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Reducing Exclusionary Discipline Practices in Early Childhood Education

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A Look at What’s Happening in Colorado

In 2006, the Colorado legislature directed funds towards a survey of challenging behaviors and responses to these behaviors in licensed ECE programs across the state. The results of the survey were concerning: young children were removed from programs at a rate three times higher than the national rate of K–12 expulsions and practitioners were mostly using ineffective methods for addressing challenging behavior, such as having parents take their children home or removing children from the program altogether.1 The survey found that rates of removals were much higher for family child care homes than for child care centers, but also found that family child care providers felt that access to mental health consultations made a meaningful difference in their ability to keep children with challenging behaviors in their programs.2

The survey results helped galvanize interest in addressing exclusionary discipline in Colorado’s ECE programs and reducing the frequency of expulsions of young children through evidence-based interventions. Two complementary policy initiatives were launched in an effort to reduce the frequency of exclusionary discipline: increasing provider knowledge of the Pyramid Model and expanding the availability of early childhood mental health consultations.

Understanding the Colorado Early Childhood Landscape

About 337,000 children under the age of five reside in Colorado, 44 percent of whom are children of color.3 In the 2019–20 school year, 98 percent of school districts offered the state-funded Colorado Preschool Program (CPP). CPP serves about 23,000 children, which is approximately a quarter of the state’s four-year-olds. It concentrates on children who come from low-income families or have another statute-defined risk factor, such as being a dual language learner, being in foster care, or being exposed to parental substance abuse.4 CPP also serves about 7,000 three-year-olds who meet a minimum of three family risk factors.5

In 2020, Colorado voters approved a nicotine tax measure to fund 10 hours per week of pre-K for all four-year-olds in the state beginning in the fall of 2023.6 While over three-quarters of CPP participants currently attend pre-K in public school classrooms, that will likely change, since proponents of universal pre-K have repeatedly emphasized their support for a mixed delivery system that includes centers, schools, and homes.7 In 2022, Colorado created a new Department of Early Childhood, a cabinet-level agency that will oversee most of the ECE programs formerly housed in the state’s education and human services departments. The department will be responsible for the launch of universal pre-K in 2023 as well as child care licensing, early childhood mental health, home visiting, and child abuse prevention.8

Colorado’s ECE system faces many of the same staffing shortages and compensation issues as the rest of the nation. When asked to name their top challenge, 70 percent of the state’s child care center directors named finding qualified staff. Lead teachers of children from birth to age four in the state make an average annual salary of below $27,000, with aides and assistants earning even less. The median wage for early educators in the state is $13.79/hour.9

The Pyramid Model

In 2009, the Pyramid Plus Center was launched to expand the evidence-based practices of the Pyramid Model throughout Colorado. The Center launched a training program to certify trainers and coaches in the Pyramid Model during year-long professional development programs and successfully certified 30 trainers and 20 coaches between 2009 and 2011. During the same time span, a multi-agency statewide team worked to create a career ladder linked to Pyramid Model practices and funded four demonstration sites to highlight Pyramid practices. The demonstration sites showed promise for helping address challenging behaviors: they experienced a 60 to 75 percent reduction in the number of children scoring “at risk” on the Ages and Stages Social Emotional Scale from fall to spring of each school year.10 A 2011 follow-up to the original 2006 survey of challenging behaviors in licensed ECE programs found that the rate of removal from a program had substantially decreased and also found a large increase in the teaching of pro-social skills to children with challenging behaviors.11

Early Childhood Mental Health Consultation

The 2006 survey found that family child care providers felt that access to ECMHC made a meaningful difference in their ability to keep children with challenging behaviors in their program. These data spurred an interest in expanding the availability of consultations. An ongoing issue is how to ensure that there are enough mental health consultants in Colorado to meet provider demand. Ideally, ECMHC, which is provided at no cost to licensed providers and state-funded pre-K programs, is used as a proactive strategy rather than a reactive one, so that providers can reach out to consultants prior to needing immediate assistance.12

This ease of access to mental health consultations requires a large supply of mental health professionals, however. In 2018, Colorado was awarded a $5.8 million Preschool Development Grant (PDG B–5) initial grant that required the completion of a statewide birth through age five needs assessment. The subsequent report listed 12 “pressing needs” for the state’s early childhood system and one of these needs was to “expand access to ECMHC.” The report noted that convenient and timely access to consultants continues to be an issue due to growing parent and provider demand, and it recommended exploring remote options to help meet the demand.13 The hope is that remote consultations can help expand access to ECMHCs while the availability of mental health consultants remains limited.14

As of 2019, the Colorado Office of Early Childhood supported 34 full-time consultants across the state, while over 20 additional consultants were supported through other funding sources, such as private foundations.15 For example, in recent years the Buell Foundation has funded projects with the goal of increasing the availability of ECMHCs in rural areas, since most mental health consultants reside in the state’s major urban centers.16 In July 2020, the Colorado legislature passed a bill that codified much of the mental health consultation work already happening throughout the state.17 While the bill did not add additional funding for consultations, it was seen as an important step for ensuring quality control of the ECMHC program as well as the program’s long-term survival.18

A year later, in June 2021, the Behavioral Health Recovery Act, a $114 million omnibus bill, passed the legislature, with $100 million of those funds coming from the federal American Rescue Plan.19 The bill sets aside funding for early childhood mental health services and calls for a third party evaluation of the ECMHC program and its impact on early childhood and program outcomes by August 2026.20 In March 2022, the Colorado Department of Human Services announced that it was using PDG B–5 funds to establish a new statewide ECMHC support line to connect parents and caregivers of young children with mental health consultants via phone at no charge.21

Recent Legislation and Licensing Targeting Exclusionary Discipline

In May 2019, the Colorado legislature passed a bill that would significantly limit suspensions and expulsions for students in state-funded pre-K as well as students in kindergarten through second grade in state-funded school districts and charter schools. Schools can now only suspend or expel students under specified circumstances, such as possessing a weapon or drugs, endangering the health and safety of others, or posing a serious safety threat.22 The bill garnered the support of multiple advocacy organizations, including the American Academy of Pediatrics, Colorado PTA, and both of the state’s major teachers’ unions.23 The bill went into effect for the 2020–21 school year, but there is not yet data available on its impact on rates of exclusionary discipline due to the widespread school closures caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.24

In 2016, the Colorado Department of Human Services updated the licensing standard that governs licensed child care centers and state pre-K providers. The updated licensing rules, which went into effect in December 2021 after public review, require programs to develop written policies and procedures on how decisions are made and what steps are taken prior to suspension or expulsion. The rules require programs to identify and consult with an early childhood mental health consultant prior to suspending or expelling a child or asking a parent to withdraw a child due to behavior issues. Additionally, the updated rules require all center directors and assistant directors to complete a training course about best practices for working with an early childhood mental health consultant.25

Citations
  1. Megan Vinh, Phillip S. Strain, Sarah Davidon, and Barbara J. Smith, “One State’s Systems Change Efforts to Reduce Child Care Expulsion: Taking the Pyramid Model to Scale,” Topics in Early Childhood Special Education 36, no. 3 (January 2016), source
  2. Sarah D. Hoover, Lorraine F. Kubicek, Cordelia Robinson Rosenberg, Caludia Zundel, and Steven A. Rosenberg, “Influence of Behavioral Concerns and Early Childhood Expulsions on the Development of Early Childhood Mental Health Consultation in Colorado,” Infant Mental Health Journal 33, no. 3 (May 2012): 246–255, source
  3. Children’s Defense Fund (website), The State of America’s Children 2020: Child Population Tables, “Table 1: Child Population by Age and Race/Ethnicity, 2018,” source
  4. Colorado, The State of Preschool 2020—State Preschool Yearbook, National Institute for Early Education Research (2020), source
  5. Ann Schimke, “Three Things to Know About Colorado’s Plan for Universal Preschool,” Chalkbeat Colorado, December 14, 2021, source
  6. Ann Schimke, “Proposition EE, Nicotine Tax Measure for Universal Preschool, Cruises to Victory,” Chalkbeat Colorado, November 3, 2020, source
  7. Schimke, “Three Things to Know.”
  8. Ann Schimke, “Help Wanted: Leader for Colorado’s Early Childhood Department,” Chalkbeat Colorado, February 17, 2022, source
  9. Jenny Brundin, “The Workforce Behind The Workforce: Confronting Colorado’s Critical Child Care Staffing Shortage,” CPR News, January 5, 2021, ​​source
  10. Vinh, Strain, Davidon, and Smith, “One State’s Systems Change Efforts.” ​
  11. Vinh, Strain, Davidon, and Smith, “One State’s Systems Change Efforts.” ​
  12. Taran Scheider (executive director, Healthy Child Care Colorado), interview with authors, October 20, 2021.
  13. Colorado Shines Brighter: Opportunities for Colorado’s Early Childhood System, The Colorado Birth Through Five Needs Assessment (Colorado Office of Early Childhood and Colorado Health Institute, December 2019), source
  14. Scheider, interview with authors, October 20, 2021.
  15. Early Childhood Mental Health Consultation (ECMHC) Hub Feasibility Study Report and Roadmap (Denver, CO: John Snow, June 2019), source
  16. Laura Carlson (vice president of programs, Buell Foundation), interview with authors, October 28, 2021.
  17. ​​Colorado General Assembly, House Committee Meeting on Supports for Early Childhood Educator Workforce, HB20-1053: Supports for Early Childhood Educator Workforce, 73rd General Assembly, effective July 8, 2020, source
  18. Bill Jaeger (vice president of Early Childhood and Policy Initiatives, Colorado Children’s Campaign), interview with authors, October 13, 2021.
  19. Jeanne Sounldern, “Newly Passed Legislation Increases Support for Mental Health,” Aspen Daily News, July 17, 2021, source
  20. Colorado Senate Committee Meeting on Behavioral Health Recovery Act, SB21-137: Behavioral Health Recovery Act, 73rd General Assembly, Second Regular Session, effective June 28, 2021, source
  21. Colorado Department of Human Services (website), “CDHS Announces Early Childhood Mental Health Support Line,” March 2, 2022, source
  22. Colorado House Committee Meeting on School Discipline for Preschool Through Second Grade, HB19-1194, 73rd General Assembly, Second Regular Session, effective May 13, 2019, source
  23. Jaeger, interview with authors, October 13, 2021.
  24. Jaeger, interview with authors, October 13, 2021.
  25. Colorado Draft Legislation, “7.702 Rules Regulating Child Care Centers That Provide Less Than 24-Hour Care,” July 15, 2021, source

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A Look at What’s Happening in Colorado

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Reducing Exclusionary Discipline Practices in Early Childhood Education