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Grant Applications

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Grant Applications/Responses

  • ​2022  Padma Sherni Inc. received $800 from the Delaware Division of the Arts to showcase a May dance compilation.
  • ​2021  Padma Sherni Inc. received $800 from the Delaware Division of the Arts to compile video of past events + stories
  • 2020  Padma Sherni Inc. received $2500 Believe in Reading Grant, to distribute 500 books to Head Start Schools in '21
  • ​2019  Padma Sherni Inc. received $500 from the Delaware Division of the Arts for our December 7th, 2019 event!
  • 2018 Padma Sherni Inc. received $500 from Walmart Community Foundation for Music & Literacy Promotion project!​These funds will enable us to support quality of life efforts through the Music and Literacy Promotion project, with toys or children's books.
  • 2018 to 2019 Padma Sherni Inc. received $1000 from The Pollination Project for Music & Literacy Promotion project.
  • Hooray! We were awarded the $1000 starter funding to purchase materials for our project!!!
    Thank you for your encouragement!

Institute of Coaching

Grant application, in progress
Delaware Community Foundation Grants, Small Grants.
Grant application, in progress for February, Results in April, with the application below. We will be submitting on Monday
a proposal to help ECE centers write grant applications if they are interested, and provide stipends from the DELCF grant to complete surveys, so they have free support from our nonprofit, to acquire funds for themselves.

Spencer Large Grant Application in PDF. 

The application was submitted before the due date.  We are planning to email, next week, any Letters of Support were acknowledged on Friday and through Monday. The budget is on page 35 to 36, most of the budget goes to anyone who participates including ten center directors, fifty ECE teachers, and two hundred and fifty families, across each of six cities and then some research subcontracted personnel.

#10044864 - Large Grant sub... by Pialee Roy

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Letters of Support

Letters of Support, Plan of... by Pialee Roy

Spencer Foundation Large Grant, print version.


  1. Introduction
A mixed methods quantitative and qualitative online/paper survey study for a cost benefit analysis of Early Childhood Education, ECE, teacher compensation and retention is proposed in six cities, Boston, Stamford, Camden, and Wilmington, Newark, and Philadelphia.  The project’s goal is to understand which incentive program has the best cost benefit to an ECE center for teacher compensation and retention, and optimum teacher, parent and child health and education outcomes to inform ECE quality standards, after a mix of scholarships, bonus to paychecks, TEACH or WAGE$  or INCENTIVES participation, possibly in combination with educational loans and out of pocket pay, plus career path training for teacher and parent workshops. An ECE worker can experience benefit from participating in job growth for two to five years at a center, and learn about career paths including a preschool, university, clinical setting, public health/education/ or social services government agency or nonprofit and earn loan forgiveness. For every Ten managers, Fifty Teachers, Twohundred and fifty families in each of six cities, we will evaluate how teacher incentives relate to health and education outcomes of families.
  1. Research Questions:
1. What ECE teacher characteristics relate to their participation in higher education, retention programs, and loan forgiveness programs? To what extent do specialized knowledge like teacher bilingual capability or special education training, correlate with supply and demand of teachers and ECE clients.
2. What is the cost benefit analysis of ECE center managers or states funding training for ECE provider through compensation efforts and retention programs among family day care, center-based care, and home visiting supports? What is the ECE teacher’s Willingness to pay for CDA credits, Associates Degrees or Bachelor’s degrees attainment given various payment streams. Do providers stay for at least two to five years? Are there better rates of completion of developmental assessments, parent education, and referrals to primary care/specialty care, and/or early intervention?
3. Given available funding streams per state, would ECE teachers participate in job retention activities and related career growth workshops to offer evidence based programming at ECE centers, if given the opportunity, or is the limitation of time, lack of interest, health status, or lack of completion of CDA credentials or bachelors degree a hindrance? For example, if ECE teachers were trained to provide evidence based programs, and had HR supported workshops for career growth trajectory, would they continue employment for more years and have better job satisfaction at their place of employment?
  1. Project’s significance
This study supports understanding the supply and demand of relevant teacher education for CDA, AA, BS/BA degrees or MS/MA and related certificates or evidenced based or specialized training, through utilization of incentives programs, scholarships, and loan forgiveness programs, and out of pocket pay, as it pertains to the demographic profile of child health and education demand, and consequently improved teacher compensation, retention, parent education, and child health outcomes. The second part of the study supports understanding through a cost benefit analysis, which incentive programs are most successful in retaining teachers, and provider and state agency level willingness to pay for the number of matching qualified teachers by investing and collaborating in the higher education systems and other venues, like parent education,and public health participating programs, recruitment and retention of the relevant professionals. 
Evaluation of the status of assessment completion after the pandemic has not regularly happened because center based venues were closed and the budget and demand for qualified teachers and staff to complete the task were reduced. Increasing ECE provider credentials going forward should better inform classroom quality and teachers, parent and child health and education outcomes with evidence based programming with QRIS aligned standards and Office of Child Care Licensing guidance. Past research by Roy (2018) describes: “In 2007, Delaware was last in the ranking of states for attaining developmental screenings for preschool age children. As of 2012, Delaware ranked as twenty-one, out of all states, with further effort needed (NICHQ, 2018). More recently, 2018, the rank is worse at 36th in the nation for the completion of developmental screenings (United Health Foundation, 2018). It is estimated, as of 2018, that the average percent of children who have had a developmental screenings in Delaware (23.2%) is still lower compared to the rest of the nation (27.1%), (United Health Foundation, 2018).”  Without assessments, interventions, and referrals cannot happen, so issues are left untreated for nutrition and physical activity, play, music and arts programming, and age relevant achievement or requests for early intervention, and primary care medical home or social services.
While components of these factors have been studied in the past, the specific cost benefit analysis of the utilization of retention programs like Wages and Teach and Incentives has not been evaluated thoroughly.  The results of the study therefore could be beneficial in many ways. There is significant scope to advocate for evidence based technical assistance to early education and care programs/ staff with specific activities including increasing teacher education, compensation and retention and parent education, plus training to get either referrals and interventions.
   Potentially, variety in job responsibility and increased pay for those activities could be another strategy for improving teacher compensation and retention in ECE. Past teacher retention studies, by NIEER, for example, were typically were based off of an older data set from 2012, however more recently there is data that can be utilized to review related variables in ECE quality and ECE teacher compensation and retention from 2019.  To complete all of these tasks, qualified ECE professionals are necessary. The study provides rationale for career advancement. Zero to Three, (2013), described the following:  1) DE has a revised Quality Rating Improvement System (QRIS). From prior evaluation, a new objective was established to offer specialized support to improve quality instruction in the classroom. To this end, Delaware added two Infant-Toddler specialists to its QRIS technical assistance group. 2) The ages and stages questionnaire is a standardized developmental screening tool. The state is trying to streamline its use in early childhood development programs including early care and education, child welfare, and maternal and child health programs.  Training was implemented for regular use of the tool as goal for end of 2013, (Zero to Three, 2013).  3) In order to manage challenging behaviors in young children effectively, early childhood mental health consultants were hired. 4) Regarding health care referrals, health ambassadors and a new call center have been integrated into comprehensive programming with attention to managing mental health and socioemotional and behavioral health needs, (Zero to Three, 2013). The setting of ECE according to payment type and the affordability of that type for families varies alongside of staff turnover. According to Caven,  (2021), “Using data from the 2012 National Survey of Early Care and Education, the study found turnover rates vary considerably depending on the early childhood setting. While nearly half of the early childhood centers had turnover rates below 5 percent, others had rates as high as 25–30 percent.”  Furthermore, Caven (2021) states, “ Educator turnover rates were higher in centers where some or all families paid tuition (referred to as “private-pay centers”) compared to those where no families paid. Turnover rates were also higher in centers serving children birth through age 5 than in centers serving children ages 3 to 5.”  Caven (2021) also explains “ Most private-pay centers rely on tuition payments to cover costs, including wages paid to staff. Yet most families—many of whom have suffered job losses—can’t afford to pay more for childcare. The average cost of full-time childcare has climbed to $16,000 a year.  Therefore, affordability of participating in the early education system as a consumer or teacher, depends on evaluating funding streams for that school system. 
IV. Rationale for the Project
Summary of the relevant literature
According to researchers, the field of Early Childhood Education experiences a high staff turnover rate in spite of incentive programs intended to retain high quality teachers, (Caven, 2021, and  U.S. Department of Education, 2016). Early childhood education, or ECE, teachers are difficult to retain in the classroom because their pursuit of higher educational attainment to earn a better salary, usually rewards those teachers with qualifications to work at better paying jobs and career advancement into other types of work,  (Caven, 2021, and  U.S. Department of Education, 2016). The quality of early education and care is associated with the quality of the staff in terms of their education and training and understanding of child development both in theory and practice, as well as teacher to student ratio,  (Caven, 2021 and U.S. Department of Education, 2016). Low job satisfaction and depressive symptoms, from financial woes working more than one minimum wage job may correlate with high staff turnover also, (Caven, 2021 and Roberts, A.M., Gallagher, Kathleen, C., Daro, Alexandra A., Iruka, Iheoma, U. Sarver, Susan L, 2019).  In addition, the Institute of Medicine and National Research Council’s Transforming the Workforce report  (2015) describes career pathways for needed education and professional development of ECE teachers. The findings of the study included that “ECE teachers’ skills and competencies are predictive of child outcomes and that education with specialization in early childhood development is correlated with child outcomes”.  https://nieer.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/ceelo_policy_report_ec_teach_education_policies_final_for_web_2016_04.pdf.   
In Delaware, most staff only have an associates degree instead of a bachelor’s degree and funding is needed to support higher education of staff.  Possibly, low pay for these teachers compared to elementary and high school teachers seems unjust given that the milestones achievements in preschool years are essential to the trajectory of positive child health outcomes later in life. “The national median annual wage for preschool teachers is $28,570, 55 percent of wages earned by kindergarten teachers ($51,640) and 52 percent of elementary school teachers ($54,890).” (U.S. Department of Education, 2016).  “Preschool teachers earned less than 50 percent of the annual wages earned by kindergarten teachers in 13 states (California, Connecticut, Delaware, Idaho, Iowa, Massachusetts, Ohio, Oregon, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Wisconsin, and Wyoming).”  (U.S. Department of Education, 2013).  A higher teacher compensation is associated with higher observed quality of care in a program, however, typically, staff turnover occurs within three years. The national turnover rate among early childhood staff within five years is approximately 30% compared with only 6.6% of turnover rate for public school teachers (Howes & Hamilton, 1993). 
Relationship of the Proposed Study to the Literature.   
Determining how teacher incentive programs for higher education attainment can lead to more capability and quality in the classroom will be analyzed based on willingness of an ECE provider to pay for higher quality staff at their center. Many ECE programs who participate in the QRIS stars quality rating system have a lot of teacher and center based requirements to earn and keep five stars out of five. Completion rates of developmental screenings are important because they inform levels of referrals needed for health care and parent education. Past research (Roy, 2018), has found that Head Start programs in northern Delaware, compared to similarly five star rated private preschools, offer more parent health education and twice the rate of referrals for the same level of health seeking behavior as Non Head Start attending parents. In other words, Head Start referral rates occurred twice as often as private pay settings in order to keep up with the level of health seeking behavior as higher income groups. However the connection between nonclinical settings to utilization levels of family navigation of a primary care medical home has not happened regularly. We hope to show the benefits of utilizing preventative referrals by increasing awareness and access with workshops of the availability to show where disparities exist and how intervention can reduce disparities. They can offset financial costs to emergency room overuse from lack of prior family navigation to education and mental and physical health and disability and social support at school, home, and community.
Whether or not bilingual professional staff are available to match the community demographics is a possible unmet challenge to resolve in many states. This is possibly true for both center based and home visiting supports in ECE. Improving quality in these venues are necessary because not everyone has education or health education supports at home especially with the accommodations for meeting IEP and IFSP goals and language preferred. In one study, parents who reported fewer health books at home were associated with lower parental health literacy, higher child BMI, and receiving more health care referrals for managing childhood obesity (Roy, 2018).  The study found that nutritional health literacy scores were lower among Hispanic parents who were Head Start participants even when assessments were conducted in Spanish (Roy, 2018). However, cultural notions could impact familiarity, versus comprehension about whether or not nutrition labels are utilized effectively in nutrition planning and weight management. Therefore, having culturally competent staff and not just bilingual staff may make a difference in supporting inclusivity and diversity in programming for bringing in more utilization of ECE services. The long term benefits may be for both beneficial child and family, and provider health outcomes, ECE provider retention of staff, and ECE teachers higher pay. 
The cost benefit of compensation and retention programs for ECE teachers to improve their credentials and QRIS standards alignment should help to determine how much funding an ECE center is willing to invest in their providers and to what extent the children and families benefit according to various levels of high and low utilization of primary care medical home, specialty care, health coaches, or mental health support, leisure activities, and more. Further more the potential demand can be compared to the actual demand to determine how many teachers should be prepared to provide care.  Therefore, what is ECE provider supply and demand for bilingual education, parent education, assessment, referrals, family navigators, service utilization for child health outcomes can be evaluated and assigned.  If a technical assistance intervention for health literacy and career literacy were introduced from a technical assistance center to work with center directors and HR training, would that increase the likelihood of retention of teachers, with family systems support groups for teachers, and for individual families participating in assessments and family navigation to services?
Scholarly Contribution of the Study.
Results of the study will lead to understanding about ECE teacher utilization of incentive programs according to demographic match for ECE participants. The demographic match evaluation has not happened alongside of the comparison of the utilization of incentive programs in a cost benefit analysis in order to determine what ECE centers are willing to pay for improving classroom quality according to reducing the gap between supply and demand, especially for bilingual education and special education, and coping with chronic health issues or services for low income families. Also, comparison of teacher participation in higher education according to incentive programs, will result in evaluation of ECE center training opportunities for QRIS goals alignment and completion of assessments, referral or family navigation to early intervention, and parent education and family support. The effort addresses play, nutrition and physical activity, mental and physical comprehensive health, assessment, intervention, referrals and parent education plus affiliation to primary care medical home, specialty care or other social services support including home visits and telehealth. Finally, compare teacher participation in higher education according to incentive programs to Evaluate ECE center utilization of home visiting or telehealth, and additional health and social support services for optimum provider, parent and child health outcomes.
Federal Funding & Process
Given the successes after the adoption of Head Start, which serves low income families, the program was last reauthorized to fund comprehensive early education programs for low income children with approximately $7.5 billion dollars (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2016).   In 2014, prior to the most recent reauthorization of ESEA, preschool development grants were disseminated to 18 states with $250 million in funding for 33,000 students in 200 high need communities (Lieberman & Bornfreund, 2013). The grants were a joint effort of federal level actors: the Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Education. Given in two parts, some states received development grants, while others received expansion grants for Race to the Top efforts (Lieberman & Bornfreund, 2013).  The Delaware Department of Education Office of Early Learning has a budget of $850,000 to pay for approximately 2882 workers who did not receive a supplemental benefit the previous year.

The Cost ($850,000) for the following compensation payments 
Delaware: $250 to $3000 for 1 year
Iowa: $1000-$7000 for 1 year
Minnesota: $500 to $3500 for 1 year
New Mexico: $500 to $5000 for 1 year
North Carolina: $900 to $7000 for 1 year
Tennessee: $2.1 million to give away as $5,000 retention bonuses to 361 highly-effective teachers who stayed at those schools in the 2013-14 school year (for 1 year).




SCENARIO 1: 2389 people are covered for getting an Associates degree at Del Tech for a total of 15 credits.
The cost per credit x 15 total credits x 15% after Teach pays 85%is 139.75 x 15x .15 = $314.4375 At $314.4375 spending per person for 2389 people, the total spending would be $751,191.20 towards Associates degrees.  The remaining $148,809 could be spent among 2389 people to work for 1 year with $62 bonus at the end of the year.


SCENARIO 2
There are 2389 people up to career ladder 7.5 (with or working towards an Associates degree)
If we give them each an even $100 towards a degree, we will have spent $238,900 of the $900,000 budget for the year.  So, that leaves us with a remainder of $661,100 to spend on people working towards or having a Bachelors degree or higher.  UD costs $460 per credit and $1380 per class. If TEACH covers approximately 80% then out of pocket expenses 20% $276 for costs per class. There are 461 people from career ladder 8.0 or higher working towards or with a Bachelors degree or higher. The cost of 461x276= $127,236  for each of those 461 people to have 1 college course (3 credits) paid for. So, $661,100/$127.236 = 5.19.  Therefore, we could pay for up to 5 classes for the remaining 461 people to get college credits or higher.
Eventually, some combination of supporting monthly bonuses, scholarships, incentive programs, and public service loan forgiveness programs, may help to retain ECE teachers with Associates Degrees and Bachelors degrees into career pathways within their center and eventually work with nonprofit partnerships, business, university research and teaching, and government agency work.
Policy Context.
Additionally, there are quality rating improvement systems that give five stars in a stars rated quality program to federally funded programs like Head Start, and other preschools that have earned five stars as a private pay school system.  There are several actors who participate in decision making regarding early education policies that support universal pre-k quality improvements.  The visible policy actors at the federal level include: the President of the United States, the Secretary of Education, the Department of Education and the Department of Health and Human Services.  At the local level, level, actors include the State Department of Education, and preschool directors and teachers, and advisory committees to each that include community members and families.  Initially, the 1965 Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) formation as part of the war on poverty, addressed the education needs of disadvantaged preschoolers. Consequently the Head Start program started as a way to meet the early education needs of low income children (Zygler & Styfco, 2004).
* Policy Problem: What about other income groups? And … How do we pay for more supply of teachers if we increase the demand for more early childhood education? Especially for bilingual education, nutrition and physical activity, shared reading time, and music and art programs?
* Policy Solution: Universal pre-K refers to legislative efforts and practice efforts to offer any child in the U.S. quality preschool opportunity regardless of family socioeconomic status, children’s abilities, or other factors  (White House Brief, 2013).
* Policy Status: Several states are on the path to funding universal pre-K. Race To The Top Early Learning Challenge (ELC) grant program is a policy instrument by the US Department of Education and US Department of Health and Human Services which outlines goals for implementation towards universal pre-k legislation (White House Brief, 2013).
These efforts to prepare young children for kindergarten and later learning through universal preschool and Head Start programs show that the U.S. has made great strides in acknowledging the importance of formal child development.   However, in terms of adaptation, staff participation or “buy-in” is necessary by convincing people that investing in early education is worthwhile.  ”Past research has shown that preschool participation reduces crime, supports healthy brain development, and later school achievement,” (Harvard Center for the Developing Child, 2013) . Still, the average salary for a childcare worker reflects that preschool teachers need to be valued much more:
* The salary of a Preschool teacher may be $9/hour compared to $20/hour for Elementary or Secondary School Teachers. Therefore, retaining workers and promoting their training is difficult. (Whitebrook, McClean, Austin, 2016; U.S. Department of Education, 2016). Given the low pay rate of ECE teachers, several supplemental wage programs exist. 
Conceptual Framework   a summary of the conceptual framework or theory guiding the project and how the project utilizes or builds on this framework of theory.
Naeyc (1993), describes a conceptual framework that we can utilize as a guide, calling for the following in ECE:
“1. a holistic approach to the needs of children and their families that stresses collaborative planning and service integration across traditional boundaries of child care, education, health, and social services; 
2. systems that promote and recognize quality through licensing, regulation, and accreditation; 
3. an effective system of early childhood professional development that provides meaningful opportunities for career advancement to ensure a well-qualified and stable workforce; 
4. equitable financing that ensures access for all children and families to high-quality services;
5. active involvement of all players—providers, practitioners, parents, and community leaders from both public and private sectors—in all aspects of program planning and delivery."  
Retrieved online from https://www.naeyc.org/sites/default/files/globally-shared/downloads/PDFs/resources/position-statements/PSCONF98.PDF on January 8, 2023.
A logic model from Roy (2018) describes health literacy levels or parents of young children and their health seeking behavior as this relates to utilization of primary care, and child health outcomes, “the possible association between higher parental literacy and normal or typical child BMI. The results then influence a trajectory that interacts with lower parental education, screenings, and referrals, to yield an unknown level of health seeking behavior. The second path depicts the possible association between lower parental health literacy and high child BMI interacting with parent education, screenings, and referrals, to yield another unknown level of health seeking behavior. The two groups are then compared, with differences in perception in quality of care as a possible mediating factor influencing frequency and utilization of pediatric primary care.” See Appendix. The model is then updated to reflect incorporating family navigation. 
The conceptual model is updated again to reflect the level of professional development seeking of ECE teachers by comparing the trajectory of federally funded or private pay ECE centers.  ECE teacher demographics would compare with family demographics, plus assessment scores of level of ECE awareness for incentive programs/loan forgiveness programs/knowledge of how to complete child assessments and evidenced based programs, instead of Health Literacy Score could indicate who most requires a professional development intervention. The intervention opportunity would be professional development training participation and human resources support to increase awareness of career growth options. Then ECE teacher or homevisitors could complete a survey about their education and wellbeing, and awareness levels of career options. Lower education would lead to likelihood to utilize referrals to CDA scholarships and funding to earn higher education, resulting in utilization of scholarships, loan forgiveness programs, and other funding streams to earn a bachelors degree compared to those who already have a higher education and job roles correlated with job satisfaction. Then we could add to the diagram who among ECE teachers stays for up to two years, or three to five years of time and or leaves and where they go for work.  Finally the variables would be compared to child health outcomes and family navigation to other services. 
Research Design
We will collect data with online and paper surveys and workshop focus groups for ten center managers per city by online zoom call or doxy and for 50 ECE teachers by paper or online at either an in person or online meeting and also 250 parent and child participants for each of six cities, the sample size results in the total set of participants of 300 teachers and 1500 parents, across one year during a simultaneous data collection with two research assistants per each of six cities. Results will then inform a cost benefit analysis. During, 2024, the first wave of data collection would be outreach attempt one, June, outreach attempt two, July, and outreach attempt three, August, for the same group, to encourage responses for all six cities. Data analysis in September, October, November, with preliminary results in December. Writing papers additionally and presentation in the following year will be planned.  Compensation for participation will include a gift card, books, and lego duplo, to the center managers, teachers and families at the affiliated Early Childhood Centers.  

Table of Population by Race Across Six Cities, Including All Income Levels.
United States Census Bureau, Quick Facts, 2022.
Wilmington, DE
Newark, DE
Camden, NJ
Boston, MA
Philadelphia, PA
Stamford, CT

Total Population
70,750
31,454
71,773
654,776
1,576,251
136,309

White
17%
82%
4.1%
44%
33.70%
59.30%

Black
31%
6%
39.3%
23.5%
43.60%
12.90%

Hispanic or Latino
51%
5%
52.8%
19.8%
13.6%
19.30%

Asian or Pacific Islander
1%
7%
3.80%
9.7%
8.20%
8.50%

American Indian or Alaskan Native or Other



3%
0.90%



100%
100%
100.0%
100%
100.00%
100.00%

Modes of Analysis.
After IRB approval, from Solutions IRB, and informed consent completed through the online survey, three waves of data collection will offer a complete set of data across six cities. From Survey Monkey or Qualtrics, data will be downloaded into Excel for data cleanup. Then the dataset will be uploaded into SPSS for data analysis. Both descriptive and inferential data analysis will be completed. Types of analysis will include Chi square, T-tests, Anova, Multiple Linear Regression. If possible the data will be analyzed with structural equation modeling also. 
Therefore, the dependent variable: level of teacher seeking higher education through participation of incentive programs, scholarships, and loan forgiveness programs, or the counterfactual of out of pocket pay  is a function of the independent variables: demographic characteristics, level of teacher education, provider program characteristics, perception of level of higher education supports for degree completion towards specific ECE goals that align with QRIS standards, including teacher ability to provide components of emerging literacy supports, music, arts, and nutrition, and physical activity, socio emotional learning, completion of supports for children with special health care needs, and chronic health issues, and bilingual education support, parent education, and more.
The data will be analyzed to test the relationship between variables from survey data including: teacher demographic factors, the characteristic of who attends higher education with  teacher incentive programs, scholarships, and or loan forgiveness programs. A comparison of Head Start and other high quality Non Head Start early education and care programs will be conducted.  Awareness of training programs, and career trajectory choices may lead to HR intervention to support teacher compensation and retention through various programs. Consequently, provider willingness to pay can lead to referrals or required program standards, to meet QRIS standards, for more qualified teachers to completed developmental assessments, parent education groups, and referrals for families to get to a primary care medical home, specialty care, or a family navigator to additional resources. 
Within these referrals there may be parent or teacher high and low health seeking behavior, according  to school type. Therefore, the dependent variable: level of health seeking behavior is a  function of the independent variables: demographic characteristics, level of health  literacy, program characteristics, perception of level of health care quality. Other variables pertaining to parent education are also explored by demographics and school  type as it pertains to health literacy and health seeking behavior. 
We will work to correlate factors of quality in ECE settings with child health outcomes.   Information will be coded into a numerical format and analyzed in a formal, objective, systematic process. We will utilize Microsoft office and SPSS, and outreach with letters to Head Start and NonHead Start programs through regional coordinators. We will then make a flyer with a copy of the informed consent document, all IRB approved after the process is completed. Documents will be mailed through online format, email, and survey monkey or qualtrics. Data will be downloaded to SPSS on a password protected computer, files will be encrypted when necessary. Documents will be stored in a locking file cabinet and password protected computer. 
Data Collection Instruments

  • Child: Brookes Publishing, Ages and Stages Questionnaire, reviews milestones achievement up to age 5.5years for physical and socioemotional development, 


  • Child: Pearson, Get Ready to Read, reviews emerging literacy, of letter, word, and item recognition 


  • Child: Prekinders, Numeracy, Shapes, and Colors Survey, to assess how many are recognized correctly.


  • Parent: Pfizer, Newest Vital Sign, a nutritional fact sheet is shown and questions about facts


  • Parent: AHRQ, Consumer Assessment of Health Providers Survey, about past year of health services, quality and utilization.


  • Teacher: Career Survey, four surveys of personality, interest, skills, and values


  • Parent and Teacher: Beck’s Inventory of Depression and Anxiety, question in a likert format, twenty-one questions.


  • Center Manager/ Teacher Survey/ Parent Survey, Questions about willingness to pay and career plans.







Cost Benefit Analysis
To conduct a CBA, DeRus (2010) recommends to begin by clearly defining the objective, ie. the problem to be solved, and the alternatives. The Major Steps of CBA outlined in Table 1-2 on page 6 of the  Boardman text, are : 1) Specify the set of alternative projects, 2) Decide whose benefits and costs count (standing), 3) Identify the impact categories, catalogue them, and select measurement indicators, 4) Predict the impacts quantitatively over the life of the project, 5) Monetize (attach dollar values to) all impacts, 6)Discount benefits and costs to obtain present values, 7) Compute the net present value of each alternative, 8) Perform sensitivity analysis, and 9) Make a recommendation. The Zerbe and Bellas (2006)  method for CBA is very similar but includes accounting for uncertainty. Contingent valuation (CV) is a method that surveys people about their willingness to pay (WTP) or willingness to accept (WTA) or rather what they cannot or are not willing to pay. p. 182.  Considerations include:
 1) uncertainty of getting a scholarship, incentive, or loan for any professional development: ex ante,
 2) having received a scholarship, incentive, or loan, for professional development but not started , so uncertainty in efficacy of attaining professional development: intermediate, and
3) professional development received, so no uncertainty: ex post.
Dissemination Plan
The research report could help offer evidence based technical assistance to early education and care programs/ staff, and families, possibly, child assessments would occur, at least twice to check for overall health status of the child and education support requests.  The progress report for unmet needs at the center for each family could then be addressed with a booklet of resources and support to make calls to get support by choice. This check, then, could inform Curricula or Individualized Education Plan or Individualized Family Service Plan (IEP/IFSP) for children and families who needed additional support. Referrals from home visits and ECE visits a family navigator to support the family system for health of the child could help improve, bilingual education, special education, chronic health issues, socio emotional learning, emerging literacy, and other health priorities. The Reports can be mailed online with a paper flyer to the schools, and conference presentation to Naeyc and other child development conferences. The document could be shared with agencies, of education and divisions of health, so that family navigators, teachers, home visitors, parents, and providers can work together for the support of the child and family and quality improvement of teachers. 
Conclusion
Therefore, we will study awareness and choices in possible career pathways for ECE providers to motivate ECE teacher retention. We will evaluate how teacher education should align towards evidence based learning curriculum, child and family assessments, bilingual education prep and support for children with disabilities, and family navigation to services in five or six cities, and how incentive programs contribute to teacher retention to support good outcomes.  Demographic alignment, cultural competence, and various trainings, among staff and family systems to inform social support especially with family navigators and referral partners for bilingual schools, and planning for adherence to IEP and IFSP documents. Evaluation and cost benefit analysis based on survey responses as this study has proposed will accomplish an essential review of the status of these issues.
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References
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This is my Smart plan in progress. I am going to add Dates and Timeline to this more specifically. 
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