCSS. The built-in ‘observe’, ‘reflect’, ‘plan’, ‘implement’ logic (cycle of inquiry) and auto-generated child’s development progress report will guide teachers to conduct more intentional teaching and focus on individualized plans for each child.
- UPK/UTK approved DRDP-Assessment Platform
Learning Genie is a CDE approved portfolio and assessment platform to support State preschools, UTK and Kindergarten child assessment. It is integrated with SIS for roster and gradebook, directly connected with state system DRDPonline to generate authentic domain scores for child progress report cards and school readiness assessment.
- Dual Language Immersion Tools to power monolingual teacher to partner with parents to create multi-language environment for all DLL kids
Learning Genie’s DLL module enables LEA to meet AB1363 mandates for dual language learners at a significantly reduced cost. The tool will support monolingual teachers to conduct multi-language vocabulary lessons and maximally enables parents to support children’s home language and English development. The tool also translates report cards and DLL teaching instructions to families. The data dashboard will support LEA to meet AB1363 and CDE’s reporting requirements.
- Comprehensive LEA wide data dashboard and reports on UPK/UTK assessment, Dual Language Learning progress tracking, and Professional Development progress tracking.
The comprehensive dashboard enables directors to generate formative reports for continuous quality improvement such as PDSA meetings. It will also facilitate summative reports for board meetings and annual reports.
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