Federal, State, and Other Funding Streams Can Support Transition Planning and Activities

The most meaningful transition activities require both human and financial resources. Investing in these activities can support deeper coordination, coherence, and alignment across the early learning continuum. While resources can be difficult to come by at times, states and LEAs can use multiple federal and state funding streams and guidance documents to plan and support transition efforts and to leverage and build on work the state or school district is already doing.

Child Care & Development Block Grant (CCDBG)¹ administered by the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services (HHS), asks states to explain how they will coordinate with other early childhood programs. States can leverage these dollars to bring educators together for planning and training purposes. Additionally, through dollars required to be set aside for quality, states can fund training as well as other activities they deem necessary to improve outcomes for children entering kindergarten.

The draft state plan template² for implementation of CCDBG focuses on transition activities as potential uses of funds in various areas of the plan: “Section 1.4.1: Include in the descriptions the goals of this coordination, such as…smoothing transitions for children between programs or as they age into school”; and “Section 1.5.1: Describe, a minimum…your purpose and expected outcomes for combining funds, such as…smoothing transitions for children…”

States have incorporated transition activities into their CCDBG plans in a number of ways that highlights the array of support families and their children need during this period.

Pennsylvania: As part of its required coordination activities, the state works with a number of partners to support various transitions for children and their families.³ The Office of Child Development and Early Learning (OCDEL) supports a website, www.papromiseforchildren.org, that posts kindergarten registration dates, age cut-offs, and family-friendly resources to promote parent-child readiness activities. In addition, early childhood care and education stakeholder groups establish a feedback loop between OCDEL and program implementers with the goals of increasing coordination and smoothing transitions for children between child care, PA Pre-K Counts, and PA Head Start as well as transitions to the public school system.⁴

Florida: The state’s Office of Early Learning uses specific programmatic linkages to help improve transitions for families. The state has contracted with the University of South Florida to provide Home Instruction for Parents of Preschool Youngsters (HIPPY) to some families, with the goal of ensuring that children in child care settings continue to have access to comprehensive services they need as they transition between programs.⁵

Tennessee: The state Department of Human Services has collaborated with the state’s Department of Education to focus on alignment.⁶ As part of efforts to improve transitions for children moving between child care programs and into early elementary classrooms, the two agencies have aligned early learning standards across child care, pre-K, and kindergarten, and have included professional learning opportunities in order to help all educators improve quality and foster positive outcomes for children during these critical periods.

Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA),⁷ administered by the U.S. Department of Education (ED), includes attention to children’s transition from pre-K to K. State education agencies (SEAs) and LEAs are allowed to use Title I and Title II dollars to support smoother transitions, which can include joint professional training activities around transitions for pre-K and early elementary.⁸ LEAs are required to develop an MOU with Head Start programs to, among other things, support smooth transitions. Additionally, LEAs which use Title I funds to provide pre-K must describe how they will coordinate a transition plan with those programs. They are also encouraged to consider other early childhood education programs, which could include those offered in a variety of settings.

ED’s 2016 non-regulatory early learning guidance suggests possible transition activities such as sharing assessment data, offering summer learning opportunities, engaging families, and providing joint professional development opportunities.⁹ The department’s guidance also elevates the recurring themes in ESSA of alignment, collaboration, and coordination and points to vertical alignment up through third grade as one way to meet these goals. Aligning vertically means establishing ways to link pre-K and K–12 data and coordinating standards, curricula, instruction, assessment, expectations, and classroom strategies, which can ease the transition for children and families.

States have incorporated transition activities into their ESSA plans in different ways.

Connecticut: The state’s ESSA plan¹⁰ includes a focus on transitions between early childhood programs and early elementary classrooms. The plan aims to:

• increase awareness of prevention/early intervention by including local early care and education providers in stakeholder engagement prior to development of the LEA plan for elementary schools;
• increase awareness of prevention/early intervention by including a required “landscape analysis” of local early care and education serving the LEA’s students prior to enrollment in pre-K or kindergarten; and
• provide tiered technical assistance to LEAs in evidence-based practices about transition planning, such as shared curricula and pedagogy and data sharing.

The state Department of Education and the Office of Early Childhood created three tools¹¹ to help districts create transition plans for all children and themselves, in order to understand the depth and breadth of early childhood support for families and to identify evidence-based practices in early learning as a support for professional development at the local level. The three tools have been widely advertised through statewide webinars and meetings, and Connecticut has provided additional technical support to districts as needed.

North Carolina: The state ESSA plan¹² builds on legislative priorities to make transitions between early childhood programs and schools an important component of district plans for implementation. The plan notes that the Department of Health and Human Services, in consultation with the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction (NCDPI) "is in the process of identifying key transition plan components and will provide a planning template and guidance for developing a local transition plan. Local NC Pre-K committees will be responsible for developing and implementing local transition plans for their communities and are encouraged to address the following three objectives in an effort to move the transition to kindergarten experience forward:

1. Address the question of expectations.
2. Support and promote multiple modes and opportunities for communication among stakeholders but primarily parents, pre-kindergarten teachers, and kindergarten teachers.
3. Address issues of ownership of the transition process."

NCDPI has incorporated this focus into district implementation plans (known as the Comprehensive Continuous Improvement Plan, or CCIP). In the 2019–2020 plan,¹³ NCDPI asks each district to attach a copy of the required MOU. In both the 2018–2019 and 2019–2020 school years, the state provided additional guidance¹⁴ that helps districts think about the opportunity to include early learning in their plans and focuses on the role of transition planning in family engagement activities, professional learning, program design, and other coordination activities.

Rhode Island: While the state ESSA plan¹⁵ has less specific language promoting successful transitions between early childhood and early elementary, the plan notes that “transitions occur at naturally occurring milestones, such as pre-K to K, elementary school to junior high or middle school, middle grades to high school, and high school to post-graduate opportunities (e.g., employment, postsecondary study, military). The Rhode Island Department of Education will work with its LEAs to ensure that there are protocols, communications, and supports for students and their families as they reach each milestone.” As part of this effort, the state developed a guidance document for LEAs¹⁶ that focuses on transitions to kindergarten.

Head Start Act,¹⁷ administered by HHS, includes a section dedicated to transition and alignment with K–12 education as well as several other mentions of transition throughout the law. Funding can be used for training with both Head Start and school staff to smooth transitions, and programs are encouraged to think about all areas of transition¹⁸ for children and their families, as well as for partners. Funding can be used to promote family involvement in school once children are in kindergarten by preparing families for elementary school expectations. Head Start programs are also required to establish MOUs with local school districts. The National Center on Teaching and Learning has developed guidance¹⁹ to improve the quality and content of transitions at the district level.

North Carolina: NCDPI and the state Head Start Collaboration office have developed a coordinated checklist,²⁰ designed specifically for Head Start programs and LEAs to work together on a transition plan.

District of Columbia: The Office of the State Superintendent for Education (OSSE) has developed a detailed planning document²¹ for Head Start programs and LEAs to implement as they transition children between programs. The checklist includes plans for professional learning, individual transition plans for children, individual agency commitments, timelines, and needed supports from OSSE, Head Start programs, and the LEA.

Maternal, Infant, and Early Childhood Home Visiting (MIECHV), administered by HHS, requires grant recipients to coordinate with comprehensive statewide early childhood systems, which includes early care and education.²² Grantees are expected to develop policies and procedures in collaboration with other home visiting and early childhood partners to support families’ transitions between programs. An important goal is to sustain services for eligible families of children through kindergarten entry to ensure their needs are met. MOUs are required with state Title I or pre-K programs to help ensure these programs are involved in planning, implementation, and evaluation.

Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), administered by ED, emphasizes smoothing transitions from early intervention to special education preschool to K–12 special and general education.²³ IDEA Part C provides early intervention services to infants and toddlers with disabilities and their families and IDEA Part B provides special education and related services to children and youth ages three through 21. Under Title I of ESSA, SEAs must coordinate with other programs providing services to young children, including IDEA. Additionally, states are required by federal law to provide guidance to parents to help with transitions. Below is a sampling of documents created by states to do that:

• California’s Effective Early Childhood Transitions²⁴
• West Virginia’s Early Childhood Transition Checklist²⁵
• Nebraska’s Along the Way²⁶
• Missouri’s Transition from Early Intervention²⁷

Preschool Development Grant, Birth through Five (PDG B–5) is authorized by ESSA. The departments of HHS and ED awarded one-year grants in December 2018 to nearly every state. Among other things, states are encouraged to improve relationships between early childhood programs (horizontal alignment) and improve pre-K to kindergarten transitions (vertical alignment).²⁸ Awardees are required to engage in five activities, three of which are directly related to transitions. States will have the opportunity to apply for a second year of funding in the fall of 2019. States must conduct a needs assessment, which must include looking at “transition supports and gaps that affect how children move between early childhood care and education programs and school entry.”²⁹

Alaska: Improving the quality of transitions into elementary school is critical to improving outcomes. The state grant proposal³⁰ includes a number of activities to improve transitions, with a focus on providing parents with tools to navigate transition, by expanding their knowledge of child development, developmentally appropriate expectations, and developmental screenings. Alaska will also improve transitions by adopting a unified definition of school readiness, updating its Early Learning Guidelines, and providing training for early childhood providers in the Pyramid Model for Supporting Social Emotional Competence in Infants and Young Children, the Strengthening Families model, and trauma-informed practices to “expand shared language and frameworks used across systems.”

South Carolina: Plans for the Preschool Development Grant³¹ includes improved transitions as a core concept, embedded in its strategic planning, parent engagement activities, and best practices. The state is using its funds to “expand the definition of transition and share best practices for relationship-based transitions among more kindergarten teachers, principals, and school administrators in the state.”

Iowa: Improved transitions for families are seen as a goal throughout Iowa’s PDG application.³² The needs assessment and strategic plan is designed to identify and address gaps faced by families during transition points, and to identify resources to improve and strengthen collaboration between various partners working with families. As part of this effort, the state “will also explore family experiences in transitions between programs and between ECE and elementary schools.”

Race to the Top-Early Learning Challenge (RTT-ELC), funded beginning in 2011, conducted three rounds of competition. In all, 20 states were awarded RTT-ELC grants to complete ambitious plans to meet multiple priorities. One of the RTT-ELC priorities was “creating approaches to sustain improved early learning outcomes through the early elementary grades” and the program encouraged states to develop a plan for improving all transitions for children across the B–3rd continuum.³³

Colorado: Recognizing that there were kindergarten teachers and elementary school administrators who did not have a deep understanding of developmentally appropriate practice for young children, Colorado’s School Readiness Team developed resources and materials to support developmentally appropriate practices, child development, and optimal learning environments for children in kindergarten. The School Readiness Team has also provided training and technical assistance to districts and created the Kindergarten School Readiness Guide to Implementation and Best Practices.

Delaware: As an RTT-ELC grantee, the state created 20 Delaware Readiness Teams to strengthen community and education linkages for children from birth to age eight. Made up of families, early childhood providers, public school teachers, and community and business leaders, the teams created action plans to support young children and their families in a variety of ways, including positive transitions for school success. After RTT-ELC funds expired, the work has been sustained and supported by the state departments of Health and Social Services and Education, PNC Bank, Nemours, Rodel Foundation of Delaware, the Arsht Canon Fund, Prevent Child Abuse Delaware, and United Way of Delaware.

Massachusetts: From 2012 to 2015, the state provided Birth to Grade Three (B–3rd) Community Implementation/Planning grants to 12 communities across the state. Communities used the funding in a variety of ways, including strengthening family engagement, improving alignment and transitions among community-based early learning programs and public schools, improving third grade literacy scores, providing professional development opportunities for public school teachers and administrators, and implementing school readiness activities.

Pennsylvania: The state’s Community Innovation Zone grant program has focused on coordination within localities to strengthen connections between early childhood programs and school districts; increase family supports and engagement; and link local organizations serving young children and their families to promote school readiness and future school success.

State Pre-K Programs require, for the most part, that they provide transition to kindergarten activities. For example, as part of West Virginia Universal Pre-K, each county must develop a plan with activities, information, and timelines to help early childhood teachers and kindergarten teachers support smooth transitions for children and families. Two of these activities must include opportunities for pre-K and kindergarten teachers to meet together and a countywide system for transferring assessment data. Funding from ESSA and the Head Start Act could be used to expand the pot of available dollars for these kinds of activities.

Other Sources include local philanthropic or community organizations, which may provide dollars to support alignment and coherence across pre-K, K, and the early grades as well as specific pre-K to K transition activities and support for families. For example, Fairfax Futures in Virginia partners with county agencies, public schools, area corporations, foundations, community organizations, and early childhood education programs to support positive transitions to kindergarten. The organization partners with the Fairfax County Office for Children and Fairfax County Public Schools to sponsor an Annual School Readiness Symposium for early childhood educators. It is also home to the Neighborhood School Readiness Project, which includes teams made up of county, school, and community organizations that collaborate to ensure positive transitions to kindergarten in select Title I schools across the county.

For more information about federal programs and other funding streams discussed above see Appendix II: Federal Programs with Language Related to Pre-K to Kindergarten Transitions.