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SUPERINTENDENT'S MESSAGE
Dear Colleagues,
This month the Department has taken huge steps towards increasing the safety of our most vulnerable children. On March 1, the Department started implementing the new federal requirements for child care criminal background checks (CCCBCs).
The new background check is more comprehensive than the current requirements. The new law:
- Affects all existing and new staff, volunteers and contractors;
- Requires a 5-point check that expires every 5 years; and
- Aims to ensure children are not exposed to sex offenders, child predators, an individual with a history of child abuse and neglect, or certain criminal offenses.
The new Child Care Civil Background Check System
to allow early learning centers to submit background check applications online. We realize this is a change and we have created a guide and other materials to assist you.
The Department has fingerprint locations
throughout the state, including Louisiana State Police Headquarters. There will be more locations added very soon. These locations offer convenience and an expedited fingerprinting process.
Keeping Louisiana children safe is our most important mission and we appreciate your patience with this new System as we reach our goal.
As a reminder, all new employees must have the new CCCBC. Following this, there is a transition period for all existing staff and independent contractors to apply for a CCCBC by September 30, 2018. More information and resources can be found on the
Early Childhood Criminal Background Check page
, or by contacting
Valerie Black
at (225) 342-2716
.
As always, thank you for all you do for our children,
John
John White
Louisiana Department of Education
Twitter @LouisianaSupe
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UPCOMING EVENTS AND DEADLINES
UPCOMING EVENTS:
- Lead Agency Office Hours- lead agencies only: March 20 and March 27 at 3:00 p.m.
UPCOMING DEADLINES:
- Infant classrooms in publicly-funded sites are entered into the Early Childhood CLASS Portal by March 30
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TEACHING AND LEARNING
ACTION ITEM- INFANT CLASSROOMS
To assist the Department with better understanding opportunities for infant care in order to support quality improvement, the Department is asking that lead agencies and sites work together to enter all infant classrooms in publicly-funded sites into the Early Childhood CLASS Portal by
March 30
.
These classrooms do not have to be observed, will not be included on Performance Profiles, and will not count as missing classrooms or be included in reports. By entering these classrooms, you will be supporting the Department to fully understand the scope of infant care and the need for resources to support quality improvement.
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FUNDING AND ENROLLMENT
CHILD CARE ASSISTANCE NEW APPLICATION SUBMISSION PROCESS
The Child Care Assistance Program is committed to a continued effort to efficiently meet the needs of children, families and childcare providers in Louisiana.
A new CCAP application submission process has been developed to align both the online and paper application and to ensure the process of applying for services is as simple and convenient as possible.
The new application submission process will capture all information needed to determine eligibility in the CAFÉ portal during the initial application submission. A recorded webinar on the new application submission process can be found
here.
If you are having difficulty using this new submissions process, please contact LDECCAP at
LDECCAP@LA.GOV
or call 1877-453-2721, your case worker, or the Provider Help Desk for assistance.
THE CECIL J. PICARD LA4 EARLY CHILDHOOD PROGRAM
Attention district coordinators for the LA4 Program, business managers and financial officials of public school districts and charter schools.
The revised allocations for the FY 2017-2018 Cecil J. Picard LA4 Early Childhood Program have been released and can be found here:
LA 4 2017-2018 Revised Allocations
In accordance with the agreement for the Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) funding, local educational agencies (LEAs) are required to serve at least 95% of the number of students for which they were funded. Funding to those school systems that do not meet their target participation is reduced proportionately by the number of students for which the target was not met. To the extent possible, additional funding is provided to those districts serving more students than originally funded.
This adjustment does not affect the period of availability for these fund sources. The period of availability remains 7/1/2017-6/30/2018.
Please complete and submit an amendment in
eGMS
to reflect your revised allocations. Please submit this revision no later than
Friday, March 16, 2018.
ELIGIBILITY DETERMINATION AND CCAP COMPLETE APPLICATION WEBINAR
Eligibility Determination is a major component of the Coordinated Enrollment process. To assist Lead Agencies and interested partner providers, the Department is providing a recorded Eligibility Determination informational webinar.
This webinar features eligibility requirements for different programs, allowable documentation, and detailed instructions on how to make an accurate eligibility determination. It also includes important information on the new CCAP Complete Application Process. Lead Agencies and other interested participants are welcome to use the information in this webinar for training purposes.
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CHILD SAFETY AND WELFARE
UPDATED BULLETIN 137
A current version of Bulletin 137- Louisiana's Early Learning Center Licensing Regulations has been placed on the website dated February 2018. This updated version contains some clarifications of the current regulations as well as additions in regards to the Child Care Criminal Background Check (CCCBC). These revisions were reviewed and approved by the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education in 2017. Please take the time to review these changes with your staff. If you have any questions, please contact your Licensing Consultant at 225.342.9905
Bulletin 137
DIVISION OF LICENSING BULLETIN 137 PROVIDER TRAINING
A licensing training session will be held on
Wednesday, April 11 at 1:00 p.m. - 3:00 p.m
. at the Claiborne Building, in the Louisiana Purchase Room, located at 1201 N. Third Street, Baton Rouge. This training is for new directors, experienced directors, director designees and owners who need a refresher on the Bulletin 137 Licensing Regulations.
All attendees must register to attend. Please click
here
to register. If you have questions, please contact Kishia Grayson at 225-342-9905 or email
LDELicensing
.
TRAINING FOR THE NEW CHILD CARE CIVIL BACKGROUND CHECK SYSTEM WEBINAR
Two webinars were recently given regarding how the new Child Care Civil Background Check online system works. The training includes information on how to login, set up an account, apply for a background check, monitor the background checks, get results, and check eligibility.
The webinar recording can be viewed
here
. A user manual is also available on the Department's
website
.
CHILD CARE CRIMINAL BACKGROUND CHECK INFORMATION
There are several resources provided to support you through the new Child Care Criminal Background Check (Child Care CBC) process. You can view
FAQs
, a detailed
hand-out
on the important changes to the child care criminal background requirements, and find many forms in the CBC download list, all of which can be found on the Department's
website
.
Please keep in mind, these changes are effective as of March 1, 2018.
For more information about Child Care CBCs, please email
Valerie Black
LOUISIANA EARLY LEARNING CENTER EMERGENCY PREPAREDNESS PLAN
The Department would like to remind centers to be prepared for hurricanes and other regional disasters. Providers shall follow a written multi-hazard emergency and evacuation plan to protect children in the event of an emergency. The
Child Care Facility Toolkit
is a new resource to assist programs develop and enhance their Emergency plan.
Early Learning Centers are encouraged to visit our Emergency Preparedness website to review templates of the Early Learning Center Basic Emergency Plan as well as the Early Learning Center Emergency Checklists. Early Learning centers will also find helpful information on how to engage families in disaster planning as well as resources to share with families in our
Louisiana Early Learning Center Emergency Plan.
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LEAD AGENCY SUPPORT
OFFICE HOURS FOR LEAD AGENCIES
The Early Childhood Team is holding weekly webinar/conference call question and answer sessions for lead agencies. The sessions are held on
Tuesdays from 3:00 p.m.- 4:00 p.m.
and all lead agency staff are invited to join. The Early Childhood team will provide updates and reminders. Additional topics covered will be determined by caller questions. A meeting invitation containing the connecting information has been sent to all lead agency contacts.
Contact
kaye.eichler@la.gov
if you have questions.
Upcoming Schedule for Office Hours
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OTHER
EARLY CHILDHOOD CARE AND EDUCATION ADVISORY COUNCIL - MARCH 21
The next Early Childhood Care and Education Advisory Council meeting will take place on Wednesday, March 21 at 1 p.m. The meeting will be held in the Claiborne Building, 1201 N. 3rd Street, Baton Rouge, LA. The agenda can be found here.
This meeting is open to the public and can be live streamed. Please click
here
for directions on accessing live streamed meetings.
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