Why this blog

Welcome to the St. Louis Park ECFE Advisory Council blog!

Many of you were interested in participating in the 3 task forces set up through the Council: Legislative, Program and Budget.

Interest and participation don't always go hand in hand. You are busy!! So rather than setting up another series of meetings, I thought perhaps an electronic community would allow you to participate when your schedule allows. Many of you have shared that you get to your emails only after the little ones are down for (hopefully) the night. This, then, might work for you!

Check back frequently for posts and comments about the 3 issues listed above.

This blog will focus on the current legislative session.

There are a number of bills relating to ECFE and School Readiness that have been introduced or are being introduced into both the House and Senate. There is a very easy way to track these bills. Go to www.leg.state.mn.us, then click on My Bills. You can set up an account to track the bills you are interested in. The ones I would suggest you follow are:

HF0005 - Chief Author: Bly
Description: Early childhood family education, school readiness, and Head Start program funding increased; and money appropriated.

HF0138 - Chief Author: Simon
Description: Community education revenue program funding increased.

HF0178 - Chief Author: Fritz Description: Early childhood family education funding increased, minimum population used to calculate revenue increased, and home visiting early childhood family education program revenue increased.

HF0327 - Chief Author: Hortman Description: School readiness programs state aid increased, and money appropriated.

HF0595 - Chief Author: Laine Description: Newborn home visiting program and family home visiting program established, and money appropriated.

SF0003 - Chief Author: Clark Description: Early childhood learning preparedness and enrichment allowance establishment This bill currently has the strongest "legs" in the Senate.

SF0126 - Chief Author: Torres Ray Description: Early childhood family education, school readiness and head start programs funding increase

SF0203 - Chief Author: Latz Description: Community education revenue funding increase

SF0434 - Chief Author: Bonoff Description: Universal newborn home visiting program and family home visiting grant program

SF0435 - Chief Author: Pappas Description: School readiness and head start programs funding increase

SF0579 - Chief Author: Bonoff Description: ECFE program enhancement and accountability plan; developmental assessment at kindergarten entrance; parent education grants I would be glad to answer any questions or respond to any comments you might post and I encourage you to talk with each other about this topic via posts to this blog as well!