Children in Pennsylvania schools can eat breakfast for free this school year.

The 2023-24 state budget includes a $46.5 million increase to provide universal free breakfast to Pennsylvania’s 1.7 million public school students. Every public school student will be eligible to receive free breakfast regardless of income.

The funding also provides free lunch to all 22,000 Pennsylvania students who are eligible for reduced-price lunches through the National School Lunch Program.

“As I’ve traveled Pennsylvania over the past few years, one thing I heard over and over again is about how many kids come to school hungry. Every expert will tell you that you can’t learn on an empty stomach – and we cannot expect kids to learn math and science and English when they haven’t eaten anything all day,” said Governor Josh Shapiro in a news release.

Check with your child’s school to learn more about their food service program and offerings for school breakfast.

Allegheny County’s Department of Children Initiatives (DCI) and the Allegheny County Health Department (ACHD) are piloting a program to improve the indoor air quality of regulated child care programs.

About

The program aims to reduce the spread of the COVID-19 virus and other common respiratory infection viruses. The pilot seeks to understand if these reductions can reduce the frequency and severity of asthma flares in children and improve children’s program attendance rates.

Child care programs will receive expert support in identifying the appropriate measures to improve indoor air quality. Costs for necessary modifications and equipment will be covered.  There will be no costs to child care programs selected to participate.

Submit an application to participate. Applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis. Spots are limited.

Educators teaching with “Anti-Bias Education for Young Children and Ourselves” can access a free instructor’s guide to accompany the book.

Learn More

For use in courses and trainings with preservice and in-service teachers, the instructor’s guide provides chapter-by-chapter support for teaching “Anti-Bias Education for Young Children and Ourselves” —and support for exploring your own anti-bias journey.

It includes key concepts, class prep activities, teaching strategies, assignments, suggested exam questions, and tips for navigating content.

To download the free instructor’s guide, visit the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) website.

Pennsylvania Partnerships for Children, in collaboration with Start Strong PA and Pre-K for PA, released the State of Early Care and Education in Pennsylvania.

About

Pennsylvania’s comprehensive early care and education system spans a child’s formative years, from birth to age five. This report looks deeper at Pennsylvania’s child care and pre-k system complexities and recommends the improvements necessary to ensure the system functions equitably and increases access and affordability for all families in the commonwealth.

Key findings include:

• 68% of young children in Pennsylvania have all available caregivers in the workforce and require external care arrangements.
• On average, costs for infant child care comprise approximately 17.5% of the Pennsylvania median family income.
• In Pennsylvania, the average hourly wage of a child care worker is less than $12.50/hour, which is less than $26,000 annually.
• Only 46% of all child care capacity in Pennsylvania meets high-quality standards, and only 35% of providers serving children under 5 in subsidized child care have achieved high-quality.
• Only 43% of eligible 3- and 4-year-olds in the state participate in high-quality, publicly funded pre-k, leaving over 87,000 without access to a high-quality program.
• Only 23% of all children served in Pre-K Counts and Head Start Supplemental Assistance Programs in Pennsylvania are Non-Hispanic Black, compared to 41% of children identifying as Non-Hispanic White.

Policy recommendations in the report include:

• Increase state funding for the child care sector to help build an infrastructure that will support providers to cover the true cost of providing high-quality care.
• Implement a wage scale for the child care workforce to diminish teacher turnover and stabilize the sector.
• Increase state pre-k investments in Pre-K Counts and Head Start Supplemental Assistance Programs to expand access to more 3- and 4-year-olds.
• Develop a pay parity policy for pre-k teachers that reflects wages provided to teachers in the K-12 system with equivalent degrees and credentials.
• Require the Office of Child Development and Early Learning (OCDEL) to produce a report every three years that provides a clear picture of the early childhood workforce, using state- and county-level data, and include recommendations on how Pennsylvania can better support the early childhood profession.
• Expand the number of high-quality providers by increasing incentives within Pennsylvania’s Quality Rating and Improvement System, Keystone STARS.
• Conduct an equity audit of Pennsylvania’s early care and education system to understand better changes needed to ensure equitable access for all children.
• Cease market rate surveys and conduct cost estimation studies using an approved cost modeling tool to determine the true cost of care.

Read the full report on the Pennsylvania Partnerships for Children website.

Pennsylvania residents who have had Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits stolen through a scam or card skimming sometime since October 1, 2022, can now file to have food stamps replaced.

According to Just Harvest, millions of dollars worth of SNAP recipients’ benefits across the nation have been stolen through card skimming machines, scam text messages, or other phishing schemes.

In December 2022, Congress passed legislation allowing stated to replace benefits that:

• were stolen through phishing, skimming or other scams AND

• were stolen between October 1, 2022 and September 30, 2024.

Report and Recover Stolen Benefits

Report the stolen benefits to the Pennsylvania Department of Human Services by one of the following methods:

• filling out this form online

• filling out this form and uploading it to your case through COMPASS, the My COMPASS PA app, or by sending it to your County Assistance Office

• calling your County Assistance Office

• calling the Customer Service Center at 1-877-395-8930 or 215-560-7226 in Philadelphia; they can mail you the form to complete

The deadline to claim benefits that were stolen between October 1, 2022 and July 12, 2023 is September 10, 2023.

If your benefits were stolen after July 12, 2023, you have 60 calendar days from the date of the first theft to report the theft to the Department of Human Services.  Once a report is made, the claim form must be filed within 30 days.

More Information

More details about the claim process and how to protect SNAP benefits can be found on the Just Harvest site.

The Office of Child Care in the Administration for Children and Families recently released new proposed rules for the Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG) program, and early learning providers are invited to give feedback via a survey.

About

The proposed changes aim to lower families’ child care costs; improve child care provider payment rates and practices; and streamline eligibility and enrollment processes.

The National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) and PennAEYC will be submitting comments on the proposed changes.

It is critical for those comments to center the wisdom, experience, and expertise of those in the early learning field. Thus, NAEYC created this 10-minute survey for the field. The survey provides some basic information about what the proposed changes would do and asks for feedback. The survey will close on Sunday, August 20.

The Office of Child Development and Early Learning (OCDEL) recently gave an update on its child care certification regulation rewrite project.

About the Rewrite

OCDEL launched the process for rewriting the child care certification regulations in October 2021. This rewrite is an opportunity for the early childhood and school-age community in Pennsylvania to co-create regulations in a way that builds stakeholder confidence in the process and:

• Increases alignment with quality improvement

• Promotes greater equity; and

• Decreases burden experienced by child care providers

Get the updated project status in a recent video by Shante’ Brown, Deputy Secretary of OCDEL. Watch the video to find out when and where you can see a new draft of the regulatory package and have further input.