Early learning and care.

(1) Existing law establishes childcare resource and referral programs, which are established to serve a defined geographic area and provide prescribed services. Among the services provided by these programs is the establishment of a referral process that responds to parental need for information, that is provided with full recognition of the confidentiality rights of parents, and that makes referrals to licensed child daycare facilities, as specified. In providing these services, childcare resource and referral programs are required to maintain ongoing documentation of requests for service, including, among other types of data, the number or calls and contacts to the childcare information and referral program or component, the ages of children served, and the reason that the childcare is needed. This bill would express the intent of the Legislature to enact legislation that, through greater data transparency and accountability, addresses the suspension and expulsion of African American and Hispanic children in early learning and care settings at disproportionate rates and inequitable access to high-quality early learning and care. The bill would add to the documentation required to be maintained by childcare resource and referral programs the number of requests for care by age of the child, race and ethnicity of the child, hours of care needed by race and ethnicity of the child, and the facility type requested by race and ethnicity of the child. (2) Existing law establishes the Cradle-to-Career Data System Workgroup to assess and recommend data system structural components, processes, and options for expansion and enhancement of data system functionality with respect to data collected as young persons make their way through early learning and on to elementary, secondary, and postsecondary education. This bill would require the State Department of Social Services, in conjunction with the State Department of Education, to develop and maintain the Early Learning and Care Dashboard, a web-based system for publicly reporting data regarding the California state preschool program and specified early learning and care programs, no later than January 1, 2024. The bill would require the dashboard to, subject to all applicable federal and state privacy protections, report information that would include, among other things, enrollment by race, ethnicity, and age in each type of early learning and care program, the total number of complaints related to discrimination or exclusion, by race and age of the child and early learning or childcare facility type, and the total number of children with an individualized education program or individualized family service plan who enrolled in the California state preschool program and were suspended or expelled, by race and ethnicity. The bill would authorize the Cradle-to-Career Data System Workgroup to make recommendations for additions or modifications to the dashboard no later than January 1, 2025. (3) Existing law provides for the licensure and regulation of child daycare facilities by the State Department of Social Services and imposes various training requirements on employees of child daycare facilities. This bill would require the department, in conjunction with the State Department of Education, to establish the antibias education grant program to enable selected regional leads to offer training, coaching, and professional development to early learning and care staff. The bill would require an application to become a regional lead to include specified components and require the department to give preference to applicants with certain characteristic or qualifications, including, among others, applicants that demonstrate a history of providing antibias, implicit bias, or antiracism training to early learning and care providers, parents, teachers, or its own staff. The bill would require a regional lead selected by the department to offer antibias education to early learning and care providers located in all counties in the region for which it is the regional lead. The bill would require funding to be allocated to each regional lead based on the number of children in its region, but would prohibit a regional lead from receiving less than $250,000. The bill would make the implementation of these provisions contingent on an appropriation for these purposes in the annual Budget Act.