October 2025

News

October 8, 2025

Trying Together to Host Office Hours on 2025 Child Care Market Rate Survey

Trying Together’s Policy Team will host four upcoming office hours to discuss the importance of completing the 2025 Child Care Market Rate Survey and to offer support and answer questions.

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Every three years, the Market Rate Survey helps the Pennsylvania Office of Child Development and Early Learning (OCDEL) to set child care subsidy payment rates that are reflective of the private pay market.

The survey’s purpose is also about understanding the private pay tuition rates that programs charge to operate and that families are willing to pay. Even if a survey respondent doesn’t serve children on subsidy, their participation helps the field and may increase the payments to providers.

More programs completing the survey means that Pennsylvania has more information about program needs and what families are paying. This can help to make the case for greater investment in early care and education that will affect all programs.

The survey is open through Monday, December 8.

Trying Together’s office hours to discuss the survey include:

Thursday, October 23 from 6 p.m. to 7p.m.
Thursday, October 30 from 1 p.m. to 2 p.m.
Wednesday, November 12 from 1 p.m. to 2 p.m. and 6 p.m. to 7 p.m.

Office hour attendees who confirm that they completed the survey will be entered into a raffle to receive a gift card. Those interested in attending should register to attend one of the office hours sessions.

Those interested in attending Trying Together’s office hours can sign up online.

News

October 7, 2025

Treasurer Announces Short-Term Funding Relief for Pre-K Counts Programs, Head Start Providers

The Pennsylvania Treasury Department’s Budget Bridge Loan program will now accept applications from Pre-K Counts programs and organizations that provide rape prevention and response services as well as domestic violence prevention and support services for survivors, state Treasurer Stacy Garrity announced this week.

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Eligible organizations must use the Budget Bridge Loan for immediate operating expenses as indicated by the loan agreement. Funds will be received shortly after an application is approved.

In late September, Garrity announced $500 million in Budget Bridge Loans for Head Start providers and county governments to help support vital human services. Treasury expects to be able to expand the program to Pre-K Counts and rape and domestic violence prevention programs without increasing the original program amount.

The Treasury Department will reach out directly to Head Start programs and county governments. Those who enter into a loan agreement will be required to pay back the initial investment along with a 4.5% annual interest rate within 15 days of state funds being released following the enactment of a state budget for Fiscal Year 2025-26. Providers eligible to apply for the loans will receive communication directly from the Treasurer’s Office with instructions on how to apply.

“The response to Treasury’s short-term funding solution has been positive, and I’m pleased to be able to expand this program to include organizations that provide critical services to more children and also to survivors of rape and assault,” Garrity said. “I’m using the tools available as state treasurer to make sure critical services can continue without interruption. These loans are a lifeline.”

For more information, read the Treasury Department’s announcement on the loan program.

While we continue to advocate for a final budget with early childhood investments, this is welcome relief for Pre-K Counts and Head Start programs.

News

Trying Together Calls for Presentation Proposals for February UnConference

Trying Together invites those interested in presenting at its February 16 UnConference, “Kindergarten Transition,” to submit proposals for presentation topics relating to that topic by Friday, October 31.

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Trying Together’s UnConference is an innovative, hands-on professional development training format where a deeper experience is provided around a particular theme related to early childhood education. Speakers are invited to present and participants are encouraged to engage hands-on in the workshops.

Trying Together’s upcoming event, UnConference: Kindergarten Transition, will be held on Monday, February 16 at the Allegheny Intermediate Unit, located at 475 E. Waterfront Drive in Homestead. PQAS and Act 48 credits will be available for attendees.

Trying Together is seeking a focused range of topical presentations for the UnConference, which will focus on the topic of the transition to kindergarten. The audience for the UnConference will be early childhood educators, including employees of child care and early learning programs.

Those submitting proposals should design them to fit a 90-minute session.

To submit a proposal, download the submission form. Then, fill it out and submit to learning@tryingtogether.org with the subject line “February 2026 UnConference Proposal” no later than 11:59 p.m. on October 31.

News

October 6, 2025

Census Survey Includes Statistics on Children Living in Poverty, Pre-K Counts Eligibility

The U.S. Census Bureau recently released results of the 2024 Community Survey (ACS), an annual source of up-to-date information on social, economic, and housing data and trends.

This year’s survey found that the number of Pennsylvania children under the age of 18 living in families below the federal poverty level decreased by about 1%.

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The survey provides local statistics on a variety of demographic and economic topics, including health insurance coverage, household income, and educational attainment.

Pennsylvania Partnerships for Children highlighted some of the most noteworthy statistics in a recent newsletter. These include:

The number of Pennsylvania children under age 18 living in families below the federal poverty line – less than 100% FPL – decreased from 404,000 to 396,000, or from 16% to 15%.
Racial gaps remain for children living in poverty: Approximately 31% of Black children live in poverty as well as 26% of Latino children, 10% of non-Hispanic white children, and 20% of children with two or more races.
The rate of Pennsylvania children under age 6 who have all available parents in the labor force remained at 72%.
Pennsylvania children under 6 who are eligible for Pre-K Counts (less than 300% FPL) decreased from 54% to 51%.

For more statistics, visit the Pennsylvania KIDS COUNT Data Center or the 2024 Community Survey.

News

Genius of Play Encourages Outdoor Play, Suggests Activities

Although the summer is over, the weather outside will still be ideal for outdoor activities for the foreseeable future. The Genius of Play has compiled a short list of activities that adults can recommend to children to encourage them to put down their smart phones and other screens for a while.

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Spending time outside provides children with important opportunities for growth and learning, the Genius of Play wrote in its recent newsletter.

Four activities that the organization included in its newsletter that can be used to encourage outdoor play are:

Shadow Art – In this activity, children use varied positions and angles to help them learn that differences can alter the shape of the shadow they create; drawing and creative skills are utilized.
Act It Out – This activity involves reading a book aloud and acting it out by assigning a child a role.
Obstacle Course – Adults should design a path for children to follow by creating an imaginary balance beam with tape; make stepping stones with other objects and have children follow the path by crawling over them.
Basket Toss – Place objects within easy reach of a child and have them throw them into a basket; the idea is to present a challenge, but not a frustration.

Each of the activities can also be played indoors, if the weather isn’t cooperative.

For more play activities, visit the Genius of Play website.

News

October 1, 2025

Articles Discuss Importance of School Attendance and Barriers

Education is essential for students’ success and social progress, and one of the largest impediments to achieving these things is chronic absence.

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When a student misses several days of class each month, they can fall behind in their classes, Kidsburgh wrote in a recent article. Then, teachers have to juggle the challenges of helping them to catch up while teaching new material to them and the rest of the class.

In the article, education advocates noted that the Pittsburgh region has a large nonprofit and philanthropic community that can help families connect to resources on such issues as food insecurity or child care to enable older siblings to focus on their own education.

Attendance Works, an organization that focuses on ensuring that all students attend school regularly and participate in learning, wrote an article on the root causes of absence from school. It argued that understanding why students are absent as well as what motivates them to attend is important in creating a system of support.

Attendance Works wrote that reasons for absences typically fall into four categories:

Barriers to attendance
Aversion to school
Disengagement from school
Misconceptions about the impact of absences

Within these categories, various reasons were included – such as chronic illness, family responsibilities, or poor transportation (barriers); struggling academically or unwelcoming school climate (aversion); lack of challenging or engaging instruction (disengagement); and losing track and underestimating total absences (misconceptions).

Attendance Works included a worksheet that educators can use to mark the reasons why students in their district are absent.

To view the entire list of reasons for absence by category, visit Attendance Works’ website.