PRESCHOOL DEVELOPMENT GRANTS
 

2015 ANNUAL PERFORMANCE REPORT
 

Louisiana 

Preschool Development Grants SEPTEMBER 2016 
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: 01/01/2015 To: 12/31/2015 

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: Provisional Final Other Specify other: (Final Performance Reports only) 

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 Yes No 

Project Status Chart? 

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

ED 524B Page 1 of 31 
 

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 premiere preschool programs - known as LA 4 in 

public schools and Nonpublic School Early Childhood Development (NSECD) in nonpublic schools and child care. 

However, thousands of at-risk Louisiana families are unable to choose a high quality preschool option that best 

meets their children's needs. With the state's first year of the Preschool 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 Grant 

In the first year of the grant, six diverse communities across the state of Louisiana were funded to 

enroll 340 at-risk 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. The six subgrantees from Year 1 

represent both rural and urban communities from different areas of the state: Caddo, City of Monroe 

(Ouachita), Iberville, Lincoln, Orleans, and Rapides. These communities are also leading the state in 

coordinating enrollment, improving the quality of teaching and learning through local coaching and support 

systems, and developing collaborative leadership structures. These 340 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 PreK programs. Additionally, over 770 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 1 Impact for Children and Families: The PreK Expansion Grant expanded access to high-quality 

preschool programs for families of 340 children in six high-need communities. These seats meet the 

high-quality requirements of LA 4 and NSECD, including: 

3High staff qualifications, including teachers with a bachelor degree 

3High-quality professional development for all staff 

3Child-to-instructional staff ratio of 10:1 

3Class size of no more than 20 

3Full day program 

ED 524B Page 2 of 31 
 

 

3Inclusion of children with disabilities to ensure access to and full participation in all opportunities 

3Research-based, age appropriate instruction, curricula, and learning environments aligned to the 

state's Early Learning and Development Standards 

3Individualized accommodations and supports for children 

3Instructional staff salaries equal to local public kindergarten teachers 

3Program evaluation to ensure continuous improvement 

3Evidence-based health and safety standards 

By offering these seats in diverse settings, including 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, in terms of meeting the requirements of an IEP, through access to Mental Health 

Consultants who support providers and teachers to meet the needs of every child, and Resource and 

Referral staff, who can 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, benefiting from information campaigns and streamlined 

eligibility and application requirements when enrolling their children. 

Additionally, over 770 children and families in these seats and centers were impacted by jobembedded coaching and access to comprehensive services, about 225% of the expanded seats. 

• 	 Year 1 Impact for Teachers: All teachers funded through the PreK Expansion Grant were hired through 

local Lead Education Agencies (LEAs), which ensured that they were paid salaries commensurate to 

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

teachers, plus the additional teachers of 770 children 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 teacher-child 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 PreK classrooms, to support improvement and quality in diverse, 

child care settings. 

• 	 Year 1 Impact for Communities: With seats funded through the PreK Expansion Grant, communities 

closed the at-risk access gap to high-quality preschool programs in Louisiana by 6.8% in the first year of 

the grant. Subgrantees offered nearly 90% of the Year 1 seats in diverse settings, 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 benefitting from grant-supported partnerships to support 

mixed delivery and family choice. Additionally, in Year 1, over 770 children 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 (LDE) is supporting 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 

ED 524B Page 3 of 31 
 

networks, which further facilitated diverse placement of seats and support of family demand. 

In Years 2-4, 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 preschool, 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 64 local community networks, which are consortia of all publicly-funded early childhood 

programs within that community: public and nonpublic PreK, Head Start, and child care centers receiving 

funding through the Child Care Assistance Program. 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 CLASS 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 is participating in the 2015-2016 Learning Year 

and will receive a practice performance rating and performance profile. 

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 preschool programs, Title I preschool 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. 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 preschool and nonpublic preschool leaders; 

• Support Teachers: Observe and provide feedback to teachers using a highly-regarded, researchbased tool (CLASS) 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 is piloting practice 

Performance Profiles, with every publicly-funded program serving children ages birth to five receiving a 

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

teacher-child interactions based on CLASS. Profiles will also include information regarding the child-to-staff 

ratios, the quality of curriculum used, the use of ongoing formative assessment, and other metrics. 

Coordinated Enrollment 

In line with Bulletin 140, the six 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 

ED 524B Page 4 of 31 
they be ineligible for or unable to access their primary choice; 

3. Coordinated Application: Collect family preferences regarding enrollment choices for publiclyfunded 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 preschool 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 preschool program, known as LA 4, in 2001. Although 8(g) and LA4 are supported by different 

funding sources, the LDE 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 preschool can be offered in community-based 

settings. 

Louisiana's LA 4 and NSECD programs are high-quality early childhood programs meeting the requirements 

specified in the grant. In fact, the LA 4 law establishes these requirements in statute, demonstrating the 

legislative commitment to high-quality preschool. Moreover, these preschool 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; 

- Higher scores 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 fouryear-olds in high-quality preschool 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 LDE, 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 LDE conducts an annual shared process for communities to indicate family demand for seats in 

high-quality preschool. 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 90% of the Year 1 seats in diverse settings, supporting parent choice. The 

LDE 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. 

ED 524B Page 5 of 31 
 

Many of the challenges faced in offering these partnerships included logistical hurdles- managing field trips, 

transportation, licensing concerns, and meals were unanticipated issues that the LDE supported subgrantees to 

resolve over the course of the first year. As a result of these conversations over the year, subgrantees and the 

LDE worked together to arrive at recommendations and resources for partnerships between schools and 

centers that will be provided to Year 2 grantees to support their partnerships as well. Additionally, the LDE will 

be hosting a PreK Expansion Grant summit in April that brings Year 1 and Year 2 grantees together to 

collaborate around shared challenges and plan for an improved Year 2 of the PreK Expansion Grant. Grantees 

will be supported to attend this summit through PreK Expansion Grant technical assistance funds. 

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. The state is continuing to make 

progress on building an accountability technology system, though there were several internal conversations 

that were required before the state could begin the RFP process. The state anticipates making significant 

progress toward launching an RFP in Year 2 of the grant. 

Conclusion 

In Year 1, 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 has consolidated the state early childhood care and education 

functions into one agency, the Louisiana Department of Education. 

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

- The Head Start Collaboration Office is now housed at the LDE. 

- All CCDF functions are now consolidated into the LDE. 

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

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 LDE 

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 2-4, more families, teachers, and communities across the state will be impacted 

by grant funding that allows Louisiana to serve more than 4500 additional children and improve more than 

6000 seats over the four year grant period. 

ED 524B Page 6 of 31 
 

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, 2015. 

In the first year of the grant, six diverse communities across the state of Louisiana were funded to 

enroll 340 at-risk 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, 90% of the grant-funded seats were filled as of December 1, representing an increase of 

309 additional children served through the grant in Louisiana. These grant-funded seats were largely offered in 

child care centers in partnership with local school districts or charter schools, supporting parent choice of highquality PreK programs. 

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 64 local community networks, which are consortia of all publicly-funded 

early childhood programs within that community: public and nonpublic PreK, 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 CLASS 

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 is participating in the 2015-2016 Learning Year and will receive a practice performance rating 

and profile. 

In line with Bulletin 140, the six 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; 

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 

ED 524B Page 7 of 31 
 

 

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 PreK 

seats throughout the year. Beginning in the spring and continuing throughout the fall, the six 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 six subgrantees for the first year of the grant formed community networks as part 

of cohort 1, and have achieved 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 LDE releases an annual District Planning Guide that spans early childhood through 

high school. The 2016-2017 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 LDE field support teams to reflect on this year's data and implement 

necessary changes for 2016-2017, and highlight key planning decisions, available resources, and available funds 

for the upcoming year. 

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 LDE 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 six 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 2,356 children ages 3-5 with disabilities in a regular education program. About 4% of 

the children attending PreK through PreK Expansion Grant are identified as children with disabilities, with more 

in the identification process during their four-year-old year. 

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 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 EarlySteps (Part C) counterparts. 

One of their responsibilities is to ensure that children with disabilities transition from Part C (birth to 3) to Part 

ED 524B Page 8 of 31 
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 LDE 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. 

Reverse Mainstreaming 

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

childhood, including through reverse mainstreaming (with services provided within the regular education 

class). In reverse mainstreaming, regular education students are brought into special education classrooms for 

part of the school day or for the full school day. Reverse mainstreaming 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; 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, reverse mainstreaming deepens processes for collaboration and coordination between regular 

education and special education program staff. The LDE has already provided incentives for Community 

Networks to use reverse mainstreaming 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. 

Guidelines and Resources 

In the Guidelines for LA 4 and NSECD programs, eligibility requirements indicate 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 PreK 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. 

ED 524B Page 9 of 31 
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 PreK seats to serve more than 4,500 

additional at-risk children in high-quality PreK 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. In the first 

year of the grant, 340 seats were funded in High-Quality Preschool Programs through the grant. At full scale, in 

the fourth year, the grant funding will reduce the statewide gap between seats requested by parents and seats 

provided by 36%. Additionally, over 770 seats were improved through grant funds in diverse settings. 

Subgrantees, the six 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 PreK 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 parnterships. 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 preschool, 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 preschool programs, Title I preschool programs, Head Start programs, and programs 

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

ED 524B Page 10 of 31 
 

 

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 preschool and nonpublic preschool leaders; 

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

(CLASS) 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 is piloting practice 

Performance Profiles, with every publicly-funded program serving children ages birth to five receiving a 

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

teacher-child interactions based on CLASS. Profiles will 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. 

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 2015-16 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 preschool programs through public and nonpublic providers. Louisiana's 

primary state-funded preschool 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 at-risk 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 1,568 children through NSECD, 

for a combined total of more than 17,000 at-risk four-year-olds in high-quality preschool. Enrollment data for 

these PreK programs is stable from last year. The additional 340 seats offered through the PreK Expansion 

Grant represents an increase in the number of children served overall, which is a 2% increase in percentage of 

children served in the 2015-2016 school year. Closing the gap between parent demand for and availability of 

quality preschool 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%. 

State Efforts to Improve Early Childhood Quality and Access 

The state implements high-quality preschool 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 

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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 CLASS 

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 preschool programs, Title I preschool 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 preschool and nonpublic preschool leaders; 

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

(CLASS) 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 is piloting practice 

Performance Profiles, with every publicly-funded program serving children ages birth to five receiving a 

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

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

observe every PreK and Toddler classroom in publicly-funded sites twice annually. In the first year of the state's 

unified qualified rating and improvement system, which is a Learning Year for the practice performance 

profiles, local community networks observed 98% of classrooms in publicly-funded programs in the fall, 

including public and nonpublic PreK, Head Start, and child care PreK and Toddler classrooms. State public PreK 

programs are able to use these observations to improve the quality of existing preschool programs, with a 

focus on improving teacher-child interactions. 

Practice Performance Profiles, the result for each site and community of the state's quality rating and 

improvement system, will also include information regarding the child-to-staff ratios, the quality of curriculum 

used, the use of ongoing formative assessment, and other metrics. While the results of the informational 

metrics will be made publicly available, they will not be 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). These reviews will be posted 

publicly, and 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, will be available 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 birth-to-five ELDS, which is available as a support to 

all publicly-funded programs. 

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

improvement system to PreK supervisors through quarterly collaboratives, and PreK 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 PreK, and child care 

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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 1 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. 

Kindergarten Readiness Definition: 

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: 

Kindergarten Readiness Definition: 

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 

eagerness to 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 PreK 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 PreK 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. In 

addition, the state requires DIBELS-Next to be used in kindergarten to measure readiness and support early 

literacy improvement statewide. Current statewide kindergarten readiness measured through DIBELS is 56% 

(2015), up from 54% in 2012. The state will collect DIBELS information for 2016. 

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 PreK 

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 in PreK. 

Plans for Year Two Reporting: 

The state plans to use the information from the Act 3 (2012) pilots and the 2015-2016 Learning Year to 

determine next steps in selecting an appropriate KEA that covers all five essential domains and is part of a 

comprehensive, birth-to-five early learning assessment system. Considerations for selecting a new KEA will 

include whether the instrument: 

- Aligns with the state's ELDS; 

- Is appropriate, valid, and reliable for the population of children served (including children with 

disabilities and English language learners); 

- Can be administered at the beginning of the kindergarten entry period (first 30 days of school) with the 

capacity for continued ongoing assessment throughout the year; 

- Provides results that can be linked to the state's proposed early childhood accountability technology 

system; 

- Covers all essential domains of school readiness; and 

- Supports teachers to help children transition from preschool to kindergarten. 

The state is preparing to review platforms employed by other states that are using Teaching Strategies GOLD as 

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a KEA. The state is particularly interested in exploring what states have done to utilize a modified version of 

the tool (i.e., subsets of the Objectives for Development and Learning) that still aligns with National Research 

Council recommendations to provide teachers quick and easy-to-use guidance on how to best help children 

transition to kindergarten. In addition, this review will also involve the consideration of other KEAs that may 

meet the considerations established above. This review, along with results from the pilots and Learning Year, 

will enable Louisiana to make decisions on how to select and implement a more robust KEA tool in the future. 

The state is interested in a tentative timeline to select and begin piloting a KEA in the next 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 preschool 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. Ultimately, this Early 

Childhood Accountability Technology System will integrate with the K-12 accountability system, enabling the 

State to assure children's progress from early childhood throughout their school careers. 

Louisiana plans to use some of the grant funds for supporting infrastructure improvements to conduct a 

Request for Information (RFI) process to be followed by a Request for Proposal (RFP). The RFI process will allow 

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 will create 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; 

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, preschool 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; 

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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 LDE has taken several steps this year toward preparing to create an RFP to build an Early Childhood 

Accountability Technology System. As part of the state's efforts to unify early childhood, the Louisiana 

Department of Education now oversees all critical support systems for early childhood, including Licensing, 

Child Care Resource and Referral programs, Head Start collaboration, Quality Start, mental health consultation, 

and field-based technical assistance. The LDE is the grantee for the CCDF grant, including provider certification 

and family eligibility, as well. As part of the work this year to prepare to create an RFP, the Early Childhood 

department 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. The state has not expended any grant funds yet to support this work, but plans to begin expending 

funds to support a rigorous and comprehensive RFP process in 2016, with an anticipated implementation date 

in 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; 

✔	 A class size of no more than 20 with, at a minimum, one teacher with high staff qualifications; 

✔	 A Full-Day program; 

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✔

✔

✔

✔

✔

✔

✔

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

opportunities; 

Developmentally appropriate, culturally and linguistically responsive instruction and evidencebased 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 

1 of the PreK Expansion Grant, Louisiana partnered with six local community networks to implement highquality PreK 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), Iberville, Lincoln, Orleans, and Rapides, a mix of rural and urban parishes as 

well as representing geographical diversity in the state. The state selected these subgrantees to ensure new 

preschool 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 preschool programs, grant funding 

is also used to improve current seats as well. Grant-funded seats are aligned to the state preschool program, 

and meet all the quality requirements of the state preschool 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 preschool programs, Title I preschool 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 highquality preschool classrooms that are aligned to the state's LA 4 and NSECD program. For four of the six 

grantees, the Lead Agency is also the local LEA and LA 4 grantee, and were empowered to hire district teachers 

and implement LA 4-type classrooms in child care centers. For the remaining two grantees, the strong 

relationships between the Lead Agencies and the local LEAs formed over three years of state-supported 

collaborative leadership structures allowed them to implement the critical relationships between the LEAs and 

child care centers. 

Structural Elements 

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

to meet the following high-quality requirements: 

3High staff qualifications, including teachers with a bachelor degree 

3High-quality professional development for all staff 

3Child-to-instructional staff ratio of 10:1 

3Class size of no more than 20 

3Full day program 

3Inclusion of children with disabilities to ensure access to and full participation in all opportunities 

3Research-based, age appropriate instruction, curricula, and learning environments aligned to the 

state's Early Learning and Development Standards 

3Individualized accommodations and supports for children 

3Instructional staff salaries equal to local public kindergarten teachers 

3Program evaluation to ensure continuous improvement 

3Comprehensive services, including vision and hearing screenings 

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3Evidence-based health and safety standards 

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

To support additional access to comprehensive services beyond what state PreK programs offer, Lead 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 CLASS, and use of developmentally appropriate assessment. Since all teachers hired through the 

grant are LEA employees, including those teaching in mixed delivery settings, these 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 PreK 

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 PreK 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 CLASS observations annually for each classroom in all publiclyfunded sites. Bulletin 140 establishes 2015-2016, the first year of the quality rating and improvement system, 

as a Learning Year, with no stakes attached to the outcomes. In the fall of this first Learning Year, 98% of Prek 

and Toddler classrooms in all publicly-funded sites received observations on CLASS, including public and 

nonpublic PreK, Head Start, and child care centers receiving CCDF. All of these classrooms, including grantfunded classrooms, will receive another round of observations in the spring. In addition to local observations, 

the state contracts with a third party to conduct observations in at least 50% of the PreK and Toddler 

classrooms in every publicly-funded site across the state, as an audit function and to support continued 

improvement in accuracy and reliability. Results from all observations, local and third party, are entered into 

the state's CLASS 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 Prek 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 PreK programs manager and the 

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

program guidelines. 

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Table 6 - Selection Criteria (D)(4) from NIA 

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

Year 1 Target from the application and Year 1 Actual in Table 6 differ, and any approved changes in 

targets for Years 2-4. 

In year 1, six communities were funded through the grant to offer 340 seats to at-risk families. Although state 

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

teachers, the state's education funding formula provides more state funding for kindergarten than the state 

provides for preschool. Louisiana's primary state-funded preschool program, LA 4, and its nonpublic preschool 

program, NSECD, funds each seat for PreK at $4,580. PreK 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 preschool teachers are compensated equally with K-12 

teachers. Grantees were funded an addition $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 1, grantees far exceeded this target, using funds to improve almost 225% seats. For Years 2-4, grantees 

will continue to be funded at a quality rate of $5,185 per seat, with the additional $1,617.89 per seat to 

improve at least 130% seats annually. 

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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 1, the LDE partnered with six subgrantees that represent both rural and urban communities from 

different areas of the state: Caddo, City of Monroe (Ouachita), Iberville, Lincoln, Orleans, and Rapides. These 

communities are part of the first cohort of networks to pilot approaches to Act 3 implementation, beginning in 

2012, and are also leading the state in coordinating enrollment, improving the quality of teaching and learning 

through local coaching and support systems, and developing collaborative leadership structures. 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 64 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 PreK, 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 CLASS 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. 

Through their role as part of the first cohort of 13 Community Network pilots, the six subgrantees enjoy strong 

partnerships with the LDE that were built over three years. The state has benefited from the experiences, 

feedback, and insight of these grantees over the past three years 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 biweekly 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 for subgrantees, including: 

- MOU and Assurance templates establishing expectations for 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 preschool 

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

myriad ways. These supports included: 

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- Field visits to successful diverse delivery partnerships in the state; 

- 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, indirect costs were capped to their LDE-approved discounted rate 

and were only applied to the improvement funding component of 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 PreK programs. Additionally, all 

programs with grant-funded seats reported attendance records through the same system as other 

state-funded PreK 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 CLASS twice annually, with scores reported through the 

state CLASS 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 

ways to 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 preschool programs: BESE Bulletin 140 requires all publiclyfunded 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 preschool 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 1 of the grant, subgrantees have 

offered 90% 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 preschool programs to children in need of additional supports: Across the state, 

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

funding to support inclusion practices, with each of the six 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 requirements indicate 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 PreK 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 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 preschool, 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 will receive 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. 

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

childhood programs within that community: public and nonpublic PreK, 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 

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 is developing an expanded consumer education website for families that are seeking 

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information about programs in their region. Through the development of the consumer education website, 

families will be able to 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 is creating 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 CLASS 

system as the primary measure and informing families of quality via individualized program profiles. For the 

first time, families and programs across the state will be able to measure and discuss quality for every provider 

in a consistent, developmentally appropriate and rigorous manner. The state will report on quality, including 

both the CLASS measure and classroom best practices (e.g., use of aligned curriculum and assessment, ratios, 

teacher preparation) through performance profiles 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 curriculums that prepare children to succeed as measured by the Early Learning Developmental Standards. 

The LDE is currently completing a curriculum review of instructional materials and curriculums. 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. Once this review is completed, all program types will be 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. 

Collaboration between preschool 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. 

Louisiana is developing a set of revised set of teacher competencies to ensure that teacher preparation, 

credentials and workforce expectations are aligned for teachers across grade and age levels. These 

competencies include a set of general teacher competencies and a set of certification area specific teacher 

competencies that are will guide the knowledge and skills that are required to be included in all teacher 

preparation programs. The teacher competencies include a fully developed set of pedagogical and practical 

skills for all individuals working as teachers with children ages birth to twelfth grade. The certification area 

competencies specify the content-area specific knowledge and teaching skills that are needed for individual 

teacher areas. These competencies provide specific guidance for the birth to kindergarten age group, and are 

directly aligned with the expectations for teachers working with Kindergarten through third grade. The 

competencies detail the required knowledge base and skills educators must have to be effective in child care, 

head start, and PreK settings. 

Through the structure of local community networks, coordinated enrollment, and the coordinated 

accountability system, families are encouraged to become familiar with multiple program types. 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 

ED 524B Page 27 of 31 
 

to access information about their child's education, whether that is at a child care center, pre-k program, or 

eventually elementary school. 

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 2016-2017 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 2016-2017, 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 28 of 31 
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 1 Target differs from the Year 1 Actual. 

The state was successful at obtaining matching state funds to support the implementation of the plan during the 

grant period. In Year 1, matching state funds were used to support state level early childhood infrastructure, third 

party observations of publicly-funded early childhood sites, and investments in communities used to provide 

foundational training, job-embedded professional development, and coordinated enrollment support. Between 

2014-2018, these matching state funds represent a $13 million new investment in communities. 

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 preschool, 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. 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 CLASS 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 2016-2017 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 2016-2017, 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 29 of 31 
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 95% of the grant in Year 1 to high-need communities.72% of the grant funds were 

subgranted to create 340 new PreK seats aligned to the state's preschool program and meeting the definition of 

high-quality preschool programs. 23% of the grant funds were subgranted to communities to support 

improvements to at least 130% of seats, or 440 seats. All of the 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, highquality professional development for all staff, a full-day program, and instructional staff salaries equivalent to 

local kindergarten teachers. 

ED 524B Page 30 of 31 
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, 2015 through December 31, 2015. 

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 is requesting to carry over the state set-aside for an 

accountability technology system. The state plans to expend these funds in Year 2 of the grant in the process 

toward building an accountability technology system. Additionally, the state requests to carry over the remainder 

of its state technical assistance budget, for two purposes. First, all requests for travel reimbursement to the PDG 

conference have not been processed from the grant funds as of the end of 2015. Second, technical assistance 

funds will be used to support travel for subgrantees to attend a state PreK Expansion Grant summit in April, 

which will be a venue for the state to provide technical assistance to grantees. 

2. Please describe any substantive changes that you anticipate to the State's Preschool Development 

Grant budget in the upcoming fiscal year (January 1, 2016 through December 31, 2016). 

The state does not anticipate any substantive changes to the state's Preschool Development Grant budget in the 

upcoming fiscal year. 

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. 

The state is continuing to explore options to sustain service levels for eligible children to access high-quality 

preschool 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. 

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, 2015 through December 31, 2015. 

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 1 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 PreK programs through the entire 2015-16 academic year. 

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