PRACTICE AND POLICY LECTURE SERIES - AUGUST, 2011: OKLAHOMA'S EARLY CHILDHOOD DEVELOPMENT INITIATIVES

Dr. Marny Dunlap: What I'm going to present today is actually a presentation that's part of the Oklahoma Children for Early Opportunity's, the OKCEO's, and this is a presentation that business leaders across the state are doing to community organizations and other business leaders to try to get people to understand the importance of early childhood.  I am not very technologically savvy, so...

(music plays)

No Audio: “We have a plan for a better ‘US’.  Our plan delivers academic achievement, a skilled workforce and lower health costs.  With this plan we can build a smarter, healthier, and stronger ‘US’. It’s a 5 year plan with a proven 7% return on investment. 

No Audio (continued): Who are we? We are the country’s youngest generation and we were born to solve its problems.  What do we need from you? Five years of quality education when we are ages 0-5, and that pays off big time.  We will be school-ready with a reduced need for special education, less of an achievement gap and an increase in graduation rates. We’ll live healthier lives. It gives us the abilities to avoid teenage pregnancy, obesity, smoking and depression.  We’ll be workforce ready.  As kids, we develop intelligence and character.  As adults, we show up, persist and solve problems with teamwork.

No Audio (continued): Says who?  Neuroscientists, educators, sociologists, youth advisors, researchers, nurses, social workers, psychologists, specialists, doctors, experts, lawyers, community leaders and a Nobel Laureate in economics, Professor James Heckman: ‘Every dollar invested in quality early childhood education produces a 7-10% per annum return in better education, health, social and economic outcomes.’

No Audio (continued): Those seeking to reduce deficits and strengthen the economy should make significant investments in early childhood education. You can either pay a little now... or spend a fortune to fix problems that could have been prevented by early childhood education. It’s a choice between gain or pain. 

No Audio (continued): The facts are with us.  Are you?  To ‘US,’ the choice is clear. Invest in ‘us.’  Start with early childhood education and build a better ‘US.’  First Five Years Fund û ffyf.org.

Dr. Dunlap (continues): Okay.  So that was a video just kind of summarizing the importance, and it's kind of the new graphic for the younger generation.  But, why are we here talking about early childhood? Really, it's because it's an important issue to everybody: schools, businesses, and really our country's economic future.  The children of today are our workers of tomorrow.  What we do to educate and further healthy development will be our fate in the long term. 

The fact is, children are born learning.  Education begins that very first day.  Scientific studies show that about 85% of the brain is developed by age three.  I've seen it with my own family.  I have a niece that's almost three now, and she was here for about a week last week, and she was learning new words almost every day.  You know, I'd skip a day of day of seeing her, and she would have lots of new words, and then I compare that to my patients I see.  

The population of patients I see are about 98% Medicaid, so kids living in poverty, and a lot of the kids I see, when they start school, their vocabulary is not that large.  And really, the early experiences make the biggest difference with that.  Here is what I've learned.  To be successful in life you need a good education, and success in school requires a good foundation.  It's just like building a house.  It makes all the difference down the road. 

It's not that you can't go back and fix foundations or you can't go back and remodel houses, it's just that it takes a lot more time and it takes a lot more money than if you do it right the first time.  Early education impacts the social skills along with the cognitive skills of how a child performs or behaves in pre-K and whether he or she will be on track to read by third grade and graduate from high school.  It determines whether they'll have the skills we look for in workers, critical thinking, problem solving and working on teams.  Yes, third grade is really the predictor for later success in life.  A child learns to read up until third grade, and then after third grade reads to learn.  

We know that a child's grades and absenteeism by the third grade predict with 90% accuracy whether a child will drop out. Among children at risk, the stakes are enormously high.  It has been proven that stresses of living in poverty and within family systems in turmoil actually weaken the brain's architecture. 

So, when you're born, you're born learning. Your neurons are developing at this rapid, rapid rate, and then when you don't use and learn things, then your brain starts to prune, and that's a natural process.  But, if you're not getting that rapid growth as rapid, when you start to prune, you clearly don't have enough.  There's a sequential development of how kids learn.  Your sensory pathways are certainly developed first, your vision, your hearing, then language, and then your higher cognitive function.  And, if you don't have the earlier skills, it's hard to build on the later cognitive development skills.  And, stresses in life that kids experience can actually change the chemistry in their brain, and it weakens this brain architecture.  

No Audio: PET scans of institutionalized and non-institutionalized children that show more brain activity (orange areas) in non-institutionalized children.

Dr. Dunlap (continues): When you consider this data, there's no denying that children who have positive early experiences do better in life because the foundation was built years ago.  An investment in early childhood pays big dividends later.  It's like the miracle of compound interest.  The more you invest early, the bigger your dividends later.  And, this is just a great slide that comes from the Harvard Early Childhood Center that shows the institutionalized children, so children that haven't has as much stimulation or positive early childhood experiences.  Actually, the brain waves or brain activity is actually a better way to say it.  The brain activity is really changed.  So, the orange areas are the areas that light up are positive things, and the blue or green is not.  You can clearly see that children that don't have as much stimulation clearly don't have as much activity, and this affects them lifelong.  

The economic case.  Over the past decade or more, experts in brain development education and now business and economics have explored this connection between early learning and economic productivity.  Quality early learning opportunities promote healthy brain development and result in well-rounded, productive individuals who are equipped to reach their potential. Parents are children's best and first teacher. 

If we reduce family stresses and support families and parents, they can foster the development of their children's minds as well as their bodies. As a result, Oklahoma families will be stronger.  Children will enter school ready and prepared to learn and will have a greater chance of succeeding in life and in their work.  We spend millions of dollars each year on remediation in an effort to help children who are underperforming in school catch up.  All too often, these efforts are not successful.  Students ultimately drop out of school and engage in many risky behaviors that cost taxpayers dollars.

By focusing more dollars on the early years, we stand to save millions in future taxpayer dollars.  The evidence is clear and impressive.  If we invest early in Oklahoma's children, all of us will benefit.  A lot of business people may not automatically make the connection between early childhood and our education.  Many of us were fortunate. We grew up in two-parent households with mom able to stay home and have those early experiences at home with a parent.  And, many of us may not realize how much we actually learned in those early years before school and how that experience got us ready for school and life.

No Audio: Today’s infants and toddlers are tomorrow’s business leaders, entrepreneurs, scientists, engineers, health care workers, and policy makers.

But, today's workforce is composed of working parents and single parents struggling with long hours and childcare issues.  And, these families are much more at risk.  And, employee flexibility can make a big difference and things that employers will do to help support families.  Early childhood is essential in developing our future workforce.  And, the economists have shown that a great investment shows outstanding rates of return, but early childhood is also important for businesses now.  It's the cog that helps businesses run more efficiently and smoothly.  If our employees are going to be on the job and focused, having access to high-quality, affordable childcare and preschool needs to be part of the equation.  

When you consider that childcare-related absences cost employees $3 billion dollars per year with the average employee missing eight to nine days of work per year, it's obvious that accessible, affordable, high-quality childcare and preschool are not just an issue for parents and the education system to resolve.  It's a business issue as well, and an immediate business issue.  As a message about the importance of early childhood is reaching business leaders across the country, they are speaking out, and that's part of what this presentation is doing around Oklahoma.  

And so our economists, like Dr. James Heckman, who's a Nobel prize winner from the University of Chicago, and he is convinced that investing in early childhood education offers the best rates of economic and social returns.  This graph kind of shows you his rate of return and investment, and it really shows you that if you invest your dollars earlier, it makes a big difference. It's not that you can't get returns later; it's just that you get your biggest returns if you put your dollars in the first year.  And he confirms that the older the individual, the lower the rate of return on investment.

No Audio: Graph shows an exponential decrease in ROI as a person ages, the highest returns take place in investments below age three and the lowest returns take place post-schooling.  

So our greatest opportunity is when children are very young.  Even the Federal Reserve Research has found a 12% rate of return on investing in early childhood education, and not many things can do that now.

(laughter)

Dr. Dunlap (continues): As our nation's businesses navigate an ever-challenging economic situation, and even more so now, they are finding it increasingly difficult to recruit employees with the skills that are needed.  Businesses need workers to have skills developed early on in life. They need employees that have critical thinking, problem-solving, ability to work on teams. And as our nation's businesses navigate an ever-challenging economic situation, they are finding it more difficult to recruit employees that have the skills that they need.  And I think as time goes by, workers are going to need to be more skilled and more skilled.  So, this is becoming an increasing issue.  Think about your own business and the challenges that you have faced.  We all need a qualified workforce. 

The information you see here is based on national data.  So, 20% of the current workers are functionally illiterate.  Less than half of kids in every state are proficient in math and reading, and 75% of our young people are not eligible for the armed forces. This is both educational and for obesity which is another kind of early childhood issue.  You know, it's not just education we need to worry about in early childhood, it’s also health and mental health and all of those wraparound services that are important to young children. And 54% of our business leaders said they have difficulty finding enough educated and skilled workers in the future. 

No Audio: What about Oklahoma’s Workforce? The state’s 2010 employment outlook is much better than the nation’s, however employers anticipate shortages in: college-trained managers, engineers, executives and other high tech workers.

So, how does Oklahoma fare?  We're really not much better.  The quality of our human capital has a direct impact on the business currently operating in our state, and it makes it difficult to convince many businesses needing high-level skills and educated workers to come to Oklahoma. The Kid's Count Book just came out today, and you know for our indicators for children in Oklahoma, six of them have worsened, one of them has improved, and one of them stayed the same.  So, we haven't made a lot of progress, at least currently right now.

There's a disconnect somewhere here. Our resources are not being directed appropriately.  Employers and college professors will tell you; today's high school graduates are not always prepared to succeed in college.  Why not?  Schools cannot produce what employers need in children if they come to school being ill-prepared and not ready to learn.  Any businessperson will tell you, when manufacturing starts, you must have high-quality material to put out a high-quality product.  

No Audio: Graph shows that 85% of brain development is achieved by age 3 and then development slowly increases to 100% by age 19.  Only 10% of the total public investment has been spent at age 3, the total investment rises steadily over time until reaching 100% at age 19.

This slide shows you that while 85% of a child's brain structure is formed by age three, less than 4% of public spending and investment in education and development have occurred by that age. So, the bottom line shows you public spending, and as we all know, once kids kind of hit school age, that spending goes way up.  But, when you look at actually how the brain's developing, the curve looks very different.  

The Rand Research is from this chart, and it demonstrates we're spending the least amount in the earliest years.  What would happen if a business invested their R&D dollars in this way?  It would be a recipe for bankrupt, but that's what we are doing to our kids and their future.  

No Audio: Slide with five bullet points. "1) If families and caregivers can provide quality early childhood development, then children will start school ready to learn. 2) If children start school ready to learn, they are more likely to read at grade level by 3rd grade. 3) If children read at grade level by third grade, they are more likely to graduate from high school. 4) If children graduate from high school, they are more likely to go on to higher education and/or enter the job market as a tax paying citizen. 5) Employable, tax paying citizens are critical to a vital economy."

Dr. Dunlap (continues): In America and Oklahoma, we're spending a lot of money fixing problems, but it costs a lot less to prevent these problems earlier in life.  It's smarter to get kids started on the right road and right path than to straighten out problems later.  It costs less to educate them well in the early years than to remediate them ten years later or incarcerate them twenty years later. Whether you call it building human capital or building our future, investing in children is investing in America.  When we help children grow and succeed, we're paving the way for our country's and our state's next generation of workers and leaders.  The bottom line is this, kids are our insurance.  When we're retired,  they are the leaders who will keep our economy healthy.  We want to connect the dots to provide employable taxpaying citizens that are critical to a vital economy.  

No Audio: Slide entitled "Four Steps Business Leaders Can Take toward a More Productive Workforce and a Stronger Economy" It states "1. Spread the Word: Host events, talk to your employees, start a blog, write an article and share information with other business leaders.  2. Make the Economic Case: Encourage business organizations to support early learning as a part of their policy agendas.  3. Take a Stand: Tell policy makers that the future of your business and our communities requires investments in quality early childhood development to fix our failing workforce pipeline now.  4. Lead by Example: Adopt policies in your business that support working families."

Dr. Dunlap (continues): We want your help to bring this awareness to our communities and business leaders along with our politicians.  This is a concern for all Oklahomans.  It will create the future workforce to bring in new business and also maintain the best leaders in Oklahoma for our future.  It is like the miracle of compound interest.  The more you invest early, the greater your payoff later.  So I want to enlist you all today to join the cause of early childhood, because it makes good business sense and just good sense.

(applause)

Dr. Dunlap (continues): I'm going to show you one last video that I think really kind of summarizes this and hits everything really well.

(music plays)

Small child one: That's me at four months old.  I'm one of the thousands of little miracles born into poverty every day.  That's my mom.  She's 17 and never finished high school.  She's got some big dreams for me, but she's alone and she's scared.  

Small child two: This is my first birthday.  That's my grandma, my cousin Tonya, and her boyfriend Kevin.  We all live together.  It's cold and crowded. I hope we move soon.  I don't like Kevin. He's always yelling.  

Small child three: This is my second birthday.  We're all at daycare, strapped in, watching TV again.  I wish I could just run around.  

Small child four: This is my third birthday. My brother William's taking care of me while my mom sleeps.  She works the night shift so we can't turn up the TV, but we get to go to bed whenever we want.  

Small child five: This is my fourth birthday.  We're sleeping at my aunt's this month.  I don't know when my dad's coming home, but I'm hungry, and I miss him.

Small child six: This is my fifth birthday.  This is my first year of kindergarten.  I'm tired.  

Medley of small children: I'm hungry.  I'm unprepared because I didn't get the right start and twice as likely to be in special education, 30% more likely to never go to college, 70% more likely to be arrested for a violent crime, become a teen parent, drop out of school, never hold a job, spend the rest of my life in poverty.

No Audio: Video - "Or... if we invest in programs that promote learning beginning at birth...  the statistics will change, our stories will change,  our future will change. 

(music continues)

Small child one: My mom plays with me all of the time. She smiles a lot now, and she knows she's not alone anymore.  

Small child two: Grandma, Tonya, and Kevin read me a story every night before I go to bed.  

Small child three: I go to my school every day where I get to run and play and see all my new friends.  

Small child four: Will and I go to preschool together.  Today, we learned about dinosaurs and played a counting game.  

Small child five: Every morning, my dad and I brush our teeth and eat breakfast together.  We have our own place now, and I know we'll always be together.

Small child six: This is my first day of kindergarten.  I'm rested.  

Medley of small children: I'm eager and confident.  I'm curious.  I'm prepared.  I'm ready.  I am your future.  Change the first five years and you change everything.  Anyone interested in investing?

Dr. Dunlap (continues): Okay.  Thank you all very much.

(applause)

Speaker: Thank you Marny.  That was fantastic.  We'll wait and have Q&A after Susan finishes.  I'd like to introduce you to Dr. Susan Kimmel.  I've had the pleasure of working closely with Susan over the last almost two years and have come to know her as a dedicated, passionate advocate for early childhood education.  She's the Director of the Center for Early Childhood Professional Development under OU's College of Continuing Education and in that role has implemented large projects and led change efforts across the state to promote school readiness.  She is a former early childhood teacher, lead literacy coach in Heidelberg, Germany and principal investigator of multiple early-reading first grants.  

Her most recent projects include the development of Quest for Quality Professional Development Series, the Literacy Coaching Institute and the Literacy in Action Professional Development Early Literacy Series.  She holds a Bachelor of Science in Education, Early Childhood Education, a Master of Education in Curriculum and Instruction and a Ph.D in Organizational Leadership.  She has presented at several national and international conferences and we're pleased to have her here with us today. Please help me welcome Dr. Susan Kimmel.

(applause)

Dr. Susan Kimmel: Gee whiz.  Thanks Marny for showing that right before I went on. Perfect.

(laughter)

Dr.  Kimmel (continues): Gees.  That was awesome.  Honestly, I felt like changing my entire PowerPoint after watching that, because it is our passion.  My passion is school readiness and early childhood education, and that's exactly what we do at the Center for Early Childhood Professional Development.  I know a lot of you know a lot about CECPD, but I'm going to talk a little bit more about it today.  More in general terms, but hopefully you'll learn something, and then we're going to talk about a new software system that is our 90-day project that is now almost ready to go two years later.

(laughter)

Dr. Kimmel (continues): So. You know how that goes.  So, just let me get this. Hey Marny, do you know where the little clicker thing... ? Oh there it is.

Dr. Dunlap: Oh, I never saw it.  I just ...

(laughter)

Dr. Kimmel: Oh.  You're good.  You're very good.  Alright.  This is going to be fun.  I need one more hand, and then I'll be perfect.   Alright.  So, let me just give you a brief summary of our mission, and that's to support professionals in the field of early care and education to enhance the quality of interactions with children.  We believe that it is extremely critical for the people, the teachers, the practitioners, in those classrooms in those childcare facilities and homes, to be interacting with children in a way that will increase their knowledge and skills, their care and all domains of the child, which includes social and emotional and all of those things. 

And so that is very, very important to us.  Okay.  So I am putting this down.  There we go. CECPD was established in 1998, just in case you don't know that, and we are committed to quality childcare, and we are funded through DHS with child development block grants, and we support individuals in licensed childcare in Oklahoma.  And I do have to say, our staff goes around the nation as well, so I think that we have some influence nationwide, which I really am appreciative of.  

No Audio: Slide of CECPD services, which include: The Oklahoma Professional Development Registry, Leadership Academy, Focused Portfolio, Professional Development Approval System, Training for Child Care Careers Curriculum, Entry Level Child Care Training (ELCCT), Video lending Library, Environment Rating Scales Assessments (ERS), REWARD Oklahoma, Conference and Training Calendar.

Dr. Kimmel (continues): Here are just some... ooh, should be two slides.  Where is Royce?  He will start getting on me for having too much stuff on one slide.

(laughter)

Dr. Kimmel (continues): But, I had to squish it all in.  And, so these are some of the services that CECPD provides to practitioners in the field.  But, what I'd like to tell you a little bit about, and I was jotting notes down furiously as Marny was talking, so forgive me, but I'm going to use my notes a little bit here, too.  We also have another part of CECPD.  Most of us, I would say 80-85% is DHS funded.  But, we also have another arm of CECPD where we get federal grants.  We put in for discretionary grants, and so we have been working for the past ten years in research on child readiness in Oklahoma.

And, so we have been working in classrooms and facilities throughout the state for ten years, gathering data and putting in interventions so our children in Oklahoma are ready for school.  And, as Marny says, the children that we work with when we first go in and do our pre- data analysis, these children do not have the vocabulary that they need to be successful in kindergarten and beyond. They don't have the skills.  They can't tell you the difference between a word and a sentence.  They can't tell you what an author is.  

And, so when they go in, that achievement gap is huge between the children that we were working with and their middle-class peers.  It is heartbreaking to see a child...I will just start crying with all of this.  It is just heartbreaking for me to go in and see children who are not prepared when we know that 85% of their brain develops between the ages of zero and five. And yet we're not taking advantage of that.  

As an early childhood professional, and I'm sure you all are in that same boat, it is heartbreaking.  There is no reason why our children cannot go in with strong vocabulary, strong skills, to be able to close the achievement gap.  And, what I'm so delighted about in the research that we did is that both arms of CECPD work together.  Because what we learned, the statistics that we gathered, the data that were gathered goes right into the services that we provide, and so it was very smooth and fluid, and I just love that.  So anyway, I am so passionate about that.  It makes me a little insane, so whatever.  Join me. It's so much fun.

(laughter)

Dr. Kimmel (continues): Okay.  So, back on topic.  One of our pieces, and the main piece of CECPD, is the Professional Development Approval System.  Under that, we have two components if you will: the Educator Services and the Training Approval which are both really important, and we have exciting things happening in those areas. 

In fact, right before I came here today... Our guru with data systems development is Terry.  I don't know if all of you know her, but she is in our office. She had come up with this interactive map, and she called me, and she said, “Look at this! It's so great!ö  And I was wondering why it was so quiet in her office for a couple of days.  And, so I went in, and she has this interactive map, and she said, “Okay.  Press on one of the countiesö, because she has it divided in counties.  So I pressed it on, and it told me exactly the training that took place in that county for that quarter.  

And, so we now can look year to date and quarterly of what training was provided.  And guess what?  There were some counties where no training was available.  I shouldn't say available; no training took place.  And so now we can look at that at a glance and say, “Alright.  Let's start getting some  educators in there to get this done.ö

And I was very excited about that.  And so anyway, we have this Educator Services and our Training Approval system.  With the trainer approval, the trainers that we have, and we have right now a little over 100 educators, we call them educators, who go out across Oklahoma and provide training, and they are at three different, or four different levels actually: the apprentice, the practitioner, the specialist. Actually three. 

And, then the services are the child care careers, ELCCT, which are online and face-to-face.  I am going to get this wrong Luann.  It's the... Oh, shoot.  Early...

Luann: Entry level.

Dr. Kimmel: Entry level.  Entry Level Child Care Training.  There you go.  Thank you.  CDA and CCP advisement specialized training pathways and onsite technical special needs for people out there.  And then our Training Approval, because everything... if you have a child care provider who wants their training to "count," if you will, then it has to be approved through CECPD.  When we were developed, established, we were supposed to be and pretty much still are a one-stop shop for early childhood providers.  So they could come in and get what they needed.  And so I really like that part of us.  So anyway.  So the Training Approval, we approve Tier 2 specialized training, ELCCT equivalence, and learning goals and objectives.  We also look at that, and we really make sure that everything coordinates with the standards that are out there so we know what is being taught and it meets our requirements. A really important piece of it.  Okay.

Reward and registry.  You know when you talk really fast and your slides get away from you?  That's where I am right now.  Okay.  Here we go.  Reward is just this wonderful program that is funded by DHS that... it is really to promote quality in childcare in Oklahoma, and it's designed to pay qualified providers salary supplements every six months.

And so if a provider meets the requirements, depending on the level, they can get between $400 and $1,400 a year, which is really good.  With, you know, the whole issue we have with salaries for them, I think most of our providers make $7.50 an hour.  So we have a long way to go there, but this Reward Oklahoma really helps.  And what it is designed to do is to reduce turnover, to ensure continued and successful completion of formal education, and to support wages.

Because once you're on this system, we encourage at every turn for them to go back to school to get their education.  Many of them come to us as high school graduates with no experience and no education behind them.  And so this is really, really helpful.  And let me step back a minute. CECPD just isn't the only DHS-funded organization out there.  DHS funds all of the partners which would include Scholars for Excellent, the R&Rs, CECPD and Career Tech. We work with them as partners as well.  Am I missing anyone, LuAnn?  

And so all of us together form a wonderful system, so I want to make sure everyone knows that it's not just the CECPD show, that it takes a lot of hands and a lot of heads and a lot of hearts to make this happen.  So with Reward Oklahoma, the checks are paid directly to the participants.  They can use that money in any way that they want.  They do not have to put it back into their classroom.  They're encouraged to further their education by moving up on the scale, and as they move up on the scale, they are rewarded with higher supplements.  And then they must move up on the scale according to the timeframe to continue to be eligible.

Unfortunately, we have people that drop off all of the time because they don't hold up their end of the bargain, if you will.  Education is what this is all about and making sure that our workforce is highly educated.  So let's go to the Oklahoma Registry, and this is very closely related to Reward.  But this is a system to help early care and education practitioners to track their professional development.  Family childcare providers, teachers, directors, assistant directors - all of them can be on the Oklahoma Registry.  At this time, it is not mandatory.  

My hope, my goal, is that one day we will be, because I think it's really important for people in our field to get on some kind of professional development system.  And so the Registry has two components: the Professional Development Ladder (PDL) and the Oklahoma Director's Credential.  Those who are on the Oklahoma Director's Credential, they must be and are required to be on the Ladder, if you will, the Profession Development Ladder, but the others aren't required yet. 

So what is the ladder?  It reflects formal education from universities, two- year colleges, and tech centers, and that is renewed annually.  And then the Director's Credential, what we do is we use documented education, professional contributions, and experience that places a director on a career ladder at the bronze, silver, or gold.  Actually, we are changing that.  We now have four levels, and guess what the highest level is?  It took us like three months to come up with this.  Platinum.  Woohoo!  Yeah, we went through copper, and it's like, "Ooh, copper is not really a metal."  Really, the discussion we had about this was incredible.

(laughter)

Dr. Kimmel (continues): But platinum is now our highest.  And so it's generally issued for three years, but I think we are going to bring that down a little bit as well.  So, we really like that. Okay.  Now our 90-day project that turned into two years.  Our wonderful brand new registry software.  Because you know how software is.  I don't know if any of you have had it put in, and you know what the installers say.  “This will take 90 days."  And, you know, we're counting down two years later.  So much fun.  If you're a data person or IT person, sorry.

(laughter)

Dr. Kimmel (continues): I brought a big newspaper saying, “She offended all of the IT people."  Forgive me, I apologize.  So, we are now replacing and have replaced our existing database used with CECPD OCCS programs to accommodate multiple program changes to increase stability, flexibility and scalability.  If you only knew what our other system looked like.  It would be like someone with two broken legs with crutches.   And so now, we have this new system that we're doing dual entry right now and getting ready to move over.  It's a web-based system, and it will enable practitioners to apply for programs and access records online.  It will allow training organizations to post training on a searchable statewide calendar.  This is awesome.  It's kind of like the other one I was telling you about.  

No Audio: CECPD’s Statewide Training Calendar website, which allows users to search for trainings by entering a location, date or by selecting an area of Oklahoma from a map.

Dr. Kimmel (continues): And so, this will be a screen page that people, that practitioners, teachers, family, home providers can click onto, and to locate a training in their specific area they just click on that and voila.  

No Audio: CECPD’s Statewide Training Calendar website, which shows a list of trainings within a selected area.

Dr. Kimmel (continues): This will come up, and it shows all of the training, what's going on in that area, how to access, who to contact.  It is awesome.  And, it's just... we are so excited about this.  It's a very, very easy program.  Individuals will be able to get reports on their training, where they are, what they've taken, keep track of it.

No Audio: CECPD’s website, which shows a facility’s staff training report as a spreadsheet.

Dr. Kimmel (continues): And then also, the facility will also be able to find out where their center is on training and what they need and all of that really, really good stuff.  So much fun to go through this.  

Last, but this is actually the best part of it.  If you're one of these wonderful data geeks, like I am.  I love research and I just love the information that we get.  And so, what this system is going to do is allow us to enhance data collection and reporting. And so, we'll be able to improve our analysis and our program system evaluation and the data sharing with OCCS and partners.  We're going to have a lot of information now that's going to, I hope, directly reflect and help the workforce because we'll have more information than we've ever had before. And we'll have really, really good reports to go with that.  I'm going over to LuAnn.  Did you want to add anything about the data system at all or workforce?

LuAnn: No.  It would be helpful, I guess, for making decisions about where we want to put our resources to see where our actual workforce is and what areas that they need assistance.

Dr. Kimmel: Exactly.  And so, and that is the best part of all, especially with us who, you know, deliver so much professional development, is we're going to know not only who needs what but where the greatest need is and what the need is about.  For example, we have what we call the environment rating scale system, and so some of our staff goes out and they assess the centers.

We have all of that data that we're now going to be able to compile with that other information, that other data, and then we're going to be able to say... let's say we look at all of the scores, we click on a county, and we see that that county has scored very low in, I don't know, diapering, that's usually one of the low ones, health and safety.  And so, we'll be able to pinpoint where we need to go and what we need to do in those counties to help increase the quality of care.  Very exciting, for me anyway.  Hopefully, you have a little glee in your heart right now.  Oh how exciting! (laughs)

If not, just pretend, and that will make me feel really good.  So, let me... oops did I go backwards?  Oh yeah.  We've already started our training.  We've gone out to many places, bringing the training about our software.  We've helped people learn how to get on and sign up and do all of those things, so we are probably within less than two weeks of going live.  

And so we are very excited, and the staff is very tired.  And they'll be very happy when this is done, too. Because as you know, it is a lot of work.  

No Audio: Slide with contact information for the Center for Early Childhood Professional Development -   Phone: (statewide) 1-888-446-7608 and (OKC metro) 405-799-6383. Website: www.cecpd.org.  Address: CECPD -  1801 N. Moore Avenue -  Moore, OK 73160

Dr. Kimmel (continues): I just really, if you have contact information, want to reiterate what Marny was saying about young children and their brain development, and I'm certainly not an expert in that area.  But we have been in the field long enough that we know what children need, and we know what early childhood programs should look like, and we should strive for classrooms of excellence.  And I'm going to even say it.  Some people will not like this, but educational excellence.  We need children who have had a wonderful intervention so that when they step into kindergarten that they have a vocabulary that is several thousand words more than what they have now and all of those other skills that they need.  

We want to break the cycle of poverty.  And the only way we're  going to do that is to dig down into our early childhood classrooms and ensure that what we know are best practices are taking place in those classrooms.  I urge you to keep that as a passion and don't lose that, because our babies, as you saw in that wonderful tape or video, our babies are the ones who are experiencing all of this, and we need to be there for them.  Can you tap dance?

Speaker: No

Dr. Kimmel: Okay.  Did I go on too much?  Well, I'll just say one... I'm finished.  Come on up.  You know, with brain development, as you start to get older, you know, I start to think about brain development on the other side. Because, as I get older, I don't want to be using just one side of my brain.  Am I the only one that thinks like that, or do you think like that, too?  I mean, my parents are older, and so I'm always telling them, “Do puzzles, do this, learn that."  

So my new thing, in my car now I've decided I'm going to study German. And so for my last birthday, I got the Rosetta Stone in German.  So that's all I'm doing now.  I'm driving down the road repeating German phrases. (laughs) So that side of my brain doesn't go to sleep.  Anyway.  Okay.  That's it.

(laughter)