What does it take to implement major new initiatives in our school systems? In Part Two of our episode about implementing initiatives such as Universal Transitional Kindergarten (UTK) and Universal Pre-Kindergarten (UPK), we dive into this question with lots of hands-on, practical advice from a local school district perspective with Maria Ceballos, executive director of the early learning department at Fresno USD.
Maria shares how her district, Fresno Unified, has been working to expand access to early learning for all children and families.
**Be sure to check out the Episode 3 Companion Brief from WestEd*
In Part One, we gained a statewide perspective about this historic moment for early education in California from Sarah Neville-Morgan, Deputy Superintendent at the California Department of Education.
In this episode, Maria takes us inside some of Fresno USD's planning and approaches for expanding access to early education. Two keys, she says, were being concrete about the work and having the right people at the table. Maria says her district’s leadership and all departments were clear on the value of early learning, and shared both a sense of urgency and a sense of opportunity for their community to serve more children through high quality programs.
Their efforts have included not only the early education team, but facilities, purchasing, finance, HR, teacher development, special education, local and county partners, the Fresno County Superinendent of Schools, and more.
Maria also describes how building strong relationships enabled the district to pivot quickly when some things didn't go as planned or projected .
Fresno's early learner support also has included a unique focus on dual language learner professional development for teachers.
About Fresno USD
Fresno USD is the third largest district in the state with nearly 73,000 students, preK-12. Approximately 17.5% are English learners, and 85% are socioeconomically disadvantaged. The district includes 66 elementary schools, 14 middle schools, 10 high schools, alternative schools, and of course – early education programs. Currently, Fresno USD has six year-round, full-day child development centers serving infant, toddler and preschool aged children; they also have 72 part-day preschool programs, and 127 transitional kindergarten programs including special education – all serving about 5,000 children.
About our host
Jason Willis serves as Director of Strategic Resource Planning and Implementation for WestEd, and he is a former chief business official in several California school districts
About our series
Budgeting for Educational Equity is presented by the California Association of School Business Official (CASBO) and WestEd. We are grateful to the Sobrato Family Foundation for additional support.
Recorded in spring, 2023
What does it take to implement major new initiatives in our school systems? In Part Two of our episode about implementing initiatives such as Universal Transitional Kindergarten (UTK) and Universal Pre-Kindergarten (UPK), we dive into this question with lots of hands-on, practical advice from a local school district perspective with Maria Ceballos, executive director of the early learning department at Fresno USD.
Maria shares how her district, Fresno Unified, has been working to expand access to early learning for all children and families.
**Be sure to check out the Episode 3 Companion Brief from WestEd*
In Part One, we gained a statewide perspective about this historic moment for early education in California from Sarah Neville-Morgan, Deputy Superintendent at the California Department of Education.
In this episode, Maria takes us inside some of Fresno USD's planning and approaches for expanding access to early education. Two keys, she says, were being concrete about the work and having the right people at the table. Maria says her district’s leadership and all departments were clear on the value of early learning, and shared both a sense of urgency and a sense of opportunity for their community to serve more children through high quality programs.
Their efforts have included not only the early education team, but facilities, purchasing, finance, HR, teacher development, special education, local and county partners, the Fresno County Superinendent of Schools, and more.
Maria also describes how building strong relationships enabled the district to pivot quickly when some things didn't go as planned or projected .
Fresno's early learner support also has included a unique focus on dual language learner professional development for teachers.
About Fresno USD
Fresno USD is the third largest district in the state with nearly 73,000 students, preK-12. Approximately 17.5% are English learners, and 85% are socioeconomically disadvantaged. The district includes 66 elementary schools, 14 middle schools, 10 high schools, alternative schools, and of course – early education programs. Currently, Fresno USD has six year-round, full-day child development centers serving infant, toddler and preschool aged children; they also have 72 part-day preschool programs, and 127 transitional kindergarten programs including special education – all serving about 5,000 children.
About our host
Jason Willis serves as Director of Strategic Resource Planning and Implementation for WestEd, and he is a former chief business official in several California school districts
About our series
Budgeting for Educational Equity is presented by the California Association of School Business Official (CASBO) and WestEd. We are grateful to the Sobrato Family Foundation for additional support.
Recorded in spring, 2023
Budgeting for Educational Equity
Season 2 – Episode 3, Part Two
“Big Lifts and Launches: Resource Equity and Other Key Considerations for Implementing UPK, UTK and Expanding Early Education (Part Two: Local District Perspective)”
Transcript
Theme music begins.
Jason Willis, host:
Welcome back to Budgeting for Educational Equity, the podcast series produced in partnership between WestEd and CASBO – the California Association of School Business Officials. I’m Jason Willis and this is part two of our special episode about implementing major new initiatives such as Universal Transitional Kindergarten (UTK) and Universal Pre-Kindergarten (UPK). In part one, we heard a statewide perspective about this historic moment we’re in from Sarah Neville-Morgan, Deputy Superintendent at the California Department of Education. In part two, we’re going to dive into a lot of hands-on, practical advice from a local district perspective with Maria Ceballos, executive director of the early learning department at Fresno USD. Maria has been helping to lead the expansion of early learning in her district, and, well – I’ll let Maria share more about her background and current role…
Maria Ceballos, Guest:
So, I’ve been in education for over 20 years, and it really started in nonprofit organizations. I was there for about 14 years doing a lot of the interventions; we had a lot of programs for students, for families, but focusing on the interventions. So I started seeing a pattern like, this is happening way earlier before children enter school. So that’s when I had an opportunity to apply to a position here in Fresno Unified in the early learning department, because I knew that’s where that impact was going to be. I knew that I needed to go down to child development. So, I started here about seven years ago. And I’ve been in the early learning department. I started as a manager, and I’m currently the executive director for the early learning department in Fresno Unified School District.
Jason:
Awesome. Yeah, I mean, that recognition that the outcomes, the trajectory of our kids starts early, I think is in a very important way becoming more and more of common knowledge amongst educators. And so that you picked up on that early and headed to early childhood, I think has, you know, obviously been a blessing for Fresno Unified. And so, speaking of the district, just if you could offer a couple of characteristics for listeners around the district and the community that you work in?
Maria:
Yeah, we’re very proud of our community. Fresno Unified is the third largest district in the state. We have over 73,000 students, of course, including preschool all the way to grade 12. We have our English Learners population [which] is about 17.5%, and our socioeconomic disadvantaged [population] is 85% and above. We are the biggest employer in the Central Valley. We have about 12,000 employees in our school district. We have 66 elementary schools, 14 middle schools, 10 high schools, alternative schools -- so you name it. But we are the third largest district in the state.
Jason:
Yeah. And so of those 73,000 kiddos, obviously some portion of them are in early childhood education.
Maria:
Yes.
Jason:
So for your role as the director of EC at Fresno Unified, talk a bit about that landscape. How many children do you serve across what number of programs, [and] the types of programs?
Maria:
Yeah, so in Fresno Unified we have six child development centers. And those six child development centers serve infant, toddler and preschool aged children. They’re year round, from 7:30 until 5:30 in the afternoon, plus we also have 72 part-day preschool programs within our system, we have 108 transitional kindergarten programs. If we include our SPED program, it’s 127. So, in total, in those programs that I just mentioned, we serve a little bit over 5,000 students.
Jason:
Maria, when you talk about those 5,000 students -- and we’ll get into this a little bit more in terms of some of the mixed delivery -- but how does Fresno Unified work with other partners, you know, because there’s likely more than 5,000 kiddos zero to five that need to be served? So talk a little bit about the relationship you all have with those partners.
Maria:
Yeah, so we have great partnerships in our community including the Fresno County Superintendent of Schools, Resource and Referral, Head Start. So we actually received a contract from Head Start to be able to serve Head Start programs within Fresno Unified School District; that started a couple of years ago and we plan to continue expanding. We also work very closely with Resource and Referral and any other nonprofit organizations to be able to support with professional development, so whatever we develop here internally, we share it with our community partners.
[5:00]
Jason:
Got it. Awesome. And, you were starting to get into this a little bit earlier, Maria, but talk about why early learning is so important, and in particular in the context of Fresno and how it’s had an impact on students.
Maria:
Yeah. As we all know, 90% of the child’s brain development happens before the age of five. So how we see this in our community is that there’s a sense of urgency. This is a critical time. And then also it’s an opportunity for our community to be able to serve children at a very young age. We know that the children that come into the programs -- and it doesn’t have to be just within Fresno Unified -- but if a child attends a high-quality program, we tend to see better outcomes as they progress in the upper grades.
Jason:
And from the perspective of thinking about ensuring that that access, that opportunity, is created for those students to achieve that outcome that you just mentioned. How does Fresno Unified define equity and apply it to the work you all are doing in early learning?
Maria:
What we want to make sure that we do is that children have access to a program, and it’s not just a program, but we want to make sure that it’s a high quality program -- that regardless of wherever the child or the family decides to enroll their children in one of our many preschool programs, that they are gonna receive high quality services and we’re able to do this. It’s not easy, but we’re able to do it through that commitment, not only of our board, but our Superintendent Nelson -- they continue to be committed to expanding the early learning programs and to be able to allocate the right resources to create high quality programs.
Jason:
So part of what I’m hearing you say there, Maria, is that what’s important is making sure that you create a level state and a high state of quality across all the programs, regardless of where a parent and their child walk into an early learning center or a different care environment -- that they’re getting access to a level of quality that is gonna help them achieve that outcome. So, as you like, reflect on the community of Fresno, what kind of systematic barriers do you see? What would be your top three systematic barriers that you see in the EC environment?
Maria:
So, as mentioned earlier, we serve about 5,000 of the children of preschool and TK age, but we know that there’s a lot more children out in our community. So, some of the barriers are really getting this information in the hands of our families, being able for our families to have a better understanding of the importance of enrolling their child in one of the programs or to send their child to a play-learn group. I think one of them [barriers] is providing that information and it’s more than [that] -- so we have an ongoing full communication outreach to our communities. We use television, radio, social media, messages to the home, but the one that we have seen that really creates that impact -- it’s that connection with the families.
Jason:
Mm-hmm.
Maria:
One of the things that we have noticed is, yes, we can send a flyer, we can, you know, be on television, but if it’s not in the language of the family and if it’s not in a way that they’re able to understand it, you’re just gonna see it as anything else that you’re seeing on television. So, we were fully dedicated to [saying], Let’s get out in the community at every community event that we can get ourselves to and be able to create that connection. We know that if we’re able to create that connection right away, our families will tend to begin to build that trust, like, Oh, you’re telling me that you offer this, what would it look like? You have to be able to speak our family’s language. We have to be able to address some of their concerns or some of their barriers that they might have. For example, some of our families might come to the enrollment center or at a community event and they’re telling us, It says here that I need the birth certificate of my child. You know, we would think every single parent has a birth certificate of their child – but that’s not the case. So then for them to be able to share that with us, it’s something private, and at the same time, it’s not just like, Oh, you’re gonna need to go and do this, this, and that in order to get the birth certificate. No, we link them to the appropriate supports and we keep track of it. It’s not just, Oh, call this number or go and do this. We’re gonna follow-up with the family to ensure that the family is getting all those require documents, so it does not become a barrier of whether or not the child enrolls into our program.
Music interlude.
Jason:
I wanna shift gears a little bit and talk about some of the major initiatives, one of which you had brought up earlier around those 108 TK classrooms, 127 if you include the special education environments. And I just want to go back a couple of years and go back to that moment when you found out for the first time that the state budget had included this ambitious goal around implementing universal transitional kindergarten. And, what were your thoughts? What was going through your mind being in Fresno and given the context of what Fresno had done up to that point?
Maria:
Yeah, so as soon as we heard about it, I mean, I was on the phone with Matilda right away, like, this is so exciting. And we both felt like that. And a lot of people in our community felt like that. Like, this is very exciting for our community. This is a great opportunity for our families, for our children. I think we were a little bit nervous, but never felt like, oh, we’re not gonna be able to do it about the actual implementation. I think we were just waiting for those guidelines and more specifics about what would it, what does it really mean for us? So one, we were excited, but at the same time we were a little bit nervous about the implementation. And then strategically, let’s begin to think about what would it look like? Who’s going to need to be at the table? How are we gonna get this done?
We knew from the beginning that it wasn’t going to be the responsibility of just early learning to be able to carry out that expansion, but it was gonna be a commitment over a whole system. So even before it happened back in July 21-22, we started with our formal work of bringing different departments together. We brought early learning, we were the lead. We brought the fiscal department, facilities, human resources, teacher development, special education supervisors of schools, you name it. And we needed somebody at the table that was that decision maker. A lot at the beginning was understanding as the why -- why are early learning programs important? Why do we need them in our system? And then as soon as people understood as to the why, then it was more about how are we going to figure this out?
Jason:
So I am curious to know, especially from, you know, whether you label it as universal transitional kindergarten or universal preschool, , or pre-kindergarten, that you all had been in the process of building and having some of these building blocks in place in Fresno. And so if you could talk a little bit about when you saw this opportunity come forward, where you felt like there was some momentum that was already building, but other areas that maybe you were starting from square one and things that you needed to kind of catch up in the construction of this?
Maria:
Yeah, so one of the things about our system is that we never actually [call] it like a UTK expansion or anything like that. We just call it early learning expansion because it’s not only our TK classrooms that are expanding, it’s our preschool programs, it’s our child development centers. So there was this whole idea about how do we continue to expand our early learning programs? We knew from the beginning, and that was the commitment of the board and our superintendent, that yes, we were gonna have more TK classrooms happening in the next couple of years. One of the commitments was that we were not going to eliminate any of the preschool programs or any of the child development centers to be able to make room. Instead we were going to figure out how do we continue to expand? So some of the things that were already happening here locally was that whole idea about expanding and how do we get our families to this type of programming? And it wasn’t just us. I mean, it’s across our community. We have Fresno County Superintendent of Schools, Matilda as the lead, that was really guiding us. And you know, she’s a great grant writer, always willing to support any of the agencies like you want to be able to do [this], let’s figure it out.
Jason:
And, we’ve heard this name Matilda come up a few times – and I personally know Matilda – but for our listeners, can you say a bit more about who this person we keep referring to is and what her role is?
Maria:
Yeah. I just know her as Matilda (laughs). Matilda Soria -- she’s the senior director of Early Care and Education in the office of the Fresno County Superintendent of Schools. So she supports not only us here in Fresno Unified, but she supports all the school districts in our county when it comes to early care and education.
Jason:
Yeah, I think that from the perspective of somebody like Matilda at the County Office of Education, to be in that position of being able to provide direct support to a service provider such for yourself can be a really powerful asset. So that seems like that probably is like one of the key factors that really has been contributing towards implementing TK. What else would you lift up if there were one or one or two other things that you would identify as being like crucial factors in helping with the implementation of TK?
Maria:
I think it’s [having] very concrete strategies. It wasn’t something that was just like in theory that we were going to try to figure out. It was very concrete what we were trying to accomplish. And I feel when you bring a group of people to something very concrete, we’re more likely to be successful. And if everybody is engaged and is committed to, yes, we’re going to accomplish this, I think that’s huge. So, being very concrete and being able to have the right people at the table.
Jason:
And dig a little bit deeper: When you say concrete, give us some examples of what that looked like, what some of the conversations were like?
Maria:
Some of the conversations that we were having [were] very specific to Fresno Unified, and then I’ll give you an example of our community. So, very specific to Fresno Unified was like, okay, our projections show that we’re gonna need to expand to this number of classrooms -- so everybody knew. Fiscal knew, okay, what does that look like in funding? Facilities knew, like, we’re asking how does that look like in classroom availability? Purchasing knew, what would that look like in our classroom baseline? So everybody had that end goal -- but then it was going to be very specific for each one of the departments, what was going to be their contribution -- so that’s kind of very concrete what we were going after.
When it comes to the community, we have had many partnerships with Head Start, Resource and Referral, Fresno County Superintendent of Schools where we have had experience in working in similar projects to this. So one of the things that we had worked on for a couple of years was supporting our dual language learners. So we started at this, organizations came together. We identified that there was an issue, which was how do we continue to support our young dual language learners? We identified that professional development needed to be done around supporting our young dual language learners. We started a couple of years ago with the small pilot. All the organizations came together, we brought our educators, they went through a training. The training was successful. We implemented very specific strategies. And then we took that to now let’s develop a toolkit that others can use in our community and outside of our community. But it was very concrete, which was how do we support our dual language learners? And then the strategies that we took in professional development, we were able to implement it and then offer it to others to be able to use.
Jason:
On this point I’m really curious because I think that, as you had previewed earlier on in the interview about the community of Fresno Unified, you have a large proportion of the students in the community that are Hispanic and in particular are English language learners, dual language learners, and I’m curious to have you maybe push in a little bit further on the design of this professional learning because that isn’t something that’s necessarily really common right now within the State of California -- that is that the preparation of early childhood education providers would incorporate professional learning and, you know, build the capabilities of providing dual language learner instruction. So, can you like unpack that a little bit more? What is it like for a teacher to go through that?
Maria:
This is specific [to] supporting our dual language learners -- it all started with the Starting Smart and Strong initiative that was funded by the David and Lucile Packard Foundation. So they came to our community, we brought a group of people and they allowed us to identify what was the concern that we had in the early grades -- and one of them that all these organizations we agreed that we wanted to be able to address was how to better support or how to better equip our teachers to be able to support our young dual language learners, so out of that we started doing some research. And then we found that there was some strategies that had been developed by Dr. Linda Espinosa, Elizabeth Magruder, Carola Oliva-Olson. And they were called personalized Oral Language learning, that were very specific to be able to support our young dual language learners. And they have three areas. They have the instruction, they have the environment, they have the family engagement. So we’re all very excited. There’s a book out about it. So we started implementing those strategies to now where we have, we had built a toolkit that not only we are using this professional development approach to be able to support our young dual language learners, but it’s across our state. And I’ll be more than happy to send you information about it. But it all started with the organizations coming together and identifying it.
Jason:
Got it. Yeah, I think it’d be great to have those materials to include as a part of the show notes for sure. And, so you’re, we’re, a couple years on here and you have had a chance to kind of see the UTK/UPK Programs develop and mature. What are some of the like leading indicators that you’ve seen in the implementation of UTK that are giving you promise and giving you kind of an opportunity to look ahead positively to the future?
Maria:
Our first year it was a lot of unknowns and we all agree -- as part of what we call [our] large group and the smaller group -- so the large group, they were the decision makers within the district -- and we’ll come together monthly to review and to share information and talk about the next steps. And then we have the smaller group, which it was actually working directly with the different departments on, for example, funding, like how are we going to figure this out on facilities, that type of thing. So some of the things that are very promising is that it was very much unknown. Like, this is gonna be our baseline for the rest of the years as we continue with the expansion. And I can say that, successfully we were able to implement 37 additional TK classrooms this year. Our projection showed that we were gonna have about 500 children coming in because of the expansion of the age eligibility and all the children showed up (laughs). So, we were very excited to be able to see that because it’s kind of like you’re using preliminary projections, [but] you’re not sure if they’re gonna show up or not, and they all showed up. So, we were very excited to see that. Even with our efforts of our communication plan and getting out there in that community and letting our families know, but our children, our community are ready and they’re showing up. It’s all a matter of are school districts ready to receive and serve all families and children?
Jason:
Yeah, yeah, and so the flip side of that, Maria, is really around the challenge side, right? I’m picking up on a sense of a little bit of hesitancy or like excited nervousness of f the students are gonna show up. But when you think about the kind of challenges that you’ve encountered around that expansion, what would you say your biggest system challenge has been to date?
Maria:
As I think back about what happened this year, I mean, it has, it’s only been a couple of months, but just being ready to pivot and have the flexibility. For example, we were expecting that we were gonna have an additional classroom in school A -- but wait a minute, the children didn’t show in school A, they actually showed up in school B -- so being able to pivot very quickly within like a week, days, to be able to transfer all the classroom baseline to the new side. So, I think it was more of being flexible that things might not come out as you expect them to be, and we just have to be able to pivot immediately. I mean, our families deserve it. I always twll the people that it’s not about us, it’s about the children that we’re serving in our families. So, we would just have to make it happen and make it work.
Jason:
Did you have any kind of routines in place when you did need to pivot? Like, were there things that helped you move from, like, okay, we may have been expecting this, but now this is gonna happen? Were there any things that helped you move from that A to B?
Maria:
Yeah, so we were keeping a watch very closely. And the numbers that were showing up daily, we were keeping track of that. We were also in ongoing constant communication with facilities, with warehouse, with anybody that was going to need to come in and make that movement happen, and ongoing communication with our administrators. So there was just so many pieces that were moving at the same time. But I felt that we had built that relationship so everybody understood the why, and everybody was prepared that this was our first year and there might be some things that we’re going to pivot at the last minute and everybody was okay with it -- or so I think -- because I never heard any type of pushback or, no, we’re not gonna do it.
[24:30]
Music Interlude.
Jason
So I want to shift gears a little bit Yeah. And talk a bit about the kinda other key partners that you have engaged in this effort. And, you know, when I say that I’m referring really to parents or other educators or other community-based organizations. And just interested to hear from you as you’ve been engaged in this journey and implementing the planning, the decision making that comes around it. What have been some of the effective ways that you’ve found to include their voice and their decision making in those processes?
Maria:
We have had many opportunities where we can actually get to connect with our community partners and ask for feedback. One of the venues that we had been able to do that is through a local planning council at the county level, where we have been able to get feedback, we’re able to partner with Resource and Referral. So one of the things, and one of the commitments that we have within our community, is that we have always said it, Children don’t just have to be served through Fresno Unified School District. There are many other organization. If I could tell you a story, our executive officer one day, she was on the news and she was talking about advertising, like the programs and talking about enrollment. She forgot to mention Fresno Unified (laughs). She mentioned all the other organizations outside, but she never mentioned us. So, I feel that we do have a very solid commitment within our community. The children don’t have to be served just by us, but they can be served and it’s what’s gonna be the better fit for our families. That’s what we always have to keep in mind. Some of the families might come to us and say like, that doesn’t work for me because of my schedule, or this and that. But then we’re able to connect them to Resource and Referral, where they’re able to guide them to some other potential programs.
Jason:
Well, and what I think you’re getting there is in terms of like how you were engaging them in effective ways, and one of the things I was hearing from one of those partner organizations is they were doing like a fair amount of cross-promotion. If they’re out there talking with a media outlet or the general news media, part of what I’m hearing is that they were representing this as a united front.
Maria:
Absolutely.
Jason:
Like, this wasn’t any single player, this wasn’t any single entity, but you all were doing this together to create a much more effective early childhood ecosystem in Fresno.
Maria:
And I can tell you, for example, we’re part of the local planning council…
Jason:
Mm-hmm.
Maria:
And I have never felt, and I, you know, I talk to other school districts, other partners that are leading the early learning programs, and for us, we come in very comfortable to be able to have a conversation. There hasn’t been that -- but I think it’s also the facilitator. I mean, I’m talking about Matilda being able to facilitate those conversations, that our community partners haven’t seen like the school district as the enemy that is gonna take all the children, but it’s more of, okay, they’re supporting -- but at the same time, their programs continue to move forward as well. I have never felt like, I don’t know how to say it, like ‘not wanted’ at those settings, given that we are the largest district and, and we do serve a lot of the children. But Matilda will always say, There’s plenty of children in our community. We don’t have to worry about competing or who’s gonna serve who -- there’s plenty of -- so I think it takes somebody at that level that brings all these organizations together to be able to send that type of message.
Jason:
Yeah. It’s almost like that kind of message allays fears that might be sitting right below the surface of adults that otherwise may not be wanting to say it out loud because it might be embarrassing, or it might be out of nervousness. And so that kind of [the] foresight by a leader to be able to understand and know that, and how to bring people around in a positive way seems like it was a really big part of some of the solutioning that you all were doing moving forward?
Maria:
Mm-hmm.
Jason:
So, one of the other things that I know about Fresno, and I had mentioned this earlier about the P-5 Network, is that it really aims to bring together other sector partners that is, you know, folks from public health or social services or other nonprofits that are working on efforts that are building a more robust ecosystem for parents and guardians of Children Zero to five. And I’m just curious to pull up a couple of those in terms of where your connections as a school system, maybe this would be through Matilda at the county with other governmental entities like public health or if you have any examples that you would put on the table as being some of the more mature relationships that you’ve been able to broker as a result of the efforts in early childhood.
Maria:
So we have locally, we are an active participant of the Help Me Grow initiative, and that has been going on for a couple of years, and then you do see different organizations or entities that serve our families and children that come together. So, I’m able to, to sit at that table. I’m able to collaborate with our partners around the Help Me Grow Initiative. But there’s others and I might not be the best person to ask, but I know our superintendent sits at different tables where those conversations are taking place about how do we continue to…
Jason:
I was just gonna say, for our listeners, give us a little bit of an explanation about what the Help Me Grow Initiative is?
Maria:
Yeah. The Help Me Grow initiative, it’s a system initiative, like how do we ensure, for example, that our families have access to one call line if they have concerns about their child’s development or their growth, that they can call in and ask for support, and then somebody’s able to direct them to the appropriate supports and services. Another one is to making sure that our children have developmental screeners done at a very young age, that we don’t wait until the children are actually enrolled in any type of formal program, and that’s when we identify like, Wait, there are some concerns about this child. We want to make sure that those things are addressed early on. And it’s not only preschools, but it’s the pediatricians. It’s really a partnership that needs to be able to come together. So, we have Helped Me Grow that leads those pieces. And it’s not the direct services, but it’s being able to bring a system, putting a system in place to be able to address those needs.
[31:30]
Music interlude
Jason:
So, UTK is obviously a statewide initiative and we know Fresno is not the only district implementing it. And of course every district has its unique circumstances. But all that being said, are there some keys to the success that Fresno has had so far that you would maybe lift up for others to consider?
Maria:
Yeah, so I’ll start with saying that for programs to be successful, it needs to be the language of the whole district. So I can give you an example. Our superintendent has been talking and his communication to the public about, that preschool should not be seen as an optional grade in our community. He wants to make sure that our young children have an opportunity to enroll in a high quality program. And you’ll hear that from our superintendent, and now you’re starting to hear from everybody. So if they’re ready, that commitment at that level, it just makes my job a little bit easier in the sense that I know that they’re fully committed to making sure that it does take place and that they will do whatever it takes, meaning that funding will be allocated. Because, as you know, some of the contracts that we have, especially around preschool, it’s getting better, but we still need that, a little bit additional support. But we always know that I can rely on my district for that. So if I can say anything to other districts it’s if you, if your superintendent and your board are on board about making early learning a priority, that’s already a win. You’re halfway there.
Jason:
And, and obviously part of the state’s commitment is ongoing funding. They, they’re providing a TA for the students that are, that are attending under TK, but they’ve also supplied quite a number of one-time resources for this effort. Yes. And I do know that there’s, you know, nervousness in the field around, what’s gonna happen once those one-time resources go away. And just curious if you could talk a little bit, Maria, about your experiences in Fresno and how you and your partners have managed those conversations and the future use of those funds?
Maria:
Yeah, so we knew that some of this funding was only a one-time type of thing; we had the planning funding, wo we were like, what’s going to be the best usage of this funding? We, our TK classrooms, the TK classroom baseline used to be around $12,000. We knew that that was not gonna be enough as we are going to be seeing a lot more four-year-olds coming into the classroom. So, we wanted to make sure that the classrooms were developmentally appropriate. That means that the furniture needed to be different, the setup needed to be different, the environment needed to enhance the learning that the children were receiving there. So we went from like $12,000 per classroom to close to $40,000. We used that funding and we decided to do that because of course, we want to make sure that it’s appropriate for the child, for the four-year-olds that are coming into the TK classrooms. And we just didn’t want to do it for the additional TK classrooms that we were opening; we wanted to go back and do a refresh on all our previous classrooms. So that one-time funding was very helpful. It also had a little bit of flexibility of how the funding could be used, o we were able to use it directly to refresh to give the best environment in the existing and the new TK classrooms.
Jason:
And Maria, you may have made some people’s eyes widen when you mentioned the district increased spending per classroom from about $12,000 to $40,000?
Maria:
Yes. But we wanted to make sure, and it -- I think you had a question in there about like, send us back to those conversations that were happening in the room -- and I do remember very clearly it was with that. We have a classroom baseline committee that comes together monthly. So it’s purchasing, it’s fiscal, it’s multiple departments that come together and that’s where we present our baseline -- so it was going item by item and being able to justify it as, why am I switching this to this? Also, it gave us the opportunity to talk about how the preschool and TK classrooms environment are going to look different than what you will see in a first or second grade classroom. And why was that need -- that yes, it is going to be a little bit more expensive, but the classroom environment is like the third teacher in the class.
Jason:
Yeah. And I think that just to pick up on that point, going from $12,000 to $40,000 is nearly 150% increase in those costs, and certainly the one-time funds help with that. Can you unpack a bit of any of maybe the resistance or if there was any opposition for going with such a large amount of money to invest in the classroom and how you navigated those conversations and how you got folks to consensus?
Maria:
Yeah. So, and it was very valid concerns. Like some of the concerns [were] what happens in the later years? Because we do have to do a refresh.
Jason:
Yeah.
Maria:
We know that not everything in the classroom is going to stay new, and that’s not the expectation, because we want children to be able to use everything that is in the classroom. So there have been those type of concerns, but also there has been that commitment that if we are going to open classrooms, they have to be developmentally appropriate. And that’s where I continue to throw it out there in every single setting that we should expect that our preschool or TK classroom, they should look different than what you see in a first, second, and third grade class. And the importance of having it appropriately designed to be able to fit the needs of the children. So there has been, and I can tell you from those meetings, constant meetings and going item by item and explaining what is the purpose, what is the -- it wasn’t easy. But at the end of the day, we knew what we wanted to be able to accomplish, and there was a better understanding in our system about it as well.
Jason:
Before we wrap up, Maria – you’ve already provided a lot of great advice for colleagues in other districts – are there any last things you’d like to add when it comes to launching and implementing major new initiatives like UTK?
Maria:
I think one is planning. One key is put a plan in place. The second one is bring the right people to the table. When I say the right people, it’s like bring those decision makers that you’re gonna get a decision out of that meeting, and it’s not gonna go back to 10 emails or 20 emails later, and you’re still trying to figure it out. So it’s planning, bringing the right people to the table. And also to see this as an opportunity for our community. And not to forget to always bring it back to, yes, we can disagree, uh, I can disagree with the another department, but bring it always bring it back to why are we doing this -- and the reason that we’re doing it, it’s so crucial. Our children deserve to be in high quality classrooms at a very early age, and we have that opportunity to be able to give that to our children, our families. So it just always, when you get into those sticky situations, always bring it back to why we’re here, which is to be able to serve our young children and families.
Jason:
Yeah. That’s great. And what about the state? I mean, they’re a little bit further away, they’re certainly farther up the food chain. You are doing this work on the ground. What would you lift up as one or two things that you would say to state policymakers, to state agencies, state administrators, about what they could be doing to further support school systems, their partners, in particular in advancing equity for you all?
Maria:
I think one is to continue stay connected to what’s happening in the ground. I feel that sometimes decisions get made -- but one decision is gonna trickle a lot of other things within our system. So always being connected to what’s happening on the ground to give us opportunity, to be transparent, to let them know what’s working and what’s not working and yeah, to reach out to us. We can let them know what’s working, what’s not working, and also that what might work for a big district might not work for a smaller district and vice versa. So yes, we’re all school districts, but we have very unique communities that we serve, and we need to be able to address the needs of our community. So to also take that into consideration. For example, I was talking earlier to a group of people about our teachers, our workforce. I can say, for example, we have a teacher development department. We have HR. So all those departments that work with me to ensure that we get the qualified staff, that’s not the same for a small district or rural district here. It’s like one person running all those different departments. So all those factors need to be considered.
Jason:
I appreciate in particular thinking about the ability for, you know, how much time and attention we can give to all the different facets of these different operations. And your mention of workforce prompted another question, which is really around how you’ve been able to manage the rapid expansion of staff, especially with expanding classrooms. And, I think it’s a well-known fact that we continue to struggle in the early childhood and K-12 sectors around identifying highly qualified staff to step into these positions. And just curious to hear a little bit of your thoughts about how you’ve been able to navigate those challenges in Fresno.
Maria:
As I mentioned earlier, we knew this was coming, so there had been -- we have a whole department that works on -- teacher development. So there’s very specific pathways to get our teachers into a TK classroom. We were ready for that. We also have our whole HR department that was able to do some great recruitment. Actually, some of our preschool teachers went into TK, and there was a pathway for them to be able to access. And so luckily we already had that in place and that continues to grow. For example, for the upcoming school year, we have another pathway. So right now we have potentially three pathways for our TK teachers. One is them this year is being the pair, the second person in the classroom as they finish their multi-subject credential. The other one is, they used to be preschool teachers, now they’re TK teachers in the classroom. So in partnership with teacher development, we’ve been able to create those pathways to ensure that as of this point, we have not had any issues. And hopefully we’ll continue like that in regard to staffing our classrooms appropriately.
Jason:
Well, Maria, we are so grateful to you for sharing about the work Fresno USD has been doing and your experiences.
Maria:
It’s been a learning experience. I’s also been exciting and at some point, we’ve been a little bit nervous, but always with the expectation that we’re gonna get it right. It might not be the first year, but the second year is gonna be better. And as we continue to do our work, we hope that -- I mean our preliminary projections is that -- by the end, we’ll have an additional 100 TK classrooms in our community, so that’s very exciting to be able to see our children coming in. And, and some other advice that I would [give] is when things get very difficult and you can’t figure out, like, Ooh, what am I gonna do with this? Go to a classroom. Go to a preschool classroom. Go to a TK classroom, and all the ideas start coming to you. I always see that as my happy place to go. When things get a little bit tough, like I’m gonna go and visit the classrooms, and I’m gonna go and see the amazing work that is happening, and then I can come back to my desk and be like, this is why we’re doing this.
Jason:
That’s a beautiful way to close. Maria, thank you so much.
Maria:
Thank you.
Theme music starts.
Jason:
I hope you’ve come away from this special two-part episode with some practical tips for implementing new initiatives, plus a better understanding of the multi-facets of early education, Universal Transition Kindergarten and UPK. A big thanks to Maria and to Sarah for sharing their stories and insights.
Budgeting for Educational Equity is a partnership between WestEd and CASBO. Paul Richman writes and produces the episodes along with me; Alyssa Perez at WestEd provides research and develops our companion briefs; Tommy Dunbar handles our music, sound and editing. This series is also made possible by the generous support of the Sobrato Family Foundation.
I’m Jason Willis – and we’ll see you out there.
Interview recorded in spring, 2023