2016 ANNUAL PERFORMANCE REPORT

PRESCHOOL DEVELOPMENT GRANTS

Louisiana

Preschool Development Grants AUGUST 2017
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U.S. Department of Education

PDG Grant Performance Report Cover Sheet

Based on ED 524B OMB No. 1894-0003 Exp. 06/30/2017

Check only one box per Program Office instructions. ✔ Annual Performance Report Final Performance Report

General Information

1. PR/Award #: S419B150035 2. Grantee Federal Information Processing Code:

3. Project Title: Preschool Expansion Grant

4. Grantee Name: Louisiana Department of Education

5. Grantee Address:1201 North Third Street

City: Baton Rouge State: Louisiana Zip: 70802

6. Project Director Name: Jenna Conway

Title: Assistant Superintendent, Early Childhood

Phone #: (225) 342-3736 Ext.: Fax #:

Email Address: jenna.conway@la.gov

Reporting Period Information

7. Reporting Period: From: 01/01/2016 To: 12/31/2016

8. Budget Expenditures (To be completed by your Business Office. See instructions.)

Budget Period Federal Grant Funds Non-Federal Funds (Match/Cost Share)

a. Previous Budget Period

b. Current Budget Period

c. Entire Project Period

(For Final Performance Reports only)

9. Indirect Cost Information (To be completed by your Business Office. See Instructions.)

a. Are you claiming indirect costs under this grant? Yes No

b. If yes, do you have an Indirect Cost Rate Agreement approved by the Federal Government? Yes No

c. If yes, provide the following information:

Period Covered by the Indirect Cost Rate Agreement: From: To:

Approving Federal agency: ED Other Specify other:

Type of Rate: (Final Performance Reports only) Provisional Final Other Specify other:

d. For Restricted Rate Programs (check one) -- Are you using a restricted indirect cost rate that:

Is included in your approved Indirect Cost Rate Agreement

Complies with 34 CFR 76.564(c)(2)?

10. Performance Measures Status

a. Are complete data on performance measures for the current budget period included in the

Project Status Chart?

b. If no, when will the data be available and submitted to the Department?

Yes No
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U.S. Department of Education

PDG Annual Performance Report

Executive Summary

Based on ED 524B OMB No. 1894-0003 Exp. 06/30/2017

Grantee State: LA PR/Award #: S419B150035

You are required to submit an Executive Summary of up to 3000 words with your Annual Performance

Report. This summary should relate to your approved application and summarize the goals and

objectives that have been achieved under your grant, what you learned, and any evaluation results.

Describe any unanticipated outcomes or benefits from your project and any barriers that you may have

encountered. If there have been any changes to the project from the approved application, those

should be explained as well.

Louisiana believes promoting quality schooling starts with fostering an environment in which quality

thrives: high expectations for children's achievement and progress; families who are able to choose the option

best suited for their children; and knowledgeable, skilled teachers who continue to learn and grow throughout

their careers. These conditions are the hallmark of Louisiana's premier pre-K programs.

However, too many at-risk Louisiana families are unable to choose a high quality pre-K option that best

meets their children's needs. With the state's continuation of the PreK Expansion Grants, Louisiana is making

great progress in ensuring not only that new seats are provided, but that they are offered in a way that assures

both quality and access for the most high-need communities. PreK Expansion Grants have enabled a deeper

focus on local partnerships to offer seats in diverse settings, which has more than doubled in Year 2 of the

grant.

PreK Expansion Grant

In the second year of the grant, twelve diverse communities across the state of Louisiana were funded

to enroll 1,000 at-risk children in traditional and mixed delivery settings. At-risk children are defined as children

in families with income at or below 185% of the Federal Poverty Level, with disabilities, in foster care, who are

English language learners, and/or experiencing homelessness. The six subgrantees from Year 1 were joined by

six new subgrantees for Year 2, and represent both rural and urban communities from different areas of the

state: Caddo, City of Monroe (Ouachita), East Baton Rouge, Grant, Iberville, Jefferson, Lafayette, Lincoln,

Orleans, Plaquemines, Rapides, and Tangipahoa. These 1,000 grant-funded seats were largely offered in child

care centers in partnership with local school districts or charter schools, supporting parent choice of highquality pre-K programs. Additionally, over 1,400 children accessed seats in classrooms that were improved

through job-embedded coaching, access to comprehensive services, and other improvements aligned with the

state's quality rating and improvement system.

Year 2 Impact for Children and Families

The PreK Expansion Grant expanded access to high-quality pre-K programs for families of 1,000

children in twelve high-need communities. These seats meet the high-quality requirements of LA 4 and

Nonpublic School Early Childhood Development Program (NSECD), including:

 Highstaffqualifications,includingteacherswithabachelordegree;

 High-qualityprofessionaldevelopmentforallstaff;

 Child-to-instructionalstaff ratio of 10:1;

 Classsizeofnomore than20;

 Fulldayprogram;
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 Inclusion of childrenwith disabilitiesto ensure accessto and full participation in all opportunities;

 Research-based, ageappropriateinstruction, curricula, andlearning environmentsalignedto

the state's Early Learning and Development Standards;

 Individualizedaccommodationsandsupportsforchildren;

 Comprehensive services;

 Instructionalstaffsalariesequaltolocalpublickindergartenteachers;

 Programevaluationtoensurecontinuousimprovement;and

 Evidence-based health and safety standards.

By offering these seats in diverse settings, primarily child care centers, communities enabled family

choice and supported quality providers within their community. Child care centers are additionally supported

to provide individualized support and accommodations for children beyond what the district partnership

provides through access to Mental Health Consultants and Resource and Referral agency staff. These

organizations support providers and teachers to meet the needs of every child, and provide individualized

coaching and technical assistance to classrooms in child care centers.

Through Coordinated Enrollment, families were able to make informed decisions about the best

placement for their children. Families were also able to benefit from information campaigns and streamlined

eligibility and application requirements when enrolling their children. Additionally, more than 1,400 children 

and families in these seats and centers were impacted by job-embedded coaching and access to

comprehensiveservices.

Year 2 Impact for Teachers

All teachers funded through the PreK Expansion Grant were paid salaries commensurate to local

kindergarten teachers and received access to high-quality professional development. These teachers, plus

additional teachers in the sites where grant-funded classrooms were placed, received job-embedded coaching

aligned to the state's quality rating and improvement system. Teachers were supported to improve teacherchild interactions and use a developmentally appropriate formative assessment. Grant funds were also used to

support teachers and improve instruction in diverse settings by providing quality-aligned curriculum and

materials, including Hatch classroom materials and manipulatives or tools that support high-quality teacher

child interactions that are typically available in school-based pre-K classrooms, to support improvement and

quality in diverse, child care settings. Teachers in these communities also received high-quality professional

development aligned with CLASSTM, including Conscious Discipline.

Year 2 Impact for Communities

With seats funded through the PreK Expansion Grant, communities continued to close the at-risk

access gap to high-quality pre-K programs in Louisiana. Subgrantees offered nearly 70% of the Year 2 seats in

diverse settings including Head Start and Child Care and the remaining 30% were placed in public schools and

charters, supporting parent choice of high-quality classrooms. In each of these communities, families are

supported to choose publicly-funded seats, including PreK Expansion Grant seats in child care settings, through

a coordinated enrollment process. Through community coordination and streamlined applications across

provider types, families and children are benefiting from grant-supported partnerships to support mixed

delivery and family choice. Additionally, in Year 2 more than 1,460 children beyond those served in new seats

in these communities accessed seats in classrooms that were improved through job-embedded coaching and

access to comprehensive services. Communities are leveraging local partnerships to ensure at-risk families can

access comprehensive services, including health screenings and support. These local partnerships include

relationships with Head Start and their community partners, health care providers that support health and

developmental screenings for at-risk families, and nonprofit partners that provide services to at-risk families.

The Louisiana Department of Education (Department) is supporting subgrantees through collaboration 

sessions, materials, check-ins, and other resources to build successful partnerships between LEAs and centers.
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These centers are partners with the Lead Agencies in their local community networks, which further facilitated

diverse placement of seats and support of family demand.

In Years 3-4, more families, teachers, and communities across the state will be impacted by grant

funding that allows Louisiana to serve more than 4,500 additional children and improve more than 6,000 seats

over the four year grant period.

Overview of Progress

Louisiana is currently in a multi-year effort to unify its early childhood system and improve

kindergarten readiness. To address a fragmented early childhood system that prepares only 54% of children 

for kindergarten, Louisiana passed a law (Act 3, 2012) to unify pre-K, Head Start and child care programs into a

statewide early childhood network. By empowering families with choice and ensuring easy access to high

quality options, the state seeks to start every child on track for success. To build on this effort, in June 2015, the

Louisiana Board of Elementary and Secondary Education passed Bulletin 140: Louisiana Early Childhood 

Care and Education Network, which establishes a statewide quality rating and improvement system that 

defines expectations for coordinated observations and coordinated enrollment. The statewide network is

comprised of 65 local community networks, which are consortia of all publicly-funded early childhood 

programs within that community, including state public and nonpublic pre-K programs, Title I pre-K programs,

Head Start programs, and programs receiving funds from the state's Child Care Development Fund (CCDF), with

a Lead Agency serving as fiscal agent. For each community, the state Board of Elementary and Secondary

Education (BESE) approves a Lead Agency to fulfill the expectations for coordinated observations, which

involves conducting two CLASSTM observations for each classroom in all publicly-funded sites, and coordinated

enrollment, which involves convening all publicly-funded providers to simplify enrollment processes for at-risk

families. Every community across the state participated in the 2015-2016 Learning Year and received a practice

performance rating and performance profile.

Louisiana's unified rating and improvement system is comprised of two core components: ratings that

relate to positive child outcomes, and information on classroom best practices. Louisiana uses CLASSTM, a

nationally regarded system of more than 60 measures that evaluate children's experience in the classroom. The

CLASSTM tool produces a score measuring the effectiveness of the interactions between teachers and children

within an early learning classroom. The score is based on four cycles of 80-minute observations completed by

highly-qualified observers who evaluate how effectively the classroom is at providing a positive learning

environment, supporting productive classroom management and organization, and engaging children in

meaningful learning experiences. This tool is proven to be correlated with child outcomes, and provides

teachers with actionable information to improve. Not only has CLASSTM been validated in thousands of

classrooms nationwide, but it has received initial support from early childhood leaders and teachers across

Louisiana.

Louisiana believes those closest to children and families are best positioned to improve outcomes.

Based on lessons learned from the three years of piloting, the accountability system was structured to rely on

local observations, with third party observations used primarily as an audit of accuracy. Local communities are

funded to observe every pre-K and toddler classroom in publicly-funded sites using nationally-certified

observers once each semester, and are required to provide feedback to teachers based on the observation

results. This enables communities to build capacity around CLASSTM, and provides teachers and programs

access to information and feedback throughout the year to best support teachers to improve. Communities are

also required to establish best practices to ensure accuracy such as shadow scoring.

To ensure accuracy statewide, Louisiana contracts with a third party, University of Louisiana Lafayette,

to audit the accuracy of local observations. Third party observes at least 50 percent of classrooms in every

publicly-funded site, and observes at least 1 pre-K and 1 toddler classroom if a site serves these ages.

Additional third party observations occurred in sites that could have potential local inaccuracies or conflicts of

interest. Where local and third party scores differ greatly, third party scores replace local scores for the

Performance Profile rating calculation. This approach allows local education leaders to receive a greater

amount of feedback and information about what is happening in early childhood classrooms, and empowers

those closest to teachers to support them to improve. At the same time, contracted third party observations
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ensure the accuracy of the rating, and provide feedback to local observers on their accuracy.

Louisiana's communities successfully completed a statewide practice year for the unified rating system.

98 percent of Louisiana's 5,300 early childhood classrooms were observed using CLASSTM multiple times in

2015-2016. Approximately 654 observers completed at least one observation in 2015-2016, showing the

increase in local capacity to understand high-quality in early childhood classrooms. In fall 2016, all publiclyfunded sites and community networks in Louisiana received Practice Performance Profiles that included a

rating based on rigorous classroom observations using the CLASSTM system of measures for the 2015-2016

year. Practice Performance Profiles also included information on best practices that measure important quality

inputs, including use of ongoing assessment and a high-quality curriculum, the education and certifications of

teachers, and program investment in high levels of individual attention for children. Although profiles from

2016-2016 are practice only, with no stakes attached, the success in observing almost every classroom in the

practice year positions the state well for real profiles in 2016-2017. Most importantly, every site now has a

common frame of understanding of what high-quality early childhood instructions and interactions should look

like.

Additionally, the state made great progress in unifying early childhood with early elementary programs.

Through the state's early childhood curriculum review process, aligned with the K-12 process, the Department

contracted with experts to review infant, toddler, and pre-K curricula, and published the information from the

reviews on the website to aid sites and schools in selecting high-quality curriculum that is aligned with 

Louisiana standards. The Department then used funds to support child care centers to purchase their choice of

curricula rated the highest quality. Through other initiatives, including a Kindergarten Entry Assessment pilot,

the Department continues to build connections between early childhood and early elementary grades. The

Department also continues to build upon talent preparation, specifically through offering teachers in early

learning centers the opportunity to receive a Louisiana early childhood ancillary certificate, allowing increased

professionalism within the child care field.

CoordinatedEnrollment

In line with Bulletin 140, the twelve communities participating in the Louisiana PreK Expansion Grant

included these seats in their coordinated enrollment process. Coordinated enrollment involves four key areas:

1. Coordinated Information Campaign: Inform families about the availability of publicly-funded early

childhood care and education programs serving children four years of age or younger;

2. Coordinated Eligibility Determination: Coordinate enrollment, eligibility criteria, and waiting lists to

ensure that families are referred to other available publicly-funded early childhood programs should

they be ineligible for or unable to access their primary choice;

3. Coordinated Application: Collect family preferences regarding enrollment choices for publicly-funded

early childhood care and education programs; and

4. Matching Based on Preference: Enroll at-risk children, using available public funds, based upon stated

family preferences (e.g., a family ranks their preference of sites and communities match the family to

their highest ranked preference available).

Building on State Progress

Louisiana's implementation of the PreK Expansion Grant builds upon the state's progress in providing

voluntary, high-quality pre-K programs through public and nonpublic providers. In 1988, BESE began the 8(g)

Model Early Childhood Program to serve at-risk four-year-olds. Prior to Act 3, Louisiana created its primary

state-funded pre-K program, known as LA 4, in 2001. Although 8(g) and LA4 are supported by different funding

sources, the Department has established identical program quality requirements as part of its efforts to unify a

fragmented system. In addition to LA 4, the state provides parents of at-risk children with access to quality

nonpublic school and child care classrooms through the Nonpublic School Early Childhood Development

(NSECD) program. NSECD demonstrates that high-quality pre-K can be offered in community-based settings.

Louisiana's LA 4 and NSECD programs are high-quality early childhood programs meeting the
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requirements specified in the grant. In fact, the LA 4 law establishes these requirements in statute,

demonstrating the legislative commitment to high-quality pre-K. Moreover, these pre-K programs have a

history of demonstrated results across diverse settings. Longitudinal studies show a profound impact as

indicated by:

• Improved child outcomes measured by pre- and post-assessments;

• Higherscores on statewide tests in the 3rd and 8th grades (LEAP and iLEAP in 2012); and

• Fewer retentions and a reduction in referrals for special education services.

LA 4 and NSECD providers must adhere to assurances stipulating program requirements and are

monitored each year against those program requirements to ensure quality standards are maintained. Both

programs are consistently rated highly in the annual NIEER report. Together, these programs serve more than

17,000 four-year-olds in high-quality pre-K annually (41% of at-risk four-year-olds in Louisiana), but have done

so through multiple, fragmented funding streams and applications for families. The Louisiana Legislature

enacted Act 3 to address the fragmentation and unify the system to drive better child outcomes across all

programs, and create a coordinated enrollment system for families.

The Department, which has oversight for both programs, recently unified both child eligibility and

program requirements for these two programs. As a result, both are tightly aligned with the quality

requirements of the grant, with program components including:

• High staff qualifications - teachers must have a bachelor degree and be certified;

• Low child to teacher ratios and small class sizes, 1:10 with a group size of 20; and

• Full day 6-hour program with comprehensive services.

In addition, the Department conducts an annual shared process for communities to indicate family

demand for seats in high-quality pre-K. The state uses this process to ensure new seats provided through this

grant were offered in communities were family demand exceeded the amount of publicly-funded seats

available.

Challenges

Subgrantees offered nearly 70% of the Year 2 seats in diverse settings including Head Start and Child

Care and the remaining 30% were placed in public schools and charters, supporting parent choice of highquality classrooms. supporting parent choice. The Department supported subgrantees through collaboration

sessions, materials, check-ins, and other resources to build successful partnerships between LEAs and centers.

These centers are partners with the Lead Agencies in their local community networks, which further facilitated

diverse placement of seats and support of family demand. Many of the challenges faced in offering these

partnerships included logistical hurdles of sharing ownership of classes. As a result of these conversations over

the past two years, subgrantees and the Department are building on lessons learned to develop

recommendations and resources for partnerships between schools and centers that will be provided to future

grantees to support their partnerships as well. An additional challenge the state faces is the lack of an

accountability technology system that unifies the diverse publicly-funded early childhood programs and their

supports. This year, the state continued to make progress on building a longitudinal, birth-to-twelfth-grade

accountability technology system. As the Department continues to work toward building a longitudinal system,

it will work through the challenges of connecting early childhood with K-12 efficiently.

Conclusion

In Year 2, the state has used the PreK Expansion Grant to continue its progress in unifying a fragmented

system, increasing access for at-risk families, and improving quality of early childhood programs. Across all 

early childhood programs, Louisiana has committed to coordinating all early childhood funding to improve

kindergarten readiness outcomes. The state previously consolidated the state early childhood care and
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education functions into one agency, the Louisiana Department of Education.

• All Quality Start (QRIS) functions and child care licensing have moved to the Department.

• The Head Start Collaboration Office is now housed at the Department.

• All CCDF functions are now consolidated into the Department.

The only state early childhood services operated outside of education are the IDEA Part C and MIECHV

programs, both operated by the Department of Health and Hospitals (DHH). Coordination between DHH and

the Department will continue. The IDEA Part C coordinator from DHH and the IDEA Part B 619 Coordinator

from the Department work closely together to ensure the seamless transition and development of IEPs for

children with disabilities moving between the two programs.

The state also works with local providers to coordinate the myriad early childhood funding streams. The

Department provides technical assistance on increasing access and maximizing services to children through

coordination of state and federal funds. Louisiana is in a unique position to maximize existing funds because of

the Community Network structure. In addition to the ongoing work to coordinate existing resources, the state

is partnering with Community Networks to transform early childhood and develop a unified system. Louisiana's

commitment to this work is evident in the $12.8 million the state will contribute over the four-year-period of

the grant, a 40% match of the PreK Expansion Grant funds. Over the course of the grant, the state will continue

to work intensively with subgrantees to leverage all existing funding to maximize quality and access for early

childhood services. In Years 3-4, more families, teachers, and communities across the state will be impacted by

grant funding that allows Louisiana to serve more than 4,500 additional children and improve more than 

6,000 seats over the four year grant period.
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U.S. Department of Education

PDG Annual Performance Report

Grant Status Form 

Explanation of Progress (524B Section A)

Based on ED 524B OMB No. 1894-0003 Exp. 06/30/2017

Grantee State: LA PR/Award #: S419B150035

Section A: Performance Objectives Information and Related Performance Measures Data

(narrative)

1. Project Objective

1(a) GPRA Performance Measure: The number and percentage of Eligible Children served in

High-Quality Preschool Programs funded by the grant. Describe the State's progress in meeting

this Government Performance and Results Act (GPRA) measure based on enrollment of Eligible

Children in High-Quality Preschool Programs funded by the grant as of December 1, 2016.

In the second year of the grant, twelve diverse communities across the state of Louisiana were funded

to enroll 1,000 at-risk four-year-old children in traditional and mixed delivery settings. At-risk children are

defined in Louisiana as children in families with income at or below 185% of the Federal Poverty Level, with

disabilities, in foster care, who are English language learners, and/or experiencing homelessness. Although preK enrollment is transient and often changing, 93.5% of the grant-funded seats were filled as of December 1.

These grant-funded seats were largely offered in child care centers in partnership with local school districts or

charter schools, supporting parent choice of high-quality pre-K programs. Some challenges to reaching

complete enrollment in every classroom included transportation concerns, the rural nature of some lowincome areas where seats were placed, and the restriction of income eligibility below Medicaid eligibility.

In June 2015, the State Board established a unified statewide early childhood quality rating and

improvement system through Bulletin 140: Louisiana Early Childhood Care and Education Network. The

statewide network is comprised of 65 local community networks, which are consortia of all publicly-funded

early childhood programs within that community: public and nonpublic pre-K, Head Start, and child care centers

receiving CCAP. For each community, the state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE) 

approves a Lead Agency to fulfill the expectations for coordinated observations, which involves conducting two

CLASSTM observations for each classroom in all publicly-funded sites, and coordinated enrollment, which

involves convening all publicly-funded providers to simplify enrollment processes for at-risk families. Every

community across the state participated in the 2015-2016 Learning Year and received a practice performance

profile. These practice performance profiles include a rating based on rigorous classroom observations using

the CLASSTM system of measures. Practice performance profiles also include information on best practices that

measure important quality inputs, including use of ongoing assessment and a high-quality curriculum, the

education and certifications of teachers, and program investment in high levels of individual attention for

children. These profiles provide families with key information about all sites and community networks serving

children through public funds. All sites participating in the PreK Expansion Grant received a practice

performance profile based on their 2015-2016 CLASSTM scores and informational metrics.

In line with Bulletin 140, the twelve communities participating in the Louisiana PreK Expansion Grant

included these seats in their coordinated enrollment process which involves four key areas:

1. Coordinated Information Campaign: Inform families about the availability of publicly-funded early

childhood care and education programs serving children four years of age or younger;

2. Coordinated Eligibility Determination: Coordinate enrollment, eligibility criteria, and waiting lists to

ensure that families are referred to other available publicly-funded early childhood programs should

they be ineligible for or unable to access their primary choice;
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3. Coordinated Application: Collect family preferences regarding enrollment choices for publicly-funded

early childhood care and education programs; and

4. Matching Based on Preference: Enroll at-risk children, using available public funds, based upon stated

family preferences. (e.g., a family ranks their preference of sites and communities match the family to

their highest ranked preference available).

The lead agency for each subgrantee community network submitted a coordinated enrollment plan

specifically addressing the new PreK Expansion Grant seats, demonstrating how these seats would be included

in each of the four areas. Families were engaged and informed about these seats through local information

campaigns that included round ups, advertisements, informational flyers and guides, websites, and other local

opportunities. In addition, since many of these seats are offered through mixed delivery in child care settings,

lead agencies made specific efforts during the application period to provide information to families of threeyear-olds currently attending centers receiving grant-funded seats, to support parent choice and stability of

care for these at-risk children. Lead agencies continue to provide information to families interested in pre-K

seats throughout the year. Beginning in the spring and continuing throughout the fall, the twelve subgrantees

convened regularly through in-person and phone sessions, and collaborated on successful strategies to recruit

and engage families for these seats.

The state has provided several supports to Community Networks for building coordinated enrollment

systems. Coordinated enrollment was implemented in cohorts of Community Network Pilots over a span of

three years. Each cohort received multiple webinars and trainings, in-person technical assistance and

collaboration sessions, and materials and guidance as they phased in implementation of the four key areas of

coordinated enrollment. All twelve subgrantees for the second year of the grant have worked to achieve full

implementation of coordinated enrollment this year. Each year, the state of coordinated enrollment in

community networks is assessed and reported, and community networks submit plans for implementing and

improving coordinated enrollment for the following year. The state provides feedback, guidance, technical

assistance, and shares best practices to support continued improvement in coordination and engagement for

families and providers. As part of the work to support communities in continued improvement, the Department

releases an annual District Planning Guide that spans early childhood through high school. The 2017-2018

District Planning Guide serves as the primary planning tool for LEAs in making academic and programmatic

decisions for the upcoming school year. The purpose of this tool is to guide planning conversations between

LEAs and Department field support teams to reflect on this year's data and implement necessary changes for

2017-2018, and highlight key planning decisions, available resources, and available funds for the upcoming 

year.

The six subgrantees from Year 1 were joined by six new subgrantees for Year 2, and represent both rural

and urban communities from different areas of the state: Caddo, City of Monroe (Ouachita), East Baton Rouge,

Grant, Iberville, Jefferson, Lafayette, Lincoln, Orleans, Plaquemines, Rapides, and Tangipahoa. These 1,000

grant-funded seats were largely offered in child care centers in partnership with local school districts or charter

schools, supporting parent choice of high-quality pre-K programs. Additionally, over 1,400 children accessed

seats in classrooms that were improved through job-embedded coaching, access to comprehensive services,

and other improvements aligned with the state's quality rating and improvement system.
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Please describe, as required in Program Requirement (k)(2) in the Notice Inviting Applicants (NIA),

how the State established policies and procedures that ensure that the percentage of Eligible Children

with disabilities served by the High-Quality Preschool Programs is not less than either the percentage

of four-year-old children served statewide through part B, section 619 of IDEA (20 U.S.C. 1400 et

seq.), or the current national average, whichever is greater.

Note: The current national percentage of four year-old-children receiving services through part B, section 619 of

IDEA is 6.4%. Source: 2012 IDEA Part B Child Count (www.ideadata.org). States should include detailed

information on ALL structural elements.

The Department has leveraged its community network structure to support providers to improve coordination

and services for children receiving special education services. Across the state, Louisiana has been incredibly

successful at working with early childhood providers to use federal funding to support inclusion practices, with

each of the twelve subgrantees providing inclusive settings. The state has increased the percentage of children

with special needs receiving services in regular education programs from 36.5% (2004) to 87.5% (2013). The

state is currently serving 2,429 children age 4 with disabilities in a regular education program. About 3% of the

children attending pre-K through PreK Expansion Grant are identified as children with disabilities, with more in

the identification process during their four-year-old year. Louisiana continues to work on improving early

identification for children with disabilities and plans to release more information prior to Fall 2017.

All LEAs have Child Search/Pupil Appraisal staff responsible for seeking children with a disability or

suspected of having a disability. Part of this responsibility includes providing developmental screenings when

referrals have been made by providers of child care, or health care providers. The 619B state coordinator

supports local special education coordinators as needed and provides critical information for state-level

initiatives related to children with disabilities. The Department is working on using stakeholder groups to better

understand gaps related to local early identification processes and develop a plan to address these gaps. LEAs

are also responsible for working with their Early Steps (Part C) counterparts. One of their responsibilities is to

ensure that children with disabilities transition from Part C (birth to 3) to Part B (3-5 year-old) services on or

before the child's third birthday. As part of the monitoring processes for the OSEP reporting, the Department

verifies that programs have 100% compliance with this indicator and requires a Plan of Action to ensure that in

the future, transitions do occur in a timely manner.

Increasing Inclusion

The state is also working with Community Networks to explore more ways to expand inclusion in early

childhood. In these inclusive settings, regular education students are brought into special education classrooms

for part of the school day or for the fullschool day. This practice provides key benefits for children:

• Provides opportunities for children with disabilities to learn alongside regularly developing peers,

which helps to improve oral language proficiencies;

• Maximizes seats for regular education students by braiding funding sources; and

• Addresses social and emotional development by creating an environment that encourages tolerance

and acceptance of others and removing the social stigma of disabilities.

For teachers, inclusion deepens processes for collaboration and coordination between regular education and

special education program staff. The Department has already provided incentives for Community Networks to

use inclusive mechanisms through state Preschool Inclusion Grants to selected communities. In addition, grant

funding provided training for regular education teachers on effectively serving children with disabilities,

ongoing coaching support and other materials and resources that support inclusive practices. To support

teachers in inclusive settings, the Department launched the Special Learners Pilot in 2016, which provides

opportunities for teachers in inclusive classrooms birth-to-five to participate in high-quality professional

development aligned to CLASSTM, with a specific focus on supporting interactions and instruction for all

learners.

Guidelines and Resources

In the Guidelines for LA 4 and NSECD programs, eligibility requirements indicate that programs cannot
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deny access, participation or funding to children on the basis of race, color, or national origin, gender or

disability. PreK Expansion Grant seats are aligned to these requirements. To support these state pre-K

providers, the Department designed and posted a brochure on effective Early Childhood Inclusion practices. In

addition, the Department has designed and posted transition booklets for communities to use as a guide to

ensure timely transitions.
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Describe the State's progress in increasing the number and percentage of Eligible Children served in

High-Quality Preschool Programs funded by the grant.

As a result of PreK Expansion Grant funding, Louisiana will increase pre-K seats to serve more than

4,500 additional at-risk children in high-quality pre-K programs over the four year grant period. At-risk children

are defined in Louisiana as children in families with income at or below 185% of the Federal Poverty Level, with

disabilities, in foster care, who are English language learners , and/or experiencing homelessness. This year of

the grant, 1000 seats were funded in High-Quality Pre-K Programs through the grant. As of December 1, 93.5%

of the grant-funded seats were filled. Subgrantees offered nearly 70% of the Year 2 seats in diverse settings

including Head Start and Child Care and the remaining 30% were placed in public schools supporting parent

choice of high-quality classrooms. Some challenges to reaching full enrollment in every classroom included

transportation, the rural nature of some low-income areas where seats were placed, and income eligibility

restrictions below Medicaid eligibility. At fullscale, in the fourth year, the grant funding will reduce the

statewide gap between seats requested by parents and seats provided by 36%.

Subgrantees, the twelve lead agencies for the communities selected for the grant, have worked closely

with the state to include the seats funded through the grant in the state's overall plan to unify a fragmented

system and increase access to high-quality choices for at-risk families. Lead agencies worked closely with their

program partners within their consortia of early learning providers to build partnerships between centers and

public schools or charters, developing MOUs to fund these classrooms in mixed delivery settings while ensuring

that the classrooms met the high-quality state pre-K standards. These partnerships allowed families to make

choices for the care and education of their children. Subgrantees submitted plans, and received feedback and

support aligned to these plans, to include these seats within their leadership, support, and enrollment

responsibilities. Through collaborative leadership partnerships that communities have already worked to build,

center directors and LEAs were able to work together to provide teacher and classroom supports, including

coaching and comprehensive service partnerships. Seats were included in the coordinated enrollment process,

allowing the community as a whole to recruit children and determine eligibility for programs. Families

completed one unified application for all programs in the community, including the grant-funded classrooms,

and were matched to programs based on their preferences.

Subgrantees additionally submitted plans to show how improvements funded through the grant,

including comprehensive services, coaching, professional development, and resources, were local choices

guided by the state's framework to improve program quality. Subgrantees were required to ensure that the

grant funded classrooms and improved classrooms were receiving on-going, job-embedded coaching around

teacher-child interactions. Funds were additionally used to support quality improvements, including highquality curriculum and job-embedded professional development to support its use. Through regular check-ins,

annual monitoring, and state approval of reimbursements, subgrantees continue to demonstrate commitment

toward using the grant to support increased access to high-quality early childhood programs for at-risk families

and eligible children.

Overview of State Progress

Louisiana is currently in a multi-year effort to unify its early childhood system and improve

kindergarten readiness. To address a fragmented early childhood system that prepares only 54% of children

for kindergarten, Louisiana passed Act 3(2012) to unify pre-K, Head Start, and child care programs into a

statewide early childhood network. In June 2015, the State Board of Elementary and Secondary Education

(BESE) passed Bulletin 140: Louisiana Early Childhood Care and Education Network, which establishes a

statewide quality rating and improvement system that defines expectations for all publicly-funded programs

within local community networks. These local networks, which are expected to serve all publicly-funded at-risk

children birth to five, are empowered to pilot innovative approaches to increasing quality and improving

access. This policy was the result of engagement of both local and national stakeholders, review and feedback

from the state's Early Childhood Advisory Council, and lessons learned from initial pilot approaches to

implementing Act 3(2012).

Louisiana believes those closest to children and families are best positioned to improve outcomes.

Each network functions as a consortium of all publicly-funded local early learning providers, including state

public and nonpublic pre-K programs, Title I pre-K programs, Head Start programs, and programs receiving
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funds from the state's Child Care Development Fund, with a Lead Agency serving as fiscal agent. While most of

these seats are placed in child care or school settings, one class has been placed in a Head Start early learning

center, and the community relationships with Head Start have been important in providing comprehensive

services for children served through the grant. Lead Agencies representing each community network across the

state are creating cross-sector teams to unite around the work of measuring and improving access and quality

of early childhood programs under a unified system of academic and development standards, enrollment, and

teacher preparation expectations. Community Networks are required to:

•Lead Collaboratively: Develop a collaborative leadership structure that represents child care, Head Start,

public pre-K and nonpublic pre-K leaders;

• Support Teachers: Observe and provide feedback to teachers using a highly-regarded, research- based tool

(CLASSTM) twice annually, and ensure teachers have access to evidence-based professional development; and,

• Coordinate Enrollment: Coordinate information and applications across all programs for families.

To monitor the success of this community based collaborative work, the state implemented a unified quality

rating and improvement system in 2015-2016 to:

• Define and measure core elements needed for positive child outcomes;

• Provide simple, clear information about what is happening in classrooms;

• Clearly articulate a path to improvement; and

• Give families an easy way to compare choices in their community.

In fall 2016, every publicly-funded program serving children ages birth to five received a Practice Performance

Profile. These profiles provide a clear, easy-to-understand rating of the quality of teacher-child interactions

based on CLASSTM. Profiles also include information regarding the child-to-staff ratios, the quality of curriculum

used, the use of ongoing formative assessment, and other metrics. By empowering families with choice and

ensuring easy access to high quality options, the state seeks to start every child on track for success. In

2015-2016, these profiles are practice only, with no stakes or funding decisions attached to the ratings.

Louisiana's communities successfully completed a statewide practice year for the unified rating system. 98

percent of Louisiana's 5,300 early childhood classrooms were observed using CLASSTM multiple times in

2015-2016. Approximately 654 observers completed at least one observation in 2015-2016, showing the

increase in local capacity to understand high-quality in early childhood classrooms. This success in observing

almost every classroom in the practice year positions the state well for real profiles in 2016-2017. Most

importantly, every site now has a common frame of understanding of what high-quality early childhood

instructions and interactions should look like.

1(b) GPRA Performance Measure: The number and percentage of children served overall in the

State Preschool Program. Please describe any increases or decreases in this GPRA measure

based on fall enrollment in the State Preschool Program for the 2016-17 school year.

State PreK Program Enrollment

Louisiana's ambitious and achievable plan for the PreK Expansion Grant builds upon the state's progress

in providing high-quality pre-K programs through public and nonpublic providers. Louisiana's primary statefunded pre-K program, LA 4, has a history of quality and achievement, with research demonstrating lasting

cognitive benefits to children through the eighth grade. In addition to LA 4, the state provides parents of atrisk children with access to quality nonpublic school and child care classrooms through the Nonpublic School

Early Childhood Development (NSECD) program. At-risk children are defined in Louisiana as children in families

with income at or below 185% of the Federal Poverty Level, with disabilities, in foster care, who are English

language learners , and/or experiencing homelessness.

Louisiana serves 16,283 at-risk children through LA 4, and an additional 1,340 children through NSECD,
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for a combined total of more than 17,000 at-risk four-year-olds in high-quality pre-K. Enrollment data for these

Pre-K programs is stable from last year. The additional 1000 seats offered through the PreK Expansion Grant

represents an increase in the number of children served overall, which is a 5 percent increase in percentage of

children served in the 2016-2017 school year. Closing the gap between parent demand for and availability of

quality pre-K seats is key to improving kindergarten readiness in Louisiana; therefore the state intends to use

more than three-fourths ($23.7M) of the grant to create new seats. At full scale in year four, the grant funding

will reduce the statewide gap between seats requested by parents and seats provided by 36 percent.

State Efforts to Improve Early Childhood Quality and Access

The state implements high-quality pre-K programs through Louisiana's local community network

approach set out in Bulletin140: Louisiana Early Childhood Care and Education Network, which establishes a

statewide quality rating and improvement system that defines expectations for all publicly-funded programs

within local community networks. These local networks, which are expected to serve all publicly-funded at-risk

children birth to five, are empowered to pilot innovative approaches to increasing quality and improving 

access. For each community, the state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE) approves a Lead

Agency to fulfill the expectations for coordinated observations, which involves conducting two CLASSTM

observations for each classroom in all publicly-funded sites, and coordinated enrollment, which involves

convening all publicly-funded providers to simplify enrollment processes for at-risk families. This policy was the

result of engagement of both local and national stakeholders, review and feedback from the state's Early

Childhood Advisory Council, and lessons learned from initial pilot approaches to implementing Act 3(2012).

Louisiana believes those closest to children and families are best positioned to improve outcomes. Each

network functions as a consortium of all publicly-funded local early learning providers, including state 

public and nonpublic pre-K programs, Title I pre-K programs, Head Start programs, and programs receiving

funds from the state's Child Care Development Fund, with a Lead Agency serving as fiscal agent. Lead Agencies

representing each community network across the state are creating cross-sector teams to unite around the

work of measuring and improving access and quality of early childhood programs under a unified system of

academic and development standards, enrollment, and teacher preparation expectations. Community

Networks are required to:

•Lead Collaboratively: Develop a collaborative leadership structure that represents child care, Head Start,

public pre-K and nonpublic pre-K leaders;

• Support Teachers: Observe and provide feedback to teachers using a highly-regarded, research-based tool

(CLASSTM) twice annually, and ensure teachers have access to evidence-based professional development; and,

• Coordinate Enrollment: Coordinate information and applications across all programs for families.

Quality Rating and Improvement

To monitor the success of this community based collaborative work, the state implemented a unified

quality rating and improvement system, with every publicly-funded program serving children ages birth to five

receiving a Performance Profile. These profiles provide a clear, easy-to-understand rating of the quality of

teacher-child interactions based on CLASSTM. Local community networks were funded to use CLASSTM reliably

to observe every PreK and Toddler classroom in publicly-funded sites twice annually. Louisiana's communities

successfully completed a statewide practice year for the unified rating system. 98 percent of Louisiana's 5,300

early childhood classrooms were observed using CLASSTM multiple times in 2015-2016. Approximately 654

observers completed at least one observation in 2015-2016, showing the increase in local capacity to

understand high-quality in early childhood classrooms. This success in observing almost every classroom in the

practice year positions the state well for real profiles in 2016-2017. Most importantly, every site now has a

common frame of understanding of what high-quality early childhood instructions and interactions should look

like.

The 2015-2016 Practice Performance Profiles, the result for each site and community of the state's

quality rating and improvement system, also include information regarding the child-to-staff ratios, the quality
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of curriculum used, the use of ongoing formative assessment, and other metrics. While the results of the

informational metrics are included on the profile, they are not considered in the performance profile rating.

To provide support to districts and programs in selecting high-quality curriculum, the LDE is currently

reviewing birth-to-five curricula, submitted by vendors and districts, based on multiple criteria, including

quality and alignment with the state's Early Learning and Development Standards (ELDS). Over 20 reviews of

early childhood curriculum have already been posted publicly on the LDE's website. Based on the review,

curricula are sorted into tiers, which are aligned to the informational metric on curriculum included in the

Practice Performance Profile. The results of these curriculum reviews, which are aligned with the state's K-12

instructional support efforts, were made available beginning April 1, 2016. The state has additionally funded

GOLD by Teaching Strategies portfolios and training for all publicly-funded programs, to support use of

ongoing, formative child assessment. Finally, the state provides a free online training, CONNECT, on the birthto-five ELDS, which is available as a support to all publicly-funded programs.

Additionally, eight of the twelve grantees are participating in a pilot released this year, Enhancing

Instruction for Special Learners, which is designed to support teachers in inclusion classrooms in birth-to-five

settings. Programs in these communities have the opportunity to participate in one of three professional

development opportunities aligned to CLASSTM, which provide training, coaching, and technical assistance to

teachers of inclusion classrooms. This opportunity also results in supervisors, directors, and coaches being

trained through these three opportunities to provide high-quality support to other teachers in the communities

as well.

The LDE continues to provide professional development opportunities aligned to the quality rating and

improvement system to pre-K supervisors through quarterly collaboratives, and pre-K teachers through

teacher leader events that are aligned to the state's quality rating and improvement system. Through the

state's efforts to unify the early childhood system, these opportunities are available to all early childhood

teachers and supervisors in publicly-funded programs, including Head Start, public and nonpublic pre-K, and

child care centers receiving CCDF.
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1(c) GPRA Performance Measure: The number and percentage of children in the High-Need

Communities served by the grant that are ready for kindergarten as determined by the State's

Kindergarten Entry Assessment or, if the State does not yet have a Kindergarten Entry Assessment,

other valid and reliable means of determining school readiness.

In the Year 2 APR, grantees will provide disaggregated data on the school readiness of the children served

by the grant. This may include information collected about the children served by the grant at the end of their

2015-16 preschool year or in their 2016-17 kindergarten year. States may provide data from a sample of

children (e.g., a sample being used for any evaluation).

In the Year 2 APR, grantees must describe their progress towards identifying the measures, methods,

and data on the school readiness of children served by the Preschool Development Grant. In the

narrative below provide the following information:

• The name of the assessment tool(s) and the Essential Domains of School Readiness

measured;

• When the assessment tool(s) is/are given (e.g., in preschool and/or kindergarten);

• Whether the assessment is mandated by the State, and for which children;

• How long the State has been using the assessment tool(s);

• Whether the assessment tool(s) is/are implemented throughout the High-Need Community

and/or Statewide;

• Whether the State provides or will provide training for local staff administering the assessment.

If so, describe the requirements including processes to ensure continued reliability in the

administration of the measure;

• If school readiness data is reported to the State, describe when and how data are reported.

Also, please describe, if applicable:

• The State's definition of "school readiness;"

• Disaggregated information about children's school readiness on individual domains or

subsets of the measure;

• School readiness data for children disaggregated by subgroup (e.g., students who are

American Indian or Alaskan Native; Asian, not Pacific Islander; Native Hawaiian/other

Pacific Islander; Black or African American; Hispanic/Latino; White, not Hispanic; two or

more races; with disabilities; English learners; and from any other subgroups the state

determines appropriate; and

• How the State will continue to make progress in meeting this GPRA measure.

KindergartenReadinessDefinition:

In 2011, the Louisiana Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE) established a statewide

comprehensive definition of kindergarten readiness. In Bulletin 140, a BESE policy which establishes a

statewide quality rating and improvement system that defines expectations for all publicly-funded programs,

section §305 includes this definition by stating that:

KindergartenReadinessDefinition:

Children who are ready for kindergarten are expected to demonstrate:

1. cognitive abilities, which include knowledge and skills in:

a. early literacy, such as phonological awareness, print concepts, alphabetic understanding, vocabulary,

listening comprehension, and emergent writing;

b. basic numeracy concepts, such as rote counting and number awareness, sorting, classifying,

comparing, patterning, and spatial relationships.

2. basic science concepts, such as making observations, exploring the world using their senses, and using

appropriate scientific vocabulary related to topics

3. basic social studies concepts, such as self-awareness and their relationship to family and community, and an
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awareness of money and time;

4. response to and participation in music, movement, visual and dramatic arts experiences and

activities;

5. abilities, either assisted or unassisted, that show an awareness of health, hygiene, and

environmental hazards, in addition to gross and fine motor skills;

6. social and emotional competencies, including self-regulation, self-identity, self-reliance, respect for

others, and interpersonal skills; and

7. approaches to learning, such as reasoning and problem-solving, engagement, persistence, and

eagernessto learn.

All of the state's work to unify the early childhood system through the statewide early childhood network is

intended to improve kindergarten readiness for all children. LDE is pursuing using funding, including the PreK

Expansion Grant state set-aside, to build an early childhood accountability technology system. The system will

serve as a single source of meaningful information for state agencies, providers, and families and allow linkages

between early childhood programs and elementary school education. These linkages will cross child care, Head

Start, and state pre-K programs, and will also link with the statewide longitudinal data systems as well. Without

the early childhood accountability technology system, there is currently no way to link pre-K experiences with

any Kindergarten Entrance Assessment (KEA) results.

Assessments, Training, and Test Quality:

As required by law, the state annually assesses kindergarten readiness against the definition using the

comprehensive Developing Skills Checklist (DSC) as a Kindergarten Entry Assessment (KEA) for all children. The

assessment evaluates language, visual, auditory, mathematical concepts and operations, memory, print and

writing, social and emotional, and fine and gross motor skills. The DSC test 34 distinct learning objectives. The

results are used by teachers for planning purposes, but are not aggregated to the state level. In addition to the

DSC, state policy requires a literacy screener such as DIBELS-Next to be used in kindergarten. Current statewide

kindergarten readiness based on the literacy screener is 54%. The DSC is administered the week before

children start Kindergarten; the literacy screener is administered within the first 30 days ofschool. The child's

teacher administers both assessments.

The DSC has been used for over a decade. The literacy screener has been used for over 5 years. All teachers

administering the assessment are required to be trained to use the assessments. Local districts are responsible

for providing the training and ensuring reliability in the administration of the measures.

As required by Act 3, Louisiana is building a statewide quality rating and improvement system to measure the

quality of all early childhood programs as well as the support provided by the Community Network. To ensure

all programs are conducting ongoing, authentic assessment of children to help them make progress towards

kindergarten readiness, the LDE funded the use of GOLD by Teaching Strategies for the 2015-2016 school year

for all publicly-funded early childhood programs. A third-party study demonstrated that GOLD is 95% aligned

with the state's birth-to-five Early Learning and Development Standards (ELDS).State pre-K programs, including

the PreK Expansion Grant classrooms, are required to use GOLD or another approved developmentally

appropriate assessment and report checkpoint levels three times during the school year. Since the first pilot

approaches to implementing Act 3 (2012), the LDE has provided local community networks funds to support

training for teachers on GOLD, and as well provides technical assistance to teachers and supervisors. The LDE

will continue to support programs to use developmentally appropriate assessment as a tool to achieve

kindergarten readiness in future years of the grant. All PreK Expansion Grant classrooms are currently using

GOLD as a formative assessment.

Plans for Year 3 Reporting:

Louisiana continues to make progress in meeting this GPRA measure. The state identified 3 Kindergarten

readiness assessments to pilot in the 2016-17 school year: Teaching Strategies Gold Survey, Desired Results

Developmental Profile (DRDP), and High Scope Classroom Observation Record. Eighteen districts participated in

the pilot. All districts were trained to use one of the three assessments. Pilot results found that the DRDP and

Gold Survey items and results are strongly correlated. Both assessments measure Language and Literacy,

Social-Emotional, Approaches to Learning/Cognitive, Math, and Physical development. The state plans to offer

these two assessments as options for districts in 2017-18. The state may also offer the DSC as an option for
one more year during the 2017-18 transitional/learning year.

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For Preschool Development Grants - Development Grants States ONLY:

1(d) GPRA Performance Measure: The number of States that collect and analyze data on State

Preschool Program quality, including the structural elements of quality specified in the

definition of High-Quality Preschool Programs.
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Section A: Part B - Selection Criteria

In this section of the APR, States will report on their progress addressing the Preschool Development Grant's

selection criteria. The State should read the questions carefully and report in the narrative fields directly below the

questions. Please include any data, data notes or formulas to help the readers understand the State's narrative

responses.

1. Ensuring Quality in Preschool Programs (Selection Criteria “C” of the application)

Describe the State's use of funds received over the grant period for State Preschool Program

infrastructure and quality improvements, including the State's efforts to implement a system of

monitoring and support at the State level toward activities such as those described in Section (C)(1)(ak) of the NIA.

Note: States will report amounts and percentage of funds for State Preschool Program infrastructure

and High-Quality Preschool Programs in the Competitive Preference Priority 3 Chart.

Louisiana will use the funds received over the grant period for State Preschool Program infrastructure and

quality improvements to create a statewide early childhood accountability technology system that will serve as

a single source of information for state oversight, planning, and support for providers and families while

protecting children's confidential information. This will enable the state to ensure pre-K quality and access

statewide as well as provide a portal for families to access meaningful information about early childhood

programs.

This accountability-based system will support a broader set of improvements to quality and access, such as

assuring the state can address family demand for quality; the state can track how many children are enrolled in

each program and the services they receive; and the state can closely monitor children's progress toward being

prepared for kindergarten. Collecting comprehensive, de-identified data (while assuring child privacy) will

improve the state's ability to evaluate program quality, thus aiding the effort to produce performance profiles

for all providers and communities so that families can make more informed choices.

The LDE decided to add certain components of the K-12 technology systems into the project in an effort to

build a comprehensive birth-to-grade-12 system, which will enable the state to assure children's progress from

early childhood throughout their school careers. This has been challenging, as it has created a larger project

with a more complicated structure, but it will ultimately allow for a more seamless longitudinal analysis of

programs and better support the LDE's efforts to move towards a unified birth-to-twelve system. As part of the

work this year to prepare to create an RFP, the Early Childhood department with the Office of Technology

Services has conducted an internal needs assessment for a consolidated system that will support the needs of

all birth-to-five programs along with a review of the K-12 accountability system to plan for future integration.

This work has helped to ensure that all pain points with current processes and requirements for the new

system have been captured, and can be used to inform the RFP.

Louisiana has used some of the grant funds for supporting infrastructure improvements to conduct a Request

for Information (RFI) process, through a contract with First Data, and with some assistance from the Office of

Technology Services. Through the RFI process, nine responses accompanied with demos were received. The RFI

process allowed the LDE to evaluate current Early Childhood systems that are being used in other states and to

determine best practices that are currently successfully implemented. After reviewing the various RFI

responses, identifying components of the RFI responses that will benefit the State and evaluating business

requirements for the LDE, the State is now in the process of creating a Request for Proposal (RFP) to seek a

vendor to provide a technology system that:

1. Demonstrates capability to guarantee complete protection of confidential child data;
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2. Can meet the timing requirements for project completion;

3. Has successfully completed projects similar in size, scope, and technical requirements;

4. Has experience in implementing early childhood technology systems (e.g., for Child Care Development

Fund, Head Start, pre-K programs, etc.);

5. Has sufficient staff to manage the project of this size and scope;

6. Can build on and utilize the common dashboard functionality of the Common Access Front End (CAFÉ)

web portals that are currently implemented;

7. Can integrate with the Statewide Enterprise Architecture technology that provides pre-built secure

shared services for all State departments;

8. Is capable of developing a technology system that complies and interfaces with existing LDE and Louisiana

systems;

9. Can develop a flexible technology system that complies with all legislation and policies related to systems

software and privacy, including tying into the unique identifier system Louisiana is currently building.

With a longitudinal accountability system, Louisiana will be better positioned to assess the quality of all

publicly-funded early childhood programs, have real-time information needed to drive support and allocation

decisions, and better partner with families and other organizations to improve services for children while

ensuring the privacy of data.

The Office of Technology Services, in partnership with the LDE, plans to release an RFP in early 2017. Grant

funds will be expended as part of the contract to develop the new longitudinal system, with an anticipated

release date of 2019.

2. Expanding High-Quality Preschool Programs in Each High-Need Community (Selection

Criteria D of application)

Describe the progress the State has made during the reporting year to implement and sustain

voluntary high quality preschool programs for eligible children in two or more High-Need Communities

(Selection Criteria D(4) of the application) that include ALL structural elements listed below that are

included in the definition of High-Quality Preschool Programs. States should include detailed

information on ALL structural elements.

High staff qualifications, including a teacher with a bachelor's degree in early childhood

education or a bachelor's degree in any field with a State-approved alternative pathway, ✔ which may include coursework, clinical practice, and evidence of knowledge of content and

pedagogy relating to early childhood, and teaching assistants with appropriate credentials;

✔ High-quality professional development for all staff;

✔ A child-to-instructional staff ratio of no more than 10 to 1;
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✔ A class size of no more than 20 with, at a minimum, one teacher with high staff qualifications;

✔ A Full-Day program;

Inclusion of children with disabilities to ensure access to and full participation in all

✔

opportunities;

Developmentally appropriate, culturally and linguistically responsive instruction and evidence-

✔ based curricula, and learning environments that are aligned with the State Early Learning and

Development Standards, for at least the year prior to kindergarten entry;

Individualized accommodations and supports so that all children can access and participate

✔

fully in learning activities;

✔ Instructional staff salaries that are comparable to the salaries of local K-12 instructional staff;

✔ Program evaluation to ensure continuous improvement;

On-site or accessible Comprehensive Services for children and community partnerships that

✔ promote families access to services that support their children's learning and development;

and

✔ Evidence-based health and safety standards.
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Please describe the progress the State has made in establishing High-Quality Preschool Programs

that include ALL structural elements listed above that are evidence-based and nationally recognized

as important for ensuring program quality.

Louisiana believes those closest to children and families are best positioned to improve outcomes. For Year

2 of the PreK Expansion Grant, Louisiana partnered with twelve local community networks to implement highquality pre-K programs. The LDE subgranted funds to the lead agencies who serve as the fiscal agents for these

local community networks, which are each a consortium of early learning providers. These networks serve

Caddo, City of Monroe (Ouachita), East Baton Rouge, Grant, Iberville, Jefferson, Lafayette, Lincoln, Orleans,

Plaquemines, Rapides, and Tangipahoa. These communities are a mix of rural and urban parishes and represent

geographical diversity in the state. The state selected these subgrantees to ensure new pre-K seats will be

allocated to high-need communities that will be able to increase family choice and access to high-quality

programs. Though the state is focusing on expanding pre-K programs, grant funding is also used to improve

current seats as well. Grant-funded seats are aligned to the state pre-K program, and meet all the quality

requirements of the state pre-K program.

Approach to Implementing High-Quality Seats

Each local community network functions as a consortium of all publicly-funded local early learning

providers, including state public and nonpublic pre-K programs, Title I pre-K programs, Head Start programs,

and programs receiving funds from the state's Child Care Development Fund, with a Lead Agency serving as

fiscal agent. Through these local structures, lead agencies are able to leverage their collaborations to facilitate

partnerships between LEAs and diverse providers to ensure that grant-funded classrooms are high-quality preK classrooms that are aligned to the state's LA 4 and NSECD program.

Structural Elements

All state-funded pre-K programs, including grant-funded classrooms offered in child care centers, are required

to meet the following high-quality requirements:

 High staff qualifications, including teachers with a bachelor degree

 High-quality professional development for all staff

 Child-to-instructional staff ratio of 10:1

 Class size of no more than 20

 Full day program

 Inclusion of children with disabilities to ensure access to and full participation in all opportunities

 Research-based, age appropriate instruction, curricula, and learning environments aligned to the

state's Early Learning and Development Standards

 Individualized accommodations and supports for children

 Instructional staff salaries equal to local public kindergarten teachers

 Program evaluation to ensure continuous improvement

 Comprehensive services, including vision and hearing screenings

 Evidence-based health and safety standards

Programssign assurances indicating they will meet these structural elements, and are monitored accordingly.

To support additional access to comprehensive services beyond what state pre-K programs offer, Lead
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Agencies were able to leverage both their program partners and their community partners in their networks.

To meet these requirements, Lead Agencies used grant improvement funding to contract with providers or

create agreements with Head Starts, non-profits, advocacy organizations, and other local partners or

businesses invested in supporting early childhood work in their communities to provide health and

developmental screenings, access to community partnerships, and ensure family needs are addressed.

Grant-funded Improvements

Lead agencies enhanced these high-quality structural components by improving professional development

and providing coaching that supports the growth and development of teachers. Coaching and professional

development is targeted particularly toward teacher understanding of quality teacher-child interactions,

aligned to CLASSTM, and use of developmentally appropriate assessment. Teachers participated in LEA

professional development aligned to required annual observations, in addition to receiving job-embedded

coaching through the grant. Coaching for grant-funded classrooms is provided weekly, and coaches work with

the Lead Agency to ensure their work is targeted toward improvement and supported by instructional leaders

and other available resources. Coaches funded through the grant are additionally used to support similar

improvements for other publicly-funded sites and classrooms in the community, including state pre-K

classrooms and child care centers serving children through CCDF.

Grant funds were additionally used to purchase developmentally appropriate curricula and instructional

materials to support learning environments aligned with Louisiana's Early Learning and Development Standards

in sites where grant-funded classrooms are placed. These materials improved both grant-funded classrooms

placed in child care centers and other classrooms in the center, with children birth-to-four who may progress

into the PreK Expansion Grant classroom in future years of the grant, and will also likely progress into public

kindergarten classrooms.

Additional Quality Requirements for State PreK Programs

In addition to the structural requirements of state Pre-K programs, all publicly-funded early childhood

programs are required by law to participate in the state's quality rating and improvement system established 

by Bulletin 140. Lead Agencies across the state are required to fulfill the expectations for coordinated

observations, which involves conducting two CLASSTM observations annually for each classroom in all publiclyfunded sites. Bulletin 140 established 2015-2016, the first year of the quality rating and improvement system,

as a Learning Year, with no stakes attached to the outcomes. Louisiana's communities successfully completed a

statewide practice year for the unified rating system. 98 percent of Louisiana's 5,300 early childhood

classrooms were observed using CLASSTM multiple times in 2015-2016. Approximately 654 observers completed

at least one observation in 2015-2016, showing the increase in local capacity to understand high-quality in 

early childhood classrooms. This success in observing almost every classroom in the practice year positions the

state well for real profiles in 2016-2017. Most importantly, every site now has a common frame of

understanding of what high-quality early childhood instructions and interactions should look like.

To ensure accuracy statewide, Louisiana contracts with a third party, University of Louisiana Lafayette, to

audit the accuracy of local observations. Third party observes 50 percent of classrooms in every publicly-funded

site, and observes at least 1 PreK and 1 toddler classroom if a site serves these ages. Additional third party

observations occurred in sites that could have potential local inaccuracies or conflicts of interest. Where local

and third party scores differ greatly, third party scores replace local scores for the Performance Profile rating

calculation. This approach allows local education leaders to receive a greater amount of feedback and

information about what is happening in early childhood classrooms, and empowers those closest to teachers to

support them to improve. At the same time, contracted third party observations ensure the accuracy of the

rating, and provide feedback to local observers on their accuracy. Results from all observations, local and third

party, are entered into the state's CLASSTM system, and are available to the state, lead agencies, and sites.

PreK Expansion Grant funded classrooms are monitored through the same tools and system as the state

public and nonpublic pre-K programs. Statewide Monitoring focuses on both quality measures, such as teacher

degrees, and eligibility requirements, to ensure only eligible children are served through the funds. Monitoring

findings result in corrective action plans coordinated across the state pre-K programs manager and the

Statewide Monitoring staff, to support programs to meet the minimum quality requirements established by

program guidelines.
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Selection Criteria (D)(4) from NIA

Describe the number and percent of Eligible Children served and the cost per slot.

In year 2, twelve communities were funded through the grant to offer 1000 seats to at-risk families. State pre-K

programs require bachelor degree certified teachers be compensated on the same scale as kindergarten

teachers. Pre-K teachers are funded using the same salary schedule as kindergarten teachers. Through

Louisiana's cost model, the state has identified the cost of high-quality pre-K is $5,185 per child, the state

funding rate for a kindergarten seat. Louisiana's primary state-funded pre-K program, LA 4, and its nonpublic

pre-K program, NSECD, funds each seat for pre-K at $4,580, which means districts are using other funds to

bridge the gap between the cost of high quality pre-K and what the state pays to districts to support state pre-K

programs. Pre-K seats provided through the grant were funded at a per child rate of $5,185, which is the state

funding rate for a kindergarten seat. This is an important step toward funding quality, especially toward

ensuring pre-K teachers are compensated equally with K-12 teachers through allocated funds. Grantees were

funded an additional $1,617.89 per seat to improve at least 130% seats in the site where the classrooms were

located. This at a minimum must include job-embedded coaching to teachers. In Year 2, grantees exceeded

their target, using funds to improve 1,460 seats. For Years 3-4, grantees will continue to be funded at a quality

rate of $5,185 perseat, with the additional $1,617.89 per seat to improve at least 130% seats annually.
ED 524B Page 26 of 34

3. Collaborating with Each Subgrantee and Ensuring Strong Partnerships (Selection Criteria E

of the application)

Describe the extent to which the State has collaborated with each Subgrantee to ensure that each

Subgrantee is effectively implementing High-Quality Preschool Programs (Selection Criteria E

(1-9) of the application) and how the State ensures strong partnerships between each Subgrantee

and LEAs or other Early Learning Providers, as appropriate.

Overview

In Year 2, the LDE partnered with twelve subgrantees that represent both rural and urban communities from

different areas of the state: Caddo, City of Monroe (Ouachita), East Baton Rouge, Grant, Iberville, Jefferson,

Lafayette, Lincoln, Orleans, Plaquemines, Rapides, and Tangipahoa . In 2015, Louisiana fully implemented Act 3

through the state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE) policy Bulletin 140, which established a

statewide network comprised of 65 local community networks across the state. Each local community formed a

network, which is a consortium of all publicly-funded early childhood programs within that community: public

and nonpublic Pre-K, Head Start, and child care centers receiving CCAP. For each community, BESE approves a

Lead Agency to fulfill the expectations for coordinated observations, which involves conducting two CLASSTM

observations for each classroom in all publicly-funded sites, and coordinated enrollment, which involves

convening all publicly-funded providers to simplify enrollment processes for at-risk families. The LDE works

closely with each Lead Agency to support them to meet all expectations of Bulletin 140.

The twelve subgrantees enjoy strong partnerships with the LDE that were built over four years. The state has

benefited from the experiences, feedback, and insight of these grantees since 2012 as this work has progressed

from pilots to full implementation. In addition to providing support to the Lead Agencies around their

accountability and enrollment support, the LDE has additionally provided in-person and phone support,

technical assistance, planning templates, and feedback specific to implementing the PreK Expansion Grant. This

has included bi-weekly individual check-ins on implementation, monthly collaborative in-person or phone

grantee meetings, and as necessary individualized follow up and support.

Progress by Topics

1) Roles and Responsibilities: The LDE has provided templates, feedback, and support outlining the

necessary criteria forsubgrantees, including:

- MOU and Assurance templates establishing expectationsfor providers, subgrantees, and the state

regarding quality standards, data reporting, and other responsibilities;

- Coordinated Enrollment Plans detailing how Lead Agencies will support families to enroll children in

grant-funded seats, and how the seats will be incorporated into the Coordinated Enrollment

Process;

- Comprehensive Services and Improvement plans explaining how grantees will ensure access to

comprehensive services through community partnerships and improve seats through jobembedded coaching and quality-aligned supports; and

- Budget templates defining acceptable uses and categories for funds, which Lead Agencies use to plan

for their funds and submit for reimbursements.

2) Increasing organizational capacity and infrastructure of the subgrantee to provide high-quality pre-K

programs: The LDE supported subgrantees to offer grant-funded seats through diverse providers in

myriad ways. These supports included:

- Connecting programs in various communities to communicate about how best to structure these

partnerships and learn lessons from Year 1 of the grant;
ED 524B Page 27 of 34

- Collaborative sessions to support logistics and infrastructure to offer seats through partnerships; and

- Example MOUs and diverse delivery guidance to support relationships between LEAs and child care

centers.

3) Ensuring that each subgrantee minimizes local administrative costs: To ensure that Lead Agencies

minimized local administrative costs, subgrantee indirect costs were capped to their LDE approved

discounted rate and were only applied to the improvement funding component of the grant. The state

does not charge indirect costs on the grant.

4) Monitoring Early Learning Providers: All programs with grant-funded seats are monitored through State

Monitoring, with the same process and tools as other state-funded pre-K programs. These are the

same sub-recipient monitoring plans that were previously submitted. Additionally, all programs with

grant-funded seats reported attendance recordsthrough the same system as other state-funded pre-K

programs.

5) Coordination of plans: The state has encouraged coordination across assessments, data sharing,

instructional tools, family engagement, cross-sector and comprehensive service efforts, professional

development, and workforce and leadership development through a number of efforts including:

- Data on birth-5 assessment tool (Teaching Strategies GOLD) is reviewed by LDE program consultants

at the end of each checkpoint period;

- All grant-funded classrooms are observed on twice annually, with scores reported through the state

CLASSTM system and accessible to sites and Lead Agencies;

- All sites with grant-funded classrooms are participating in the quality rating and improvement system

that will assign a rating and provide clear, simple information on how programs are teaching and

waysto improve;

- Included in the profile data collection is a family survey, designed to monitor the perception of quality

of communication, engagement, and services to families; and

- Quarterly statewide collaboratives to support lead agencies and teacher leaders through statefacilitated sessions that provide technical assistance and opportunities for collaboration and

coordination.

6) Coordination and delivery of high-quality pre-K programs: BESE Bulletin 140 requires all publicly-funded

early childhood providers, including those funded through Title I, IDEA, Head Start, and CCDF, to

coordinate enrollment and observations. Through this policy Louisiana is seeking to unify early

childhood programs under high-standards and a quality rating and improvement system. The

coordination of these services and programs by community network is required by law, and includes

grant-funded sites and classrooms.

7) Integration of high-quality pre-K programs within diverse settings: The LDE has encouraged and

supported subgrantees to offer PreK Expansion Grant seats through mixed delivery in child care

settings that serve both at-risk and tuition paying families. In Year 2 of the grant, subgrantees have

offered 70% of the seats in child care centers, supporting the integration of eligible children within

economically diverse and inclusive settings. Additionally, subgrantees are encouraged to target

improvements to the entire site or center, supporting these partnerships between LEAs and child care

centers and furthering integration of at-risk children and families in inclusive settings.

8) Delivery of high-quality pre-K programs to children in need of additional supports: Across the state,
ED 524B Page 28 of 34

Louisiana has been incredibly successful at working with early childhood providers to use federal

funding to support inclusion practices, with each of the twelve subgrantees providing inclusive settings.

The state has increased the percentage of children with special needs receiving services in regular

education programs from 36.5% (2004) to 87.5% (2013). In the Guidelines for LA 4 and NSECD

programs, eligibility requirementsindicate that programs cannot deny access, participation or funding

to children on the basis of race, color, or national origin, gender or disability. PreK Expansion Grant

seats are aligned to these requirements. To support these state pre-K providers, the LDE designed and

posted a brochure on effective Early Childhood Inclusion practices. In addition, the LDE has designed

and posted transition booklets for communities to use as a guide to ensure timely transitions.

9) Family engagement: The state continues to work closely with subgrantees to implement effective

communication and outreach strategies to:

- Increase enrollment of eligible children from isolated or hard-to-reach families through robust local

coordinated enrollment efforts;

- Help families build protective factors through referrals to local community support organizations; and

- Develop the capacity of parents and families to support their children's learning and development.

Their efforts to coordinate enrollment includes implementing coordinated information campaigns

designed to reach isolated or hard-to-reach families.

4. Alignment Within a Birth Through Third Grade Continuum (Section F of the application)

Describe progress the State has made for alignment within a birth through third grade continuum in

activities for birth through age five programs ((F)(1)(a-b) in the NIA) and kindergarten through third

grade ((F)(2)(a-d) in the NIA).

Louisiana is actively working to improve the alignment within the birth to third grade continuum. This process

has begun with the state's multi-year effort to unify its early childhood system and improve kindergarten

readiness. To address a fragmented early childhood system that prepares only 54% of children for

kindergarten, Louisiana passed a law (Act 3, 2012) to unify pre-K, Head Start and child care programs into a

statewide early childhood network. By empowering families with choice and ensuring easy access to high

quality options, the state seeks to start every child on track for success. Every community across the state is

participating in the 2015-2016 Learning Year and received a practice performance rating and profile displaying

the same informational metrics for each program type. This alignment in public information for birth to agefive programs will easily allow families to understand the differences between programs, and make a decision

based on what makes the most sense for their family.

As a result of the unification of Louisiana's early childhood system, information about all program types and

educational opportunities is accessed through the same public avenues, mainly the Louisiana Department of

Education website, newsletters, and information phone numbers. Families are able to become familiar with the

strategies to access information about their child's education, whether that is at a child care center, pre-K

program, or eventually elementary school.

Each region in Louisiana has a local community network, which are consortia of all publicly-funded early

childhood programs within that community: public and nonpublic pre-K, Head Start, and child care centers

receiving CCAP. For each community, the state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE) approves

a Lead Agency to fulfill the expectations for coordinated observations and coordinated enrollment. As part of

coordinated enrollment, Lead Agencies develop a process to convening all publicly-funded providers to simplify

enrollment processes for at-risk families. A key component of this is the Coordinated Information Campaign.

Through the Coordinated Information Campaign, Lead Agencies work to inform families about the availability

of publicly-funded early childhood care and education programs serving children four years of age or younger.

Families then participate in a coordinated eligibility determination, coordinated application, and are finally
ED 524B Page 29 of 34

matched based on preference. By promoting a coordinated community-wide application process for families,

Louisiana's families have access to expanded choices and support in locating the best program to meet their

needs.

Local community networks cover every geographical region of the state. This ensures that even the most

geographically isolated locations have a local source of coordinated information across program types.

Additionally, the LDE has developed an expanded consumer education website for families that are seeking

information about programs in their region. Through the development of the consumer education website,

families now can easily access all provider information across programs from their own homes or computers.

As part of its multi-year effort to unify early childhood, Louisiana has created one statewide rating and

improvement system for all publicly-funded early childhood programs. This system will help ensure every child

has access to a classroom with high quality interactions and instructions, by using the research-based CLASSTM

system as the primary measure and informing families of quality via individualized program profiles. For the 

first time, families and programs across the state are now able to measure and discuss quality for every

provider in a consistent, developmentally appropriate and rigorous manner. Through the performance profiles,

the state provides information on quality, including both the CLASSTM measure and classroom best practices

(e.g., use of aligned curriculum and assessment, ratios, teacher preparation) for each site and community

network. The previous QRIS is in its final year of transition to the new unified rating and improvement system.

This coordinated and aligned rating system will ensure that all early learning programs in Louisiana are held to

the same high standard, and that no program is able to detract services or access to another.

All children participating in publicly-funded early learning programs have access to a teacher that is familiar

with and can utilize Louisiana's Early Learning and Development Standards. These standards are aligned with

the academic expectations for kindergarten. Eligible children that are attending high quality pre-K have access

to curricula that prepare children to succeed as measured by the Early Learning Developmental Standards.

Louisiana is also developing and launching the beginnings of a Birth to Kindergarten Pathway for new teachers.

The Birth to Kindergarten Pathway will promote articulation and credential achievements over time for 

teachers working in child care, Head Start, and pre-K settings. Louisiana has developed a Birth to Kindergarten

Career Pathway that begins with an Early Childhood Ancillary Certificate and ends with a Birth to Kindergarten

teaching license that can be used to work in the public school system. Through a series of stackable degrees 

and coursework, early childhood teachers that attend participating teacher preparation programs that offer the

statewide curriculum will have the opportunity to build their credentials over time. Teachers that complete

coursework that is offered by an approved teacher preparation program will be able to transfer courses

between participating two and four year postsecondary institutions in order to build their professional

education over time. Each of the degrees within the voluntary statewide curriculum is aligned to meet the

requirement for the Early Childhood Ancillary Certificate. The Early Childhood Ancillary Certificate is the

teaching credential required for all lead teachers in publicly funded child care centers by 2019, and can be

earned by successfully completing the foundational coursework for the statewide curriculum. Beginning in

January 2018, all teachers will be required to complete coursework for their Early Childhood Ancillary Teaching

Certificate at a higher education or private provide teacher preparation program that has been approved by 

the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE). Through the requirement to complete coursework at

a BESE-approved program, Louisiana will ensure that all child care teachers are receiving high-quality training

and practice experience that prepares them with the competencies required to excel in their jobs. To 

encourage the development of a diverse pool of high-quality early childhood teacher preparation programs, 

the LDE has launched a grant opportunity entitled Believe and Prepare: Early Childhood. This competitive grant

provides up to $50,000 of startup funding to preparation programs that present high-quality proposals for

designing and implementing teacher preparation coursework that is aligned with the Birth to Kindergarten

Pathway.

Louisiana provides support to ensure that curricula, professional development, and assessments are all aligned

with state standards and all three are high quality. As an example, to help districts choose curricula, Louisiana

provides online annotated reviews of infant/toddler, PreK and K-3 curriculum. Materials are rated on a threepoint scale: Tier 1 exemplifies quality, Tier 2 is approaching quality and Tier 3 does not represent quality. All

Tier 1 programs receive a state contract, which makes it easier for districts to procure them. When it comes to
ED 524B Page 30 of 34

professional development, the state only recommends vendors that have made an explicit link between their

offerings and curricula that's been rated Tier 1. The state also ensures assessments are strongly correlated and

skills observed or measured build on one another so teachers can see children's developmental progress.

The LDE has completed curriculum reviews for over twenty early childhood curricula, and continues to review

curricula submitted by districts and vendors to determine their alignment with quality indicators. The

instructional materials and curriculums are extensively reviewed to ensure their alignment with Louisiana's

Birth to Kindergarten Early Learning and Development Standards, which are directly aligned with the standards

for students in Kindergarten. All program types are encouraged to select and implement a curriculum that is

found to be of high-quality and is aligned with the Early Learning and Development Standards. In 2016, the LDE

released the Child Care Curriculum Initiative, which supports every publicly-funded child care center in the

state to purchase two high-quality curriculum kits by reimbursing 80% of the cost. These purchases are

accompanied by a Curriculum 101 training offered through local Resource and Referral agencies, to ensure that

teachers are supported to use these materials in their classrooms to support high-quality instruction and

interactions.

Louisiana also encourages alignment with in a birth-grade 3 continuum through its Striving Readers grant,

which requires districts to provide support structures through feeder partnerships to ensure successful

transitions for children between infant-toddler to preschool, preschool to Kindergarten, and kindergarten to

grades K-3.

Collaboration between pre-K and kindergarten teachers is promoted by the shared professional development

events that take place four times a year at various statewide locations through a series of professional

development entitled Teacher Leaders. Louisiana has four quarterly state approved and facilitated statewide

training sessions called the Teacher Leader Collaboratives. The Teacher Leader Collaboratives are intended to

bring together a selection of teacher's birth to 12 classrooms to complete sessions that provide opportunities

to learn new instructional strategies and participate in collaboration. These sessions promote connections

between teachers from various backgrounds. In the spring, the LDE hosts a large convention called the Teacher

Leader Summit. At this convention, teachers from various age levels have an opportunity to participate in

sessions, build connections, and share instructional strategies that are applicable to the age groups they share.

At this event, teachers from Kindergarten and other early education grades can attend the same sessions as

teachers working in PreK, Head Start, and child care.

As part of the work to support communities in continued improvement and implementation across the birthto-twelve spectrum, the LDE releases an annual District Planning Guide. The 2017-2018 District Planning Guide

serves as the primary planning tool for LEAs in making academic and programmatic decisions for the upcoming

school year, spanning early childhood through high school. The purpose of this tool is to guide planning

conversations between LEAs and LDE field support teams to reflect on this year's data and implement 

necessary changes for 2017-2018, and highlight key planning decisions, available resources, and available funds

for the upcoming year. This guide demonstrates the LDE's commitment to support communities in birth-tothird grade planning and coordination.
ED 524B Page 31 of 34

Section A: Part C - Competitive Preference Priorities

Competitive Preference Priority 1: Contributing Matching Funds (if included in the State's

approved application.

Describe the progress the State has made on its credible plan for obtaining and using non-Federal

matching funds to support the implementation of its ambitious and achievable plan during the grant

period. For progress not made in this area, please describe the State's strategies to ensure that

measurable progress will be made by the end of the grant period. Please describe any changes made

to the data reported in Table 7(a); explain if your Year 2 Target differs from the Year 2 Actual.

Competitive Preference Priority 2: Supporting the Continuum of Early Learning and

Development (if included in the State's approved application).

Describe progress made in creating a more seamless progression of supports and interventions from

birth through third grade, such as high-quality infant and toddler care, home visitation, full-day

kindergarten, and before and after care services for, at a minimum, a defined cohort of eligible children

and their families within each high need community served by each Subgrantee. For progress not

made in these areas, please describe the State's strategies to ensure that measurable progress will be

made by the end of the grant period.

Louisiana is currently in a multi-year effort to unify its early childhood system and improve kindergarten

readiness. To address a fragmented early childhood system that prepares only 54% of children for

kindergarten, Louisiana passed a law (Act 3, 2012) to unify pre-K, Head Start and child care programs into a

statewide early childhood network. The state's early childhood efforts support an early childhood continuum

that begins at birth, including a unified quality rating and improvement system for all publicly-funded early

childhood programs and a coordinated enrollment system serving all at-risk children birth-to-five. In fall 2016,

every publicly-funded program received a practice performance rating and profile displaying the same

informational metrics for each program type. This alignment in public information for birth to age-five

programs will easily allow families to understand the differences between programs, and make a decision

based on what makes the most sense for their family.

All subgrantees funded by the grant are observing all toddler classrooms in Early Head Start and child care

centers accepting CCDF using the CLASSTM tool, and are providing feedback and results to support

improvement. Subgrantees have also included these programs in their coordinated enrollment process that

includes a coordinated information campaign and a streamlined eligibility and application process for all at-risk

families.

As part of the work to support communities in continued improvement and implementation across the birthto-twelve spectrum, the LDE releases an annual District Planning Guide. The 2017-2018 District Planning Guide

serves as the primary planning tool for LEAs in making academic and programmatic decisions for the upcoming

school year, spanning early childhood through high school. The purpose of this tool is to guide planning

conversations between LEAs and LDE field support teams to reflect on this year's data and implement 

necessary changes for 2017-2018, and highlight key planning decisions, available resources, and available funds

for the upcoming year. This guide demonstrates the LDE's commitment to support communities in birth-tothird grade planning and coordination.

Louisiana continues to make progress on meeting the state match described in its plan. The state is currently

using non-federal money to support the community network activities, including coordinated observations and

coordinated enrollment, by allocating these funds to Lead Agencies to support them to meet their requirements.

The LDE additionally uses non-federal funding to contract with a third party to conduct CLASSTM observations and

provide feedback to teachers to support improvement in interactions and instructions. The LDE uses non-federal

funds to support statewide access to GOLD, the statewide formative assessment in birth-to-five classrooms.

Finally, the LDE utilizes non-federal funding for state-level infrastructure to support the early childhood work

occurring in the field. Through these endeavors, the LDE is meeting the required state-level match to support

implementation of Louisiana's ambitious and achievable plan.
ED 524B Page 32 of 34

Competitive Preference Priority 3: Creating New High Quality State Preschool Slots (if included

in the State's approved application).

Describe progress made in using at least 50% of the State's federal grant award to create new State

Preschool Program slots that will increase the overall number of new slots in State Preschool

Programs that meet the definition of High-Quality Preschool Programs. For progress not made in this

area, please describe the State's strategies to ensure that measurable progress will be made by the

end of the grant period.

The state subgranted more than 95% of the grant in Year 2 to high-need communities. 73% of the grant funds

were subgranted to create 1000 new PreK seats aligned to the state's pre-K program and meeting the definition

of high-quality pre-K programs. 23% of the grant funds were subgranted to communities to support

improvements to additional seats, equal to at least 130% of their allocation, or 1300 seats. These improved 

seats are additional seats, beyond the new seats that are also receiving the same improvements. All of the new

seats created by the grant met the structural elements of a high-quality program, including a bachelor degree,

certified teacher, quality ratios of 10:1, high-quality professional development for all staff, a full-day program, and

instructional staff salaries equivalent to local kindergarten teachers.
ED 524B Page 33 of 34

Section B: Budget Information

Budget and Sustainability (Section G in the application)

1. Please provide a brief explanation of any discrepancies between the State's approved budget and

its total expenditures for the reporting year. Explain carry-over funds that have not been expended or

obligated from January 1, 2016 through December 31, 2016.

2. Please describe any substantive changes that you anticipate to the State's Preschool Development

Grant budget in the upcoming fiscal year (January 1, 2017 through December 31, 2017).

3. Describe the State's progress on its plan for sustainability at the end of the grant period to ensure

that the number and percentage of Eligible Children with access to High-Quality Preschool Programs

in the State will be maintained or expanded, including to additional High-Need Communities.

4. Please provide a brief explanation of any discrepancies, if any, between the Subrecipients'

approved budgets and their total expenditures for the reporting year. Explain carry-over funds that

have not been expended or obligated from January 1, 2016 through December 31, 2016.

The state defines actual expenditures as the funds for which reimbursements have been requested and paid.

Reimbursements are generally tracked by the state's fiscal year, but can be tracked by calendar year, and have

been for the purpose of these reports. The state has allocated 95% of its Year 2 funds to subgrantees. These

allocations last through the state's fiscal year, and subgrantees can submit for reimbursements at any point

during the year. Additionally, subgrantees have not yet incurred all of their costs for the school year by the end of

the calendar year. These two points explain the discrepancy between allocations to subgrantees and actual

expenditures, or requests for reimbursements. The state plans to carry over these unexpended funds so that

subgrantees are supported to offer these pre-K programs through the entire 2016-17 academic year.

The state is continuing to explore options to sustain service levels for eligible children to access high-quality preK programs in high-need communities. At the state level, BESE has identified priorities for additional early

childhood funding to serve at-risk children through the funding model proposed to the state legislature, which was

required by HCR 61. Locally, the state is partnering with subgrantees to develop plans for sustainability for 

new seats. In these plans, subgrantees will identify potential local and philanthropic funds that could be raised to

sustain grant seats and support services. To sustain some of the improvement work that the grant has supported

through job-embedded coaching to improve adult child interactions, the Department is using part of the PDG

T&TA funding to contract with University of Louisiana Lafayette to develop a set of classroom videos of

Louisiana teachers interacting with children that will be accompanied by CLASS codes, which every early

childhood program in Louisiana will be able to use to improve their own quality.
I I

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