PRESCHOOL DEVELOPMENT GRANTS

FY2017 ANNUAL PERFORMANCE REPORT

Preschool Development Grants AUGUST 2018

Louisiana
ED 524B Page 1 of 34

U.S. Department of Education 

PDG Grant Performance Report Cover Sheet 

Based on ED 524B OMB No. 1894-0003 Exp. 08/31/2020

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

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

Reporting Period Information 

7. Reporting Period: From: 01/01/2017 To: 12/31/2017

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

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

a. Previous Budget Period

b. Current Budget Period

c. Entire Project Period 

(For Final Performance Reports only)

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

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

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

c. If yes, provide the following information: 

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

Approving Federal agency: ED Other Specify other:

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

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

Is included in your approved Indirect Cost Rate Agreement

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

Other

10. Performance Measures Status

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

Project Status Chart?

Yes No

b. If no, when will the data be available and submitted to the Department?
ED 524B Page 2 of 34

U.S. Department of Education 

PDG Annual Performance Report 

Executive Summary 

Based on ED 524B OMB No. 1894-0003 Exp. 08/31/2020

Grantee State: LA PR/Award #: S419B150035

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

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

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

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

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

should be explained as well.

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

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

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

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

With the state's continuation of the PreK Expansion Grants, Louisiana is making great progress in 

ensuring not only that new seats are provided, but that they are offered in a way that assures both quality and 

access for the most high-need communities. Seats funded through this grant play a role in the broader birth to 

five community network, both through the offering of these seats in diverse providers, and the improvement 

strategies local community networks have implemented. 

PreK Expansion Grant 

In the third year of the grant, sixteen diverse communities across the state of Louisiana were funded to 

enroll 1,440 at-risk children in traditional and mixed delivery settings. At-risk children are defined as children in 

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

English language learners, and/or experiencing homelessness. The twelve subgrantees from Year 2 were joined 

by four new subgrantees for Year 3, and represent both rural and urban communities, now covering areas 

across the entire state: Caddo, Calcasieu, City of Monroe (Ouachita), Concordia, East Baton Rouge, Grant, 

Iberville, Jefferson, Lafayette, Lincoln, Orleans, Plaquemines, Rapides, St. John, Tangipahoa and Union. While 

these 1,440 grant-funded seats were offered in child care centers in partnership with local school districts or 

charter schools, more communities offered seats in their local head start. These options provided more 

opportunities to support parent choice of high-quality pre-K programs. Additionally, over 2,029 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 3 Impact for Children and Families 

The PreK Expansion Grant expanded access to high-quality pre-K programs for families of 1,440 

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

including: 

9High staff qualifications, including teachers with a bachelor degree; 

9High-quality professional development for all staff; 

9Child-to-instructional staff ratio of 10:1; 

9Class size of no more than 20; 
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9Full day program; 

9Inclusion of children with disabilities to ensure access to and full participation in all opportunities; 

9Research-based, age appropriate instruction, curricula, and learning environments aligned to the 

state's Early Learning and Development Standards; 

9Individualized accommodations and supports for children; 

9Instructional staff salaries equal to local public kindergarten teachers; 

9Program evaluation to ensure continuous improvement; and 

9Evidence-based health and safety standards. 

By offering these seats in diverse settings, communities enabled family choice and supported quality 

providers within their community. Child care centers are additionally supported to provide individualized 

support and accommodations for children beyond what the district partnership provides through access to 

Mental Health Consultants and Resource and Referral agency staff. These organizations support providers and 

teachers to meet the needs of every child, and provide individualized coaching and technical assistance to 

classrooms in child care centers. 

These seats are also offered in sites receiving critical information about quality and improvement 

through the state's new unified quality rating and improvement system. This unified rating system is based on 

measuring what research indicates matters most for child development, the quality of teacher-child 

interactions, and measures all publicly-funded early childhood programs the same way, regardless of whether 

they are Head Start, school-based pre-K, or child care centers. In 2014, researchers from the University of 

Virginia conducted a study on Louisiana pre-K classrooms, which resulted in the following key takeaways about 

Louisiana's approach to accountability: 

• Louisiana observations are accurate: local and research CLASSTM scores closely align. 

• Children learn more in classrooms with higher CLASSTM scores. 

• Adding other quality measures does not help identify effective classrooms. 

With the first full year of implementation of the unified rating system completed, children and families 

are able to benefit from the availability of comparable ratings through the state's new tool, Louisiana School 

and Center Finder. Children are also benefiting from an increased focus throughout the state on improving the 

quality of teacher-child interactions. 

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

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

application requirements when enrolling their children. Additionally, more than 2,029 children and families in 

these seats and centers were impacted by job-embedded coaching and access to comprehensive services. 

Year 3 Impact for Teachers 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

quality in diverse, child care settings. Teachers in these communities also received high-quality professional 
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development aligned with CLASSTM, including Conscious Discipline. 

Year 3 Impact for Communities 

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

access gap to high-quality pre-K programs in Louisiana. Subgrantees offered more than half of the Year 3 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 benefiting from grant-supported partnerships to support mixed 

delivery and family choice. Additionally, in Year 3 more than 2,029 children in these communities accessed 

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

services. This additional job-embedded coaching aimed at improving teacher practice is often targeted to child 

care centers, which often do not receive the same level of daily support as school-based pre-K classrooms. By 

improving the birth-to-five pathway in their community, grantees are setting up more children to be 

kindergarten ready at the start of school. Communities are leveraging local partnerships to ensure at-risk 

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

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

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

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

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

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. 

Overview of Progress 

Since 2012, Louisiana has worked to unify its early childhood system and improve kindergarten 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

involves conducting two 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. In 2016-2017, performance profiles were released statewide for the first time, via 

www.louisianaschools.com. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Louisiana. Additionally, researchers from the University of Virginia have released a working paper validating 
ED 524B Page 5 of 34

Louisiana's approach and indicating how well observations were able to predict child gains in pre-K. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

those closest to teachers to support them to improve. At the same time, contracted third party observations 

ensure the accuracy of the rating, and provide feedback to local observers on their accuracy. 

 For the first time, Louisiana released performance data on all publicly funded early childhood programs, 

including early childhood centers, Head Start and prekindergarten through a unified K-12 system designed for 

families. In November 2017, the state released the Louisiana School Finder, an interactive, first-of-its-kind 

online tool designed to help families more easily locate and evaluate schools and child care centers across the 

state. Among its many features, the new system offers performance profiles for all publicly funded early 

childhood programs in the state, including early childhood centers, Head Start and prekindergarten. It provides 

families with the site's overall performance rating, as well as a snapshot of the learning environment, 

teaching staff, student-to-teacher ratios and curriculum quality. The tool is the first of its kind in the nation. In 

subsequent years, the Louisiana School Finder will expand to provide information on student progress and 

include an interests and opportunities index indicating how schools fare in offering enriching activities to their 

students. 

The 2016-2017 early childhood performance profiles indicate: 

• All program types improved their average performance scores. Of the roughly 1,500 early childhood 

centers, Head Start programs and prekindergarten sites to receive performance profiles in 2016-2017, 

nearly 70 percent provided children with care and instruction at levels that research shows promote 

kindergarten readiness. That is an improvement from last year, when about 60 percent of sites did. 

What's more: There is at least one Excellent-rated site in more than a third of the state's 65 community 

networks. 

• Statewide average scores improved in all measured areas. Louisiana early childhood sites saw 

improvements across the board, from classroom climate to organization to instruction, at both the 

prekindergarten and toddler levels. The increase can be attributed, in part, to better aligned resources 

and strong professional development. 

• More early childhood program classrooms are embracing best practices. Louisiana has seen a 

significant increase in the number of sites using a high-quality curriculum, from 48 percent in 

2015-2016 to 77 percent in 2016-2017. In addition, more child care teachers are certified to teach than 

ever before. 

Specifically, for sites that were funded to offer seats through the grant, 80% of returning programs 

improved their overall score in 2016-2017 from the practice year. 78% of sites serving children through the 

grant scored Proficient and above in 2016-2017. For Year 3, 76% of sites serving children through the grant 

scored Proficient and above in 2016-2017. These data reflect higher levels of quality and improvement than 
ED 524B Page 6 of 34

statewide trends, and, given the diverse delivery of seats in high-need areas, show the benefit of the grant for 

Louisiana classrooms, communities, and children. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

professionalism within the child care field. Finally, the Department offers several professional development 

opportunities that bring together leaders, principals, teachers, and directors from the birth-to third grade 

pathway, including quarterly collaboratives held regionally across the state and a statewide multi-day Teacher 

Leader summit, held in early June in New Orleans. These state sponsored professional development 

opportunities incorporate both lessons from the field and opportunites to collaborate across regions and ages. 

Coordinated Enrollment 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

early childhood care and education programs; and 

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

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

highest ranked preference available). 

Building on State Progress 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

(NSECD) program. 

 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 pre-K. Moreover, these pre-K programs have a 

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

indicated by: 

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

• Higher scores on statewide tests in the 3rd and 8th grades (LEAP and iLEAP in 2012); and 
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• 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 pre-K, but have done so through multiple, fragmented funding streams and 

applications for families. The Louisiana Legislature enacted Act 3(2012) to address the fragmentation and unify 

the system to drive better child outcomes across all programs, and create a coordinated enrollment system for 

families. 

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

requirements for these two programs. 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. 

 The Department conducts an annual shared process for communities to indicate family demand for 

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

offered in communities where family demand exceeded the amount of publicly-funded seats available. 

Challenges 

Subgrantees offered 50% of the Year 3 seats in diverse settings, supporting parent choice. The 

Department supported subgrantees through collaboration sessions, materials, check-ins, and other resources 

to build successful partnerships between LEAs and centers. These centers are partners with the Lead Agencies 

in their local community networks, which further facilitated diverse placement of seats and support of family 

demand. Many of the challenges faced in offering these partnerships included logistical hurdles of sharing 

ownership of classes and transportation. As a result of these conversations over the past three years, 

subgrantees and the Department are building on lessons learned to develop recommendations and resources 

for partnerships between schools and centers that will be provided to future grantees to support their 

partnerships as well. An additional challenge the state faces is the lack of an accountability technology system 

that unifies the diverse publicly-funded early childhood programs and their supports which the state is working 

to build. Sustaining the grant beyond Year 4 is a challenge the Department continues to work on, particularly in 

centers providing diverse delivery of classes, who built up capacity to offer high quality programs. 

 Conclusion 

In Year 3, 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 also works with local providers to coordinate the myriad early childhood funding streams. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

childhood services. In Year 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. At full scale in year four, the grant funding will reduce the statewide gap 
ED 524B Page 8 of 34

between seats requested by parents and seats provided by 36 percent. 
ED 524B Page 9 of 34

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. 08/31/2020

Section A: Performance Objectives Information and Related Performance Measures Data 

(narrative) 

1. Project Objective

Grantee State: LA PR/Award #: S419B150035

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, 2017.

In the third year of the grant, sixteen diverse communities across the state of Louisiana were funded to 

enroll 1,440 at-risk four-year-old children in traditional and mixed delivery settings. At-risk children are defined 

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

in foster care, who are English language learners, and/or experiencing homelessness. Although pre-K 

enrollment is transient and often changing, 91% of the grant-funded seats were filled as of December 1. These 

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

schools, supporting parent choice of high-quality pre-K programs. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

community across the state a performance profile. These performance profiles include a rating based on 

rigorous classroom observations using the CLASSTM system of measures. Performance profiles also include 

information on best practices that measure important quality inputs, including use of ongoing assessment and 

a high-quality curriculum, the education and certifications of teachers, and program investment in high levels 

of individual attention for children. These profiles provide families with key information about all sites and 

community networks serving children through public funds. All sites participating in the PreK Expansion Grant 

received a performance profile based on their 2016-2017 CLASSTM scores and informational metrics. 

In line with Bulletin 140, the sixteen 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 
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4. Matching Based on Preference: Enroll at-risk children, using available public funds, based upon stated 

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

their highest ranked preference available). 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

seats throughout the year. Beginning in the spring and continuing throughout the fall, the sixteen 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 sixteen subgrantees for the third year of the grant have worked to achieve full 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

2018-2019, and highlight key planning decisions, available resources, and available funds for the upcoming 

year. 

In the third year of the grant, sixteen diverse communities across the state of Louisiana were funded to 

enroll 1,440 at-risk children in traditional and mixed delivery settings. At-risk children are defined as children in 

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

English language learners, and/or experiencing homelessness. The twelve subgrantees from Year 2 were joined 

by four new subgrantees for Year 3, and represent both rural and urban communities, now covering areas 

across the entire state: Caddo, Calcasieu, City of Monroe (Ouachita), Concordia, East Baton Rouge, Grant, 

Iberville, Jefferson, Lafayette, Lincoln, Orleans, Plaquemines, Rapides, St. John, Tangipahoa and Union. While 

these 1,440 grant-funded seats were mainly offered in child care centers in partnership with local school 

districts or charter schools, a few communities chose to offer seats in their local Head Start. These options 

provided more opportunities to support parent choice of high-quality pre-K programs. Additionally, over 2,029 

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. 

 Through Louisiana's early childhood performance profiles, the quality of early childhood sites is measured and 

communicated. These profiles measure the quality of teacher-child interactions that will prepare children for 

kindergarten and beyond. The 2016-2017 early childhood performance profiles indicate: 

• All program types improved their average performance scores. Of the roughly 1,500 early childhood 

centers, Head Start programs and prekindergarten sites to receive performance profiles in 2016-2017, 

nearly 70 percent provided children with care and instruction at levels that research shows promote 

kindergarten readiness. That is an improvement from last year, when about 60 percent of sites did. 

What's more: There is at least one Excellent-rated site in more than a third of the state's 65 community 
ED 524B Page 11 of 34

networks. 

• Statewide average scores improved in all measured areas. Louisiana early childhood sites saw 

improvements across the board, from classroom climate to organization to instruction, at both the 

prekindergarten and toddler levels. The increase can be attributed, in part, to better aligned resources 

and strong professional development. 

• More early childhood program classrooms are embracing best practices. Louisiana has seen a 

significant increase in the number of sites using a high-quality curriculum, from 48 percent in 

2015-2016 to 77 percent in 2016-2017. In addition, more child care teachers are certified to teach than 

ever before. 

Specifically, for sites that were funded to offer seats through the grant, 80% of returning programs 

improved their overall score in 2016-2017 from the practice year. 78% of sites serving children through the 

grant scored Proficient and above in 2016-2017. For Year 3, 76% of sites serving children through the grant 

scored Proficient and above in 2016-2017. These data reflect higher levels of quality and improvement than 

statewide trends, and, given the diverse delivery of seats in high-need areas, show the benefit of the grant for 

Louisiana classrooms, communities, and children. Through the grant, the state, as well as lead agencies, 

continues to provide supports to sites to improve to proficiency and beyond.

Please describe, as required in Program Requirement (k)(2) in the Notice Inviting Applicants (NIA), 

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

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

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

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

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

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

information on ALL structural elements.

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

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

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

each of the sixteen 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 9,443 children age 4 with disabilities in a regular education program. About 4% of the 

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

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

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 Early Steps (Part C) counterparts. One 

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

(3-5 year-old) services on or before the child's third birthday. As part of the monitoring processes for the OSEP 

reporting, the Department verifies that programs have 100% compliance with this indicator and requires a Plan 

of Action to ensure that in the future, transitions do occur in a timely manner. 

Increasing Inclusion 

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

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

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

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

to improve oral language proficiencies; 
ED 524B Page 12 of 34

• 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, inclusion deepens processes for collaboration and coordination between regular education and 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

learners. Ten of the twelve grantees from Year 2 participated in this grant, including Caddo, Calcasieu, East 

Baton Rouge, Grant, Iberville, Jefferson, Lafayette, Orleans, Ouachita (City of Monroe), and Tangipahoa. 

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 pre-K providers, the 

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

Department has designed and posted transition booklets for communities to use as a guide to ensure timely 

transitions. 

 This year, the Department released Louisiana's Pre-K through Third Grade guidebook to provide additional 

information about pre-K to grade three alignment. This guidebook provides site and system leaders with 

information and guidance on creating strong plans for their schools that ensure quality and continuity of 

proven practices across pre-K through third grade, so children and families experiences smooth and effective 

transitions, thrive in early elementary years, and achieve mastery in reading and math in third grade and 

beyond. This guidebook also provides information for sites on using formal diagnostic assessments for 

identification and differentiation. 
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Describe the State's progress in increasing the number and percentage of Eligible Children served in 

High-Quality Preschool Programs funded by the grant.

As a result of PreK Expansion Grant funding, Louisiana will increase pre-K seats to serve more than 4,500 

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

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

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

the grant, 1440 seats were funded in High-Quality Pre-K 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%. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Through collaborative leadership partnerships that communities have already worked to build, center directors 

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

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

community as a whole to recruit children and determine eligibility for programs. Families completed one 

unified application for all programs in the community, including the grant-funded classrooms, and were 

matched to programs based on their preferences. 

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

comprehensive services, coaching, professional development, and resources, were local choices guided by the 

state's framework to improve program quality. Subgrantees were required to ensure that the grant funded 

classrooms and improved classrooms were receiving on-going, job-embedded coaching around teacher-child 

interactions. Funds were additionally used to support quality improvements, including high-quality 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 has worked to unify its early childhood system and improve kindergarten readiness. To address a 

fragmented early childhood system that prepares only 54% of children for kindergarten, Louisiana passed Act 

3(2012) to unify pre-K, Head Start, and child care programs into a statewide early childhood network. In June 

2015, the State Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE) passed Bulletin 140: Louisiana Early 

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

that defines expectations for all publicly-funded programs within local community networks. These local 

networks, which are expected to serve all publicly-funded at-risk children birth to five, are empowered to pilot 

innovative approaches to increasing quality and improving access. This policy was the result of engagement of 

both local and national stakeholders, review and feedback from the state's Early Childhood Advisory Council, 

and lessons learned from initial pilot approaches to implementing Act 3(2012). 

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

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

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

the state's Child Care Development Fund, with a Lead Agency serving as fiscal agent. While most of these seats 

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

the community relationships with Head Start have been important in providing comprehensive services for 

children served through the grant. Lead Agencies representing each community network across the state are 

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

childhood programs under a unified system of academic and development standards, enrollment, and teacher 
ED 524B Page 14 of 34

preparation expectations. Community Networks are required to: 

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

public pre-K and nonpublic pre-K leaders; 

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

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

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

For the first time, Louisiana released performance data on all publicly funded early childhood programs, 

including early childhood centers, Head Start and prekindergarten in fall 2017. This information: 

• measures core elements needed for positive child outcomes; 

• provides a clear and focused path to improvement; and 

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

 

With the implementation of the federal Every Student Succeeds Act, Louisiana seized the opportunity to 

collaborate with educators, parents, business and community leaders statewide to create and report on an 

improved education system that provides all students with equal access and opportunity to high-quality 

learning. Part of that strategy was to create a user-friendly platform able to host a wide array of information on 

school and center quality, and present that data in a way that was both transparent and easy to understand. In 

fall 2017, the Department released all K-12 report cards and early childhood performance profiles via 

www.louisianaschools.com. The overall performance ratings for early childhood performance profiles are 

derived from an observation-based evaluation system and reported in four categories--Excellent, Proficient, 

Approaching Proficient and Unsatisfactory. In addition to the overall rating, the performance profiles provide a 

snapshot of each center's educator workforce, student-to-teacher ratios, and curriculum quality. 

 

Among its many features, the Louisiana School Finder provides families with: 

• school performance scores and early childhood performance ratings that show how well schools and 

centers are preparing students for the next grade-level; 

• listings of course offerings, clubs, enrichment and extracurricular activities; 

• a comparison tool and filters to allow users to customize their search and identify the schools and early 

childhood centers that are the right fit for their child; and 

• basic information about schools and centers, such as their address, website, hours of operation, and 

principal or director's name. 

 

 The 2016-2017 early childhood performance profiles indicate: 

• All program types improved their average performance scores. Of the roughly 1,500 early childhood 

centers, Head Start programs and prekindergarten sites to receive performance profiles in 2016-2017, 

nearly 70 percent provided children with care and instruction at levels that research shows promote 

kindergarten readiness. That is an improvement from last year, when about 60 percent of sites did. 

What's more: There is at least one Excellent-rated site in more than a third of the state's 65 community 

networks. 

• Statewide average scores improved in all measured areas. Louisiana early childhood sites saw 

improvements across the board, from classroom climate to organization to instruction, at both the 

prekindergarten and toddler levels. The increase can be attributed, in part, to better aligned resources 

and strong professional development. 

• More early childhood program classrooms are embracing best practices. Louisiana has seen a 

significant increase in the number of sites using a high-quality curriculum, from 48 percent in 

2015-2016 to 77 percent in 2016-2017. In addition, more child care teachers are certified to teach than 
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ever before. 

Specifically, for sites that were funded to offer seats through the grant, 80% of returning programs 

improved their overall score in 2016-2017 from the practice year. 78% of sites serving children through the 

grant scored Proficient and above in 2016-2017. For Year 3, 76% of sites serving children through the grant 

scored Proficient and above in 2016-2017. These data reflect higher levels of quality and improvement than 

statewide trends, and, given the diverse delivery of seats in high-need areas, show the benefit of the grant for 

Louisiana classrooms, communities, and children. 

 

 

 

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 2017-18 school year.

State PreK Program Enrollment 

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

progress in providing high-quality pre-K programs through public and nonpublic providers. Louisiana's primary 

state-funded pre-K program, LA 4, has a history of quality and achievement, with research demonstrating 

lasting cognitive benefits to children through the eighth grade. In addition to LA 4, the state provides parents of 

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 1,340 children through NSECD, 

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

Pre-K programs is stable from last year. The additional 1440 seats offered through the PreK Expansion Grant 

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

children served in the 2017-2018 school year. Closing the gap between parent demand for and availability of 

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

more than three-fourths ($23.7M) of the grant to create new seats. 

State Efforts to Improve Early Childhood Quality and Access 

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

approach set out in 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. For each community, the state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE) approves a Lead 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

representing each community network across the state are creating cross-sector teams to unite around the 
ED 524B Page 16 of 34

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

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

Networks are required to: 

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

public pre-K and nonpublic pre-K leaders; 

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

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

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

Quality Rating and Improvement System 

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

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

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

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

to observe every PreK and Toddler classroom in publicly-funded sites twice annually. 

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

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

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

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

To provide support to districts and programs in selecting high-quality curriculum, the Department has 

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

and alignment with the state's Early Learning and Development Standards (ELDS). Over 35 reviews of early 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

child care centers receiving CCDF. 

 This year, the Department released Louisiana's Pre-K through Third Grade guidebook to provide additional 

information about pre-K to grade three alignment. This guidebook provides site and system leaders with 

information and guidance on creating strong plans for their schools that ensure quality and continuity of 

proven practices across pre-K through third grade, so children and families experiences smooth and effective 

transitions, thrive in early elementary years, and achieve mastery in reading and math in third grade and 

beyond. Along with this resource to align pre-k to grade three practices, the Department released a birth- totwelfth grade guide to purchasing professional development, focused on supporting the field to purchase 

training that will help them to implement a high-quality curriculum. The Department has a birth-to-twelfth 

grade curriculum review process that results in a curriculum being rated as Tier 1, 2, or 3, depending on quality 

and alignment with the Louisiana ELDS. To support local programs and communities in their curriculum 

selection process, the reviews are posted publicly on the Department's website, along with negotiated rates 

that any program in Louisiana can use to purchase a Tier 1 curriculum. With a large emphasis over the past two 

years on acquiring a high quality curriculum, the Department has now begun to consider what implementation 

of a high-quality curriculum should look like across program settings and age levels. The Department has 

developed a birth-to-twelfth grade Curriculum Implementation Scale. By providing these aligned resources to 
ED 524B Page 17 of 34

promote quality from birth through twelfth grade, the Department is supporting an intentional pathway for 

improvement that promotes collaboration between early childhood and early elementary programs. 
ED 524B Page 18 of 34

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 3 APR, grantees will provide disaggregated data on the school readiness of the children enrolled 

and served by the grant. This may include information collected about the children enrolled and received 

services by the grant during the 2016-17 preschool year. States may provide data from a sample of children 

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

In the Year 3 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 
ED 524B Page 19 of 34

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. The Department is pursuing using funding, 

including the PreK Expansion Grant state set-aside, to build an early childhood accountability technology 

system. The system will serve as a single source of meaningful information for state agencies, providers, and 

families and allow linkages between early childhood programs and elementary school education. These 

linkages will cross child care, Head Start, and state pre-K programs, and will also link with the statewide 

longitudinal data systems as well. Without the early childhood accountability technology system, there is 

currently no way to link pre-K experiences with any Kindergarten Entrance Assessment (KEA) results. 

Assessments, Training, and Test Quality: 

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

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

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

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

results are used by teachers for planning purposes. In addition to the DSC, state policy requires a literacy 

screener such as DIBELS-Next to be used in kindergarten. Current statewide kindergarten readiness based on 

the literacy screener is 54%. The DSC is administered the week before children start Kindergarten; the literacy 

screener is administered within the first 30 days of school. The child's teacher administers both assessments. 

 

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

kindergarten readiness, the Department funded the use of GOLD by Teaching Strategies for the 2016-2017 

school year for all publicly-funded early childhood programs. A third-party study demonstrated that GOLD is 

95% aligned with the state's birth-to-five Early Learning and Development Standards (ELDS). State pre-K 

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

developmentally appropriate assessment and report checkpoint levels three times during the school year. 

Since the first pilot approaches to implementing Act 3 (2012), the Department has provided local community 

networks funds to support training for teachers on GOLD, and as well provides technical assistance to teachers 

and supervisors. The Department will continue to support programs to use developmentally appropriate 

assessment as a tool to achieve kindergarten readiness in future years of the grant. All PreK Expansion Grant 

classrooms are currently using GOLD as a formative assessment. 

 

Plans for Year 4 Reporting: 

Louisiana continues to make progress in meeting this GPRA measure as it transitions statewide to a new 

Kindergarten Readiness Assessment (KRA). After successful pilots the previous school year, the state approved 

two new KRAs: Gold Survey and the Desired Results Developmental Profile (DRDP). Both assessments measure 

Language and Literacy, Social-Emotional, Approaches to Learning/Cognitive, Math, and Physical development. 

Pilot results found that the DRDP and Gold Survey items and results are strongly correlated. For the current 

school year, 17 school systems selected Gold, 63 selected DRDP, and 26 continued to use the state's previously 

approved assessment from 1987, the Developing Skills Checklist (DSC). The DSC will be completely phased out 

at the end of this school year and these 26 school systems will use one of the new assessments next school 
ED 524B Page 20 of 34

year. The state continues to offer technical assistance to support school systems to use the new assessments 

effectively. 
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For Preschool Development Grants - Development Grants States ONLY: 

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

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

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

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

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

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

responses.

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

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

programs. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

larger project with a more complicated structure, but it will ultimately allow for a more seamless longitudinal 

analysis of programs and better support the Department's efforts to move towards a unified birth-to-twelve 

system. 

The Department has contracted with TCC in an effort to develop a comprehensive birth to grade 12 system 

which will include the longitudinal accountability system. TCC has extensive experience in early childhood in 

several states. 

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. 

Work with TCC began in January 2018. It is anticipated that the system will be released in three phases with 

the first release in fall/winter 2018 and will be completed in its entirety in approximately 3 years. 
ED 524B Page 23 of 34

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;

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.
ED 524B Page 24 of 34

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 

3 of the PreK Expansion Grant, Louisiana partnered with sixteen local community networks to implement highquality pre-K programs. The Department 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, Calcasieu, City of Monroe (Ouachita), Concordia, East Baton Rouge, Grant, Iberville, Jefferson, 

Lafayette, Lincoln, Orleans, Plaquemines, Rapides, St. John, Tangipahoa, and Union. These communities are a 

mix of rural and urban parishes and represent geographical diversity in the state. The state selected these 

subgrantees to ensure new pre-K seats will be allocated to high-need communities that will be able to increase 

family choice and access to high-quality programs. Though the state is focusing on expanding pre-K programs, 

grant funding is also used to improve current seats as well. Grant-funded seats are aligned to the state pre-K 

program, and meet all the quality requirements of the state pre-K program. 

 

Approach to Implementing High-Quality Seats 

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

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

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

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

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

 

Structural Elements 

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

to meet the following high-quality requirements: 

 

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 



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 pre-K programs offer, Lead 
ED 524B Page 25 of 34

Agencies were able to leverage both their program partners and their community partners in their networks. 

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

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

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

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

 

Grant-funded Improvements 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

classrooms and child care centers serving children through CCDF. 

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

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

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

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

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

kindergarten classrooms. 

 

Additional Quality Requirements for State PreK Programs 

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

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

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

observations, which involves conducting two CLASSTM observations annually for each classroom in all publiclyfunded sites. Approximately 1,200 observers completed at least one observation in 2016-2017, showing the 

increase in local capacity to understand high-quality in early childhood classrooms. Most importantly, every site 

now has a common frame of understanding of what high-quality early childhood instructions and interactions 

should look like. 

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

In Louisiana, the quality of teacher-child outcomes is considered just as important as the structural inputs, 

and a specific emphasis on improving teacher-child interactions is evident in all components of support and 

accountability provided to these programs. The Department is focused on achieving proficiency across all 

publicly-funded programs - a necessary level of quality of interactions to achieve kindergarten readiness for all 

children. 

The 2016-2017 early childhood performance profiles indicate: 

• All program types improved their average performance scores. Of the roughly 1,500 early childhood 

centers, Head Start programs and prekindergarten sites to receive performance profiles in 2016-2017, 

nearly 70 percent provided children with care and instruction at levels that research shows promote 
ED 524B Page 26 of 34

kindergarten readiness. That is an improvement from last year, when about 60 percent of sites did. 

What's more: There is at least one Excellent-rated site in more than a third of the state's 65 community 

networks. 

• Statewide average scores improved in all measured areas. Louisiana early childhood sites saw 

improvements across the board, from classroom climate to organization to instruction, at both the 

prekindergarten and toddler levels. The increase can be attributed, in part, to better aligned resources 

and strong professional development. 

• More early childhood program classrooms are embracing best practices. Louisiana has seen a 

significant increase in the number of sites using a high-quality curriculum, from 48 percent in 

2015-2016 to 77 percent in 2016-2017. In addition, more child care teachers are certified to teach than 

ever before. 

Specifically, for sites that were funded to offer seats through the grant, 80% of returning programs 

improved their overall score in 2016-2017 from the practice year. 78% of sites serving children through the 

grant scored Proficient and above in 2016-2017. For Year 3, 76% of sites serving children through the grant 

scored Proficient and above in 2016-2017. These data reflect higher levels of quality and improvement than 

statewide trends, and, given the diverse delivery of seats in high-need areas, show the benefit of the grant for 

Louiiana classrooms, communities, and children. 

 

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

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

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

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

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

program guidelines. 

Selection Criteria (D)(4) from NIA 

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

In year 3, sixteen communities were funded through the grant to offer 1440 seats to at-risk families. Although 

state pre-K 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 pre-K. Louisiana's primary state-funded pre-K program, LA 4, and its nonpublic pre-K 

program, NSECD, funds each seat for pre-K at $4,580. Pre-K seats provided through the grant were funded at a 

per child rate of $5,185, which is the state funding rate for a kindergarten seat. This is an important step 

toward funding quality, especially toward ensuring pre-K teachers are compensated equally with K-12 teachers. 

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 3, 

grantees exceeded their target, using funds to improve 2,029 seats. For Year 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. 
ED 524B Page 27 of 34

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

of the application) 

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

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

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

and LEAs or other Early Learning Providers, as appropriate.

Overview 

 In Year 3, the Department partnered with sixteen subgrantees that represent both rural and urban 

communities from different areas of the state: Caddo, Calcasieu, City of Monroe (Ouachita), Concordia, East 

Baton Rouge, Grant, Iberville, Jefferson, Lafayette, Lincoln, Orleans, Plaquemines, Rapides, St. John, 

Tangipahoa and Union. In 2015, Louisiana fully implemented Act 3 through the state Board of Elementary and 

Secondary Education (BESE) policy Bulletin 140, which established a statewide network comprised of 65 local 

community networks across the state. Each local community formed a network, which is a consortium of all 

publicly-funded early childhood programs within that community: public and nonpublic Pre-K, Head Start, and 

child care centers receiving CCAP. For each community, BESE approves a Lead Agency to fulfill the expectations 

for coordinated observations, which involves conducting two CLASSTM observations for each classroom in all 

publicly-funded sites, and coordinated enrollment, which involves convening all publicly-funded providers to 

simplify enrollment processes for at-risk families. The Department works closely with each Lead Agency to 

support them to meet all expectations of Bulletin 140. 

 

The sixteen subgrantees enjoy strong partnerships with the Department that were built over five years. The 

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

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

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

support, technical assistance, planning templates, and feedback specific to implementing the PreK Expansion 

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

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

 

The Department partners with diverse communities, including the state's largest parishes like Orleans, East 

Baton Rouge, Calcasieu, Lafayette, Rapides, Caddo, and Ouachita, as well as some of the state's most rural 

parishes, including Union, Lincoln, Concordia, and Grant. Communities from the north, south, east, and west 

are all represented. Additionally, lower-performing communities that are considered high-needs parishes, 

including Concordia and Grant, were selected for the grant as opportunities to fund improvement aligned to 

the state's rating system and offer high-quality pre-K classroom options in those parishes. By partnering with 

these communities through this grant, the Department is increasing its connections with these communities in 

order to better support progress and improvement. 

 

Progress by Topics 

1) Roles and Responsibilities: The Department 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 
ED 524B Page 28 of 34

for their funds and submit for reimbursements. 

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

programs: The Department supported subgrantees to offer grant-funded seats through diverse 

providers in myriad ways. These supports included: 

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

partnerships and learn lessons from Year 2 of the grant; 

- 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 Department 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 pre-K programs. Additionally, all 

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

state-funded pre-K programs. 

 

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

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

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

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

consultants at the end of each checkpoint period; 

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

CLASSTM system and accessible to sites and Lead Agencies; 

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

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

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 pre-K programs: BESE Bulletin 140 requires all publicly-funded 

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

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

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

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

grant-funded sites and classrooms. 

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

supported subgrantees to offer PreK Expansion Grant seats through mixed delivery in child care 
ED 524B Page 29 of 34

settings that serve both at-risk and tuition paying families. In Year 3 of the grant, subgrantees have 

offered 50% of the seats in child care centers, supporting the integration of eligible children within 

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

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

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

8) Delivery of high-quality pre-K programs to children in need of additional supports: Across the state, 

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

funding to support inclusion practices, with each of the sixteen 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 pre-K providers, the Department 

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

Department has designed and posted transition booklets for communities to use as a guide to ensure 

timely transitions. 

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

communication and outreach strategies to: 

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

coordinated enrollment efforts; 

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

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

Their efforts to coordinate enrollment includes implementing coordinated information campaigns 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

quality options, the state seeks to start every child on track for success. All publicly-funded sites in every 

community across the state received a performance rating and profile displaying the same informational 

metrics. 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. 

 

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 new Louisiana School and 

Center Finder, Louisiana Department of Education website, newsletters, and information phone numbers. 

Families are able to become familiar with the strategies to access information about their child's education, 

whether that is at a child care center, pre-K program, or elementary school. 

 

Each region in Louisiana has a local community network, which are consortia of all publicly-funded early 
ED 524B Page 30 of 34

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Families then participate in a coordinated eligibility determination, coordinated application, and are finally 

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, with the new School and Center Finder, the Department has developed an expanded consumer 

education website for families that are seeking information about programs in their region. Families now can 

easily access all provider information across programs from their own homes or computers. 

 

As part of its multi-year effort to unify early childhood, Louisiana has created one statewide rating and 

improvement system for all publicly-funded early childhood programs. This system will help ensure every child 

has access to a classroom with high quality interactions and instructions, by using the research-based 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 are now able to measure and discuss quality for every 

provider in a consistent, developmentally appropriate, and rigorous manner. Through the performance 

profiles, the state provides information on quality, including both the CLASS measure and classroom best 

practices (e.g., use of aligned curriculum and assessment, ratios, teacher preparation) for each site and 

community network. The previous QRIS has fully transitioned 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. 

Additionally, through the state's emphasis on completing observations locally, the 1,200 trained observers for 

the system includes many principals, who are now better able to recognize and support quality in early 

childhood classrooms. 

 

All children participating in publicly-funded early learning programs have access to a teacher that is familiar 

with and can utilize Louisiana's Early Learning and Development Standards. These standards are aligned with 

the academic expectations for kindergarten. Eligible children that are attending high quality pre-K have access 

to curricula that prepare children to succeed as measured by the Early Learning Developmental Standards. 

 

Louisiana is also developing and launching the beginnings of a Birth to Kindergarten Pathway for new teachers. 

The Birth to Kindergarten Pathway will promote articulation and credential achievements over time for 

teachers working in child care, Head Start, and pre-K settings. Louisiana has developed a Birth to Kindergarten 

Career Pathway that begins with an Early Childhood Ancillary Certificate and ends with a Birth to Kindergarten 

teaching license that can be used to work in the public school system. Through a series of stackable degrees 

and coursework, early childhood teachers that attend participating teacher preparation programs that offer the 

statewide curriculum will have the opportunity to build their credentials over time. Teachers that complete 

coursework that is offered by an approved teacher preparation program will be able to transfer courses 

between participating two and four year postsecondary institutions in order to build their professional 

education over time. Each of the degrees within the voluntary statewide curriculum is aligned to meet the 

requirement for the Early Childhood Ancillary Certificate. The Early Childhood Ancillary Certificate is the 

teaching credential required for all lead teachers in publicly funded child care centers by 2019, and can be 

earned by successfully completing the foundational coursework for the statewide curriculum. Beginning in June 

2018, all teachers will be expected to complete coursework for their Early Childhood Ancillary Certificate at a 

higher education or private provide teacher preparation program that has been approved by the Board of 

Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE). Through the requirement to complete coursework at a BESEapproved Early Childhood Ancillary Certificate Program program, Louisiana will ensure that all child care 

teachers are receiving high-quality training and practice experience that prepares them with the competencies 
ED 524B Page 31 of 34

required to excel in their jobs. To encourage the development of a diverse pool of high-quality early childhood 

teacher preparation programs, the Department has launched a grant opportunity entitled Believe and Prepare: 

Early Childhood. This competitive grant provides up to $30,000 of startup funding to preparation programs that 

present high-quality proposals for designing and implementing teacher preparation coursework that is aligned 

with the Birth to Kindergarten Pathway. Through Believe and Prepare: Early Childhood, Louisiana has now 

approved 14 BESE-approved Early Childhood Ancillary Certificate Program, with the expectation of approving 

six more this spring. 

 

Louisiana provides support to ensure that curricula, professional development, and assessments are all aligned 

with state standards and all three are high quality. As an example, to help districts choose curricula, Louisiana 

provides online annotated reviews of infant/toddler, PreK and K-3 curriculum. Materials are rated on a threepoint scale: Tier 1 exemplifies quality, Tier 2 is approaching quality and Tier 3 does not represent quality. All 

Tier 1 programs receive a state contract, which makes it easier for districts to procure them. When it comes to 

professional development, the state only recommends vendors that have made an explicit link between their 

offerings and curricula that's been rated Tier 1. The state also ensures assessments are strongly correlated and 

skills observed or measured build on one another so teachers can see children's developmental progress. 

The Department has completed curriculum reviews for over 35 early childhood curricula, and continues to 

review curricula submitted by districts and vendors to determine their alignment with quality indicators. The 

instructional materials and curriculums are extensively reviewed to ensure their alignment with Louisiana's 

Birth to Kindergarten Early Learning and Development Standards, which are directly aligned with the standards 

for students in Kindergarten. All program types are encouraged to select and implement a Tier 1 curriculum 

that is found to be of high-quality and is aligned with the Early Learning and Development Standards. For the 

past two years, the Department has offered the Child Care Curriculum Initiative, which supports every publiclyfunded child care center in the state to purchase two high-quality curriculum kits by reimbursing 80% of the 

cost at a maximum of $4,000. These purchases are accompanied by a Curriculum 101 training offered through 

local Resource and Referral agencies, to ensure that teachers are supported to use these materials in their 

classrooms to support high-quality instruction and interactions. 

 

Louisiana also encourages alignment with in a birth-grade 3 continuum through its Striving Readers grant, 

which requires districts to provide support structures through feeder partnerships to ensure successful 

transitions for children between infant-toddler to preschool, preschool to Kindergarten, and kindergarten to 

grades K-3. 

 

This year, the Department released Louisiana's Pre-K through Third Grade Guidebook to provide additional 

information about pre-K to grade three alignment. This guidebook provides site and system leaders with 

information and guidance on creating strong plans for their schools that ensure quality and continuity of 

proven practices across pre-K through third grade so children and families experience smooth and effective 

transitions, thrive in the early elementary years, and achieve mastery in reading and math in third grade and 

beyond. 

 

Collaboration between pre-K and kindergarten teachers is promoted by the shared professional development 

events that take place four times a year at various statewide locations through a series of professional 

development entitled Teacher Leaders. Louisiana has four quarterly state approved and facilitated statewide 

training sessions called the Teacher Leader Collaboratives. The Teacher Leader Collaboratives are intended to 

bring together a selection of teacher's birth to 12 classrooms to complete sessions that provide opportunities 

to learn and practice new instructional strategies and participate in collaboration. These sessions promote 

connections between teachers from various backgrounds. In the spring, the Department 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 discuss 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. 

 

 
ED 524B Page 32 of 34

Section A: Part C - Competitive Preference Priorities

Competitive Preference Priority 1: Contributing Matching Funds (if included in the State's 

approved application). 

Describe the progress the State has made on its credible plan for obtaining and using non-Federal 

matching funds to support the implementation of its ambitious and achievable plan during the grant 

period. For progress not made in this area, please describe the State's strategies to ensure that 

measurable progress will be made by the end of the grant period. Please describe any changes made 

to the data reported in Table 7(a); explain if your Year 3 Target differs from the Year 3 Actual.

Louisiana continues to make progress on meeting the state match described in its plan. The state is currently 

using non-federal money to support the community network activities, including coordinated observations and 

coordinated enrollment, by allocating these funds to Lead Agencies to support them to meet their requirements. 

The Department additionally uses non-federal funding to contract with a third party to conduct CLASSTM

observations and provide feedback to teachers to support improvement in interactions and instructions. The 

Department uses non-federal funds to support statewide access to GOLD, the statewide formative assessment 

in birth-to-five classrooms. Finally, the Department utilizes non-federal funding for state-level infrastructure to 

support the early childhood work occurring in the field. Through these endeavors, the Department is meeting the 

required state-level match to support implementation of Louisiana's ambitious and achievable plan.

Competitive Preference Priority 2: Supporting the Continuum of Early Learning and 

Development (if included in the State's approved application). 

Describe progress made in creating a more seamless progression of supports and interventions from 

birth through third grade, such as high-quality infant and toddler care, home visitation, full-day 

kindergarten, and before and after care services for, at a minimum, a defined cohort of eligible children 

and their families within each high need community served by each Subgrantee. For progress not 

made in these areas, please describe the State's strategies to ensure that measurable progress will be 

made by the end of the grant period.

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

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

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

statewide early childhood network. The state's early childhood efforts support an early childhood continuum 

that begins at birth, including a unified quality rating and improvement system for all publicly-funded early 

childhood programs and a coordinated enrollment system serving all at-risk children birth-to-five. In fall 2017, 

every publicly-funded program received a performance rating and profile, released through Louisiana School 

and Center Finder, 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. This platform also 

includes information about K-12 schools, so families are seeking information about all birth-to-twelve programs 

in one place - creating a more seamless process for communities. 

All subgrantees funded by the grant are observing all toddler classrooms in Early Head Start and child care 

centers accepting CCDF using the CLASSTM tool, and are providing feedback and results to support 

improvement. Subgrantees have also included these programs in their coordinated enrollment process that 

includes a coordinated information campaign and a streamlined eligibility and application process for all at-risk 

families. In addition, the Department has begun a pilot of the Infant CLASS tool in around thirty classrooms 

across the state, to better understand the tool, the process to use the tool within a system, and how best to 

use the information provided by those observations to support improvement for infant teachers. 

 As part of the work to support communities in continued improvement and implementation across the birthto-twelve spectrum, the Department releases an annual District Planning Guide. The 2017-2018 District 

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

for the upcoming school year, spanning early childhood through high school. The purpose of this tool is to 

guide planning conversations between LEAs and Department field support teams to reflect on this year's data 
ED 524B Page 33 of 34

and implement necessary changes for 2017-2018, and highlight key planning decisions, available resources, and 

available funds for the upcoming year. This guide demonstrates the Department's commitment to support 

communities in birth-to-third grade planning and coordination. 

 

In addition to these interventions, the Department has promoted an aligned birth-to-third grade pathway to 

quality and improvement through a number of initiatives, including a birth-to-twelfth grade curriculum review 

process, a birth-to-twelfth grade curriculum implementation scale, a Pre-K to Third Grade Guidebook, quarterly 

collaborative professional development opportunities, and an annual summit for teachers and leaders. 

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 97% of the grant in Year 3 to high-need communities. 76% of the grant funds were 

subgranted to create 1440 new PreK seats aligned to the state's pre-K program and meeting the definition of 

high-quality pre-K programs. 24% of the grant funds were subgranted to communities to support improvements 

to at least 130% of seats, or 1872 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, high-quality 

professional development for all staff, a full-day program, and instructional staff salaries equivalent to local 

kindergarten teachers. 
ED 524B Page 34 of 34

Section B: Budget Information

Budget and Sustainability (Section G in the application) 

1. Please provide a brief explanation of any discrepancies between the State's approved budget and 

its total expenditures for the reporting year. Explain carry-over funds that have not been expended or 

obligated from January 1, 2017 through December 31, 2017.

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

Grant budget in the upcoming fiscal year (January 1, 2018 through December 31, 2018).

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 preK programs in high-need communities. At the state level, BESE has identified priorities for additional early 

childhood funding to serve at-risk children through the funding model proposed to the state legislature, which 

was required by HCR 61. Locally, the state is partnering with subgrantees to develop plans for sustainability for 

new seats. In these plans, subgrantees will identify potential local and philanthropic funds that could be raised to 

sustain grant seats and support services. 

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, 2017 through December 31, 2017.

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 97% of its Year 3 funds to subgrantees. These 

allocations last through the state's fiscal year, and subgrantees can submit for reimbursements at any point 

during the year. Additionally, subgrantees have not yet incurred all of their costs for the school year by the end 

of the calendar year. These two points explain the discrepancy between allocations to subgrantees and actual 

expenditures, or requests for reimbursements. The state plans to carry over these unexpended funds so that 

subgrantees are supported to offer these pre-K programs through the entire 2017-18 academic year.