In June 2024, Governor Jared Polis signed HB 1009, establishing a Bilingual Spanish Licensing Unit (BSLU) within the Colorado Department of Early Childhood (CDEC) to help Spanish-speaking child care providers obtain licensure. HB 1009 authorizes $360,000 in state funds per year so that the BSLU can offer child care licensing applications in Spanish and provide translation services throughout the licensing process—thus increasing families’ access to licensed child care options.  The BSLU was created in 2022, when the CDEC used $805,775 in American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funding to hire a bilingual team to help Spanish-speaking child care providers obtain license. That funding was set to expire in September 2024, but HB 1009 makes funding for the BSLU permanent.   BSLU specialists complete licensing inspections, facilitate training on licensing and small business ownership, and translate applications and other materials.   learn more: bilingual spanish licensing unit Sources: Colorado Department of Early Childhood. (n.d.). Bilingual Licensing Specialists. Robles, Y. (2024). Will Colorado lawmakers save a team that helps Spanish-speaking child care providers get licensed? Chalkbeat Colorado. Colorado House Democrats. (2024). House Passes Bill to Expand Bilingual Early Childhood Programs. Brown, J. (2024). Colorado invests in bilingual preschool as Spanish-speaking population grows with new migrants. The Colorado Sun.

In 2014, the Birth to Age Eight Collaborative Initiative was launched in Dakota County to streamline early childhood services, ensuring school readiness for children from birth to age 8 in specific school districts. This initiative is designed to ensure that all children in Dakota County are ready for school by the time they enter kindergarten, with a special focus on critical developmental milestones such as health at birth and reading proficiency by third grade. The collaborative nature of the initiative is one of its most distinguishing features, involving a partnership among Dakota County Public Health, social services, four school districts, and various nonprofit organizations. It leverages in-kind funding, mainly from Dakota County Public Health Department, and state grants, significantly increasing children's program engagement. Through this initiative, Dakota County has been able to create a data-sharing portal to track milestones, developed communication methods to promote early childhood screenings, and implemented a referral process for WIC. This initiative has received rewards from National Association of County and City Health Officials (NACCHO) in 2018 and National Association of Counties (NACo) in 2017. Sources: Dakota County. (n.d.). Birth to Age Eight Collaborative Initiative. Adler, E. (2019). Dakota County program helps track kids' progress, connect families to resources. Star Tribune.

Established in 2005, Boston's Universal Pre-K (UPK) program, administered by the Boston Public Schools (BPS), offers free preschool for the city’s 3- and 4-year-olds in both public school buildings and community-based childcare organizations. Within a few years, it became apparent that the original funding level of $11,000 per child was inadequate and unsustainable for community-based child care organizations. BPS then partnered with the Children's Funding Project to create a cost model that disaggregated program costs to expose differences based on program length and per-child and per-classroom costs. As a result, in school year 2022–23 BPS implemented a hybrid funding model for UPK classrooms in community-based programs. This new approach provides a base funding level per classroom that covers staff salaries and benefits and an additional funding allocation per UPK-eligible child enrolled in the program. Learn more: children's funding project

Since 2005, Boston’s mixed-delivery Universal Pre-K (UPK)  system has been offered to families with 4-year-olds for 6.5 hours per day, 180 days per year. Universal Pre-K programs in Boston are housed in Boston Public Schools, community-based providers, and family child care providers. Additionally, the city opened applications in March 2023 to include family child care providers in the cohort of programs eligible to offer UPK seats. Learn More: Boston Universal Pre-Kindergarten Sources:Boston Public Schools. (n.d.). About Boston Universal Pre-K.Boston Public Schools. (2022). Boston Universal Pre-K Program 2021-2022 Year in Review.City of Boston. (2023). Steps Taken to Increase Availability, Variety of Preschool Seats for Boston Families.

Brighter Futures Indiana Data Center, created in 2019 by the Indiana Family and Social Services Office of Early Childhood and Out-of-School Learning and Early Learning Indiana, is a data visualization tool. It provides demographic and program data on capacity, quality, supply, demand, affordability, subsidized care, and types of early childhood education programs and services. The public tool has data specifically curated for families, providers, and community members. The Data Center was created using funds from the Preschool Development Grant Birth through Five (PDG B-5). Learn more: Brighter Futures Indiana Data Center Sources:Indiana Family and Social Services Administration. (2019). Office of Early Childhood and Out of School Learning (OECOSL) Preschool Development Grant

In 2021, California legislators approved a plan to provide universal prekindergarten (UPK) to all four-year-olds and targeted pre-K to income-eligible three-year-olds in the state by 2025-26. California UPK employs a mixed-delivery system that comprises programs across the early care and education ecosystem, including the California State Preschool Program (CSPP) and transitional kindergarten (TK), which are both offered by the California Department of Education; Head Start; family child care; private preschools; and community-based organizations. The rollout of UPK is supported by the Universal Prekindergarten Mixed Delivery Planning Grant, which funds local working groups in each county to align plans to expand UPK with those of local education agencies and the county office of education.   Most of the funding for UPK was allocated to expand transitional kindergarten, a free state-wide prekindergarten program for all four-year-olds, regardless of family income. TK programs are administered by K-12 public school districts in California and constitute the first year of a two-year program whose second year is kindergarten. They use a modified kindergarten curriculum, which is aligned with the California Preschool Learning Foundations developed by the California Department of Education. In TK alone, California public schools will serve around 300,000 four-year-olds by 2025-26.  LEARN MORE: CALIFORNIA UNIVERSAL PRE-K Sources: San Francisco Department of Early Childhood. (n.d.). Universal Pre-K FAQ. Leung-Gagné, M., & Melnick, H. (2023). Assessing the phase-in of California’s ambitious universal prekindergarten program. EdSource. Leung-Gagné, M., Wang, V., Melnick, H., & Mauerman, C. (2023). How Are California School Districts Planning for Universal Prekindergarten? Results From a 2022 Survey. Learning Policy Institute.

In fall 2024, Cambridge launched the Cambridge Preschool Program (CPP), which offers free school-day, school-year preschool to all 4-year-olds and eligible 3-year-olds in the city. CPP was created using a $20 million allocation from the municipal budget in FY24. The FY25 budget included $34 million in funding for CPP across the city and school system budgets.  The expansion boosted the city’s early education capacity to approximately 1,000 slots for 4-year-olds and 300 for 3-year-olds. CPP partnered with existing licensed providers in Cambridge Public Schools, the Department of Human Service Programs, Head Start, and select private preschool and family child care providers, who agreed to use certain curricula. The city also created a one-stop information hub and application for all programs in the CPP. learn more: cambridge preschool program Sources: Cambridge Office of Early Childhood. (n.d.). Cambridge Preschool Program. Jung, C. (2023, June 9). Inside the plan to expand universal pre-K in Cambridge. WBUR. Lin, D. G., & Schwartz, E. T. (2024). No More Baby Steps: Cambridge Universal Pre-K Launches After 30-Year Effort. The Harvard Crimson.

The Center for Early Childhood Professional Development (CECPD) in Oklahoma is a centralized statewide program that offers conferences and training opportunities to early childhood teachers and directors/administrators. CECPD was created in 1998 with federal child development block grant funds. Now, most funding is provided by Oklahoma Department of Human Services/Child Care Services. CECPD is open to people who work in licensed child care facilities throughout Oklahoma. The Instructional Coaching Institute is a 3-day intense professional development program specifically for instructional classroom coaches. Coaching Innovations is a continuation of the Institute, providing targeted and individualized on-site professional development for instructional coaches. Teachers receive professional development in early literacy foundations for children birth through kindergarten, and literacy sessions are also available online. Learn more: Center for Early Childhood Professional Development Sources: Center for Early Childhood Professional Development. (n.d.). About Us. Oklahoma Human Services. (n.d.). Center for Early Childhood Professional Development. University of Oklahoma. (n.d.). Instructional Coaching Innovations Center for Early Childhood Professional Development.

Rhode Island’s Center for Early Learning Professionals offers in-person, online, and hybrid professional development opportunities in the form of intensive, multi-session training series. Participants receive assignments to apply skills in their work. The Center also offers on-site coaching and mentoring to support training implementation. Diverse training is open to all early care and education professionals in Rhode Island who serve children age birth to 5 in child care centers, family child care homes, public school inclusion preschools, and state-funded pre-K programs. The Center is funded by the Rhode Island Department of Human Services (DHS) as the workforce development hub for the birth-to-5 early learning community. The Center partners with BrightStars and other DHS-funded community partners to coordinate the delivery of services to best meet the individual needs of programs and providers. Learn more: Rhode Island Center for Early Learning Professionals Sources: Center for Early Learning Professionals. (n.d.). CELP PD. Center for Early Learning Professionals. (n.d.). What we do.

In April 2024, Governor Andy Beshear signed HB 561 into law, which created the Certified Child Care Community Designation Program, which aims to increase the supply of child care and early education services by encouraging local governments to take voluntary actions related to zoning rules and regulatory fees. It also intends to promote local engagement in solving child care challenges.  The Certified Child Care Community Designation Program is operated jointly by the Council of Area Development Districts and the Cabinet for Economic Development. It encourages, but does not mandate, local governments, area development districts, and community stakeholders to work together to obtain the “Certified Child Care Community” designation. Local governments receive this designation by removing zoning and regulatory barriers that, according to advocates, discourage people from becoming in-home providers. The designation also encourages initiatives such as creating local child care councils and adopting best practices for local regulations related to child care.  Though HB 561 has been signed into law, it has yet to be fully implemented due to insufficient funding. The law was one of 20 bills and two resolutions passed during the 2024 legislative session without enough funding attached for Governor Beshear’s administration to implement them.   HB 561 also made recommendations for local governments to use when evaluating local ordinances, regulations, and land-use rules related to child care services.   learn more: certified child care community designation program Sources: Ladd, S. (2024). House bill encouraging local governments to meet child care challenges moves to full Senate. Kentucky Lantern. Kentucky Collaborative for Child Care. (2025). A Foundation for Action: Shared Solutions to Child Care Challenges in Kentucky. Vanover, S. (2024). KYGA24: Sustaining the Child Care Sector. Kentucky Youth Advocates. Ladd, S. (2024). House committee advances child care bill that could free up zoning issues. Kentucky Lantern.

In 2022, the Northern Illinois University Research & Data Collaborative launched the Chicago Early Childhood Integrated Data System (CECIDS), which is governed by the City of Chicago. The system functions as a cloud-based data hub and data visualization tool for demographic, program, and individual data related to 52 specific early childhood questions and use cases. CECIDS is governed by multiple agencies and organizations (e.g., City of Chicago Department of Family and Support Services, Chicago Public Schools, and Illinois Network of Child Care Resource and Referral Agencies, and others) and shares state and city data across multiple stakeholders (e.g., City of Chicago: Mayor’s Office, Governor’s Office of Early Childhood Development, Illinois Action for Children, Illinois Department of Human Services, Illinois State Board of Education, and others) for public use. CECIDS hosts a data dashboard and data visualization tool with demographic and program eligibility and services data. The system is funded by philanthropic donations, the City of Chicago, and the State of Illinois. Learn more/source: Chicago Early Childhood Integrated Data System

In 2018, through a partnership between the Mayor’s Office, City Colleges of Chicago (CCC), Harry S. Truman College, Chicago Public Schools (CPS), and the Department of Family & Support Services (DFSS), Chicago created the Chicago Early Learning Workforce Scholarship (CELWS) initiative. CELWS empowers the early learning workforce to take courses and earn a credential, degree, endorsement or licensure to work with young children (birth through pre-K) and families in Chicago programs. The scholarship covers 100% of tuition, plus up to $250 in books per course, but it functions as a “last dollar” scholarship in that it covers everything that students’ federal grants and other scholarships do not. The scholarship is open to any Chicago resident who wants to enter the early childhood workforce. Parents of children enrolled in a Chicago program and recent high-school graduates are encouraged to apply, and Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipients are eligible. CELWS recipients must commit to working in a Chicago early learning program (including CPS Pre-K and Head Start/Early Head Start/PFA/PI funded community-based programs) for a minimum of three years after completing the degree or approved academic program. Learn more: Chicago Early Learning Workforce Scholarship Source: Chicago Early Learning. (n.d.). Workforce Scholarship.