Recommendation to direct City Manager to examine case studies from similarly sized municipalities that presently guarantee free preschool for their residents and report back to the City Council in 120 days with his findings about ways to fund such a venture in Long Beach, along with concrete policy goals and eligibility requirements that would allow for universal access without a major impact on the city budget; coordinate with Long Beach Unified School District (LBUSD) to ensure that any proposed program would not interfere with existing teaching contracts or place an undue burden on their resources; and reach out to existing community groups that provide this service for children to hear their ideas and input.
Good item 1212. Is a report from the Office of Vice Mayor Robert Garcia and Councilmember Susan Lowenthal with a recommendation to direct the city manager to examine case studies from similarly sized municipalities that presently guarantee free preschool for their residents and report back to the City Council at 120 days with various request. For help. Mr. Vice Mayor. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. This is just an extension of, I think, a a conversation that's happening right now across the country, certainly in the state. And it's happened here with a lot of educators in Long Beach for for many years. There's certainly been a discussion for and it's intensified, particularly the last few years, about the quality and about the importance of a pre-K education for children and what that really does for for cities and for communities. And I think as an educator, I think most educators would agree that there is there are very few things that you can get a better return for your investment than ensuring that every child has access to a pre-K education. pre-K pre-K education and report and study after study has been shown to do incredible and provide incredible support for children. It prepares them for that K-12 education. It certainly provides support for parents. It provides support for particularly single parents who are able then to to work and provide income for the family and and find other support. So pre-K and the idea of universal pre-K is certainly something that's been supported for for many years. What's happened the recently over particularly the last five years is that municipalities have entered into new partnerships and agreements, and in some cases, they have established their own pre-K systems and others have worked more directly with the state, and others have been funded through a variety of different grants and with some federal support. So now what we have today across the country is we have a variety of different pre-K models that are working. And you can look to, for example, San Antonio or other cities across the country, whether it's Chicago or Tulsa. And New York is now discussing it as well in how pre-K and universal pre-K could work when it's driven particularly by by a city or municipality. So this item is really just informational and is asking for three things in particular. And I'm going to to change part of the motion just a little bit. The first is to ask the city manager to come back to the council some time in the over the course of the next few months with information about what best practices are happening with pre-K across the country from a municipal point of view. So what are these other municipalities doing that perhaps is working? What other models are available to to cities? The second thing is we want to ensure that we're working with the school district directly. There was a suggestion, which I like to forward this as well, to our Joint Use Committee to have some in-depth discussion about what Lambert Unified is doing and how that could how we could support, you know, elbow stitch effort in pre-K. And then the last part of the motion will be, if we could please reach out to our early childhood education committee, which has been working on this issue, obviously, for for very long, and kind of coming together with that group as a city partner and getting their input and ideas so that when we come back to the council, we have a really healthy discussion of what's happening currently in Long Beach, and there's a lot of good things happening currently. And then what are the possibilities for us moving forward? So with that, I'd like to make the motion. Moving, seconded Mr. Dole. Thank you, Mr. Mayor, and thank you for this item. It raises heightens awareness of the need for pre-K education. As a teacher and a parent of two young ones, I know the importance of this. And I don't you know, I don't know what the vision is here and maybe the vision isn't even complete. Certainly there has to be revenue to pay for this. I know. What did San Antonio do? They did a sales tax. Correct. And I don't know that the city would be the best provider of this service either. I would hope we would look to the school district, our superintendents, school board and teachers over on the Long Beach Unified side to provide this services. Is that kind of your vision or do you even know yet? We're certainly not laying out any sort of vision right now. I think that there are there are different models in different cities that are being used. So San Antonio is one model, but there are certainly others. And I think at the end of the day we would want this process driven by bi by educators. And so the idea is to get the information to meet with constituencies and then come back for a fruitful discussion report. Great. Thank you. Well, I think even, you know, bringing it out, throwing out in the post so people can be just aware that we, too, know the importance of pre-K education. And the fact of the matter is, we are the tale of two cities, and we need to build that bridge between the two sides. And pre-K education is certainly a way to help that. So I'm certainly supportive of that. But again, I my my thinking would be this would probably best be best fit within the the purview of the school district. But again, it doesn't mean that we can't help move this down the road and get something like this going in our city. We do have some other efforts. I know the school district already engaged in a number of efforts across our city as well with their limited resources. Remember, their their funding is still below the 0708 level. So they right now don't have the resources to provide this service, but it is necessary. The fact of the matter is that if a child doesn't read it, though, at the fourth grade level, there's a 75% chance that never that child never will read at grade level. So we need to get literacy kids introduced to literacy at a young age. That's very important. And pre-K education does that. So again, I appreciate the the raising of awareness of that tonight and your open mindedness as to how we would get this moving and provided and language for that. Can I just respond and part of I think Councilmember O'Donnell's your comments is is right. I think part of the reason to go to the Joint Use Committee is to have a discussion with the superintendent and the school board as well, so that we're all on the same page. You know, and Pat West can probably finger paint, but I don't know how well he tells a story. And inspires kids to love reading. So I have no idea what the heck is going on. Kind of saying is I don't know that this necessarily belongs within the purview of the city. I think I got a. Story from the city manager a week in the briefing. And the fiction or nonfiction. Yeah. It's like preschool here. Mr. West I would hope that in this report, if you could add L.A. Universal Preschool, they're actually a nonprofit organization that has come to the city many times. They have they are privately funding universal preschool in Long Beach. And our own Jean Bigsby Smith is on their board of directors. So it would be helpful to see what they're doing because they're not relying on government funds. They right now have funded about 60,000 children in L.A. County and have quite a extensive list for the mom beach preschools they're funding. So hopefully we can include that information as well. Thank you. That's very long ago. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I wanted to thank the vice mayor for raising this issue. We have our youngest supporter, I think, Miss Jubilee, in the audience, who's come to speak on on validating why it's important to have this accessible to everyone after she's finished with her snack. Of course, we know that early learning is one of the best economic investments a society can make, and regardless of who pays for it, it's an investment that's worthwhile. And for every dollar that's invested, there's an exponential return on that investment in the form of earning potential. And how how we actually place value on that is not clear to me. But I do know that that value is there. There's also savings to society in decreased costs for special education, grade repetition and, worst of all, criminal justice. I think most people would prefer to build more preschools than prisons. But politics and life's complexities have a way of making that choice more difficult than it needs to be. However, as a former school board member and as a mother of a young child at Long Beach Unified, I can attest to the value of pre-K programs. When my son started in kindergarten, he was probably only in the third of the class that actually had any pre-K education. And that's difficult. That's difficult for the teacher in kindergarten where you have 19 students and only about eight or nine have had any preschool education. So these fee based programs aren't ones that most families can afford. They're very expensive. They can be very expensive. And I'm aware of existing programs that limit unified offers. And I'm quite sure the superintendent and the school board would welcome the opportunity and funding to expand worthwhile early learning programs. And they do a good job. Let me be unified as one of the first that actually pursued making kindergarten mandatory. And we all know that that's very critical. So I'm interested in finding out how other cities went about funding their pre-K programs. Were sales tax ballot measures the only source, the sole source? And then let's determine whether Long Beach is able to partner with our school district to offer residents this choice. I'm appreciative that the Vice Mayor added that component to the motion, working with the Joint Use Committee. I think together we can find opportunities to ensure that these. Early. Early education programs are available to our young residents. Thank you. Mr. Johnson. Well, thank you, Mayor. And I want to thank the vice mayor and Councilmember Lowenthal for bringing this forward. I think all of us understand and agree that preschool is critically important. I think that I appreciate, vice mayor. Your addition. To the motion to send it to the Joint Use Committee. And this is exactly the kind of item where the city and school district have joint interest that we should move forward together. I think the school district's already doing a great job. What they have. There may be some opportunities, too, for the city to assist them. In getting more grants or perhaps making their grant. Applications, you know, more successful. And that would be my interest. You know, how can we go out and get outside funds, whether from private nonprofits or from the federal government, etc., to expand and build upon what we're already doing. So I look forward to having that conversation as the chair of the Joint Use Committee, and thank you for coming out with this item. Strangers. Yes, thank you, ma'am. I also would like to welcome my sentiments for the individual part, this item forward and I also thank the educators here tonight were supporting this item. But you know that, like I say, we can't talk about money when we talk about education because, you know, without education, you know, we would have any money . So you guys please take this into consideration, understand that this is one of our prime was our kids, our future. We want to thank you guys for even bringing this item forward. Thank you again. Thank you. And remember, the public was just a council on side. And please come forward, identify yourself. Be mindful of time. Good evening. I am Francis Emily Dyson. Harris and I reside in District one and Mayor Foster City Council members, particularly Council Vice Mayor Garcia and council member Dr. Lowenthal, thank you for bringing these findings forward and thank the city. I'm looking at the writing of this and it's just absolutely phenomenal. And I heard Mayor Foster speaks many times about what about the children? So I look at this now, what about the children, our youth and our future, which is a very good thing. And the segment that says allow for universal access. Universal access in terms of early learning. And I'm thinking in regards to children with disabilities, there's children with disabilities that have physical disabilities that are quite capable of going to regular schools. And I would like you to look into the feasibility of this also for children with disabilities and preschool, having this opportunity to be able to go to school with children that are not disabled because we've got to move forward in a world that all persons are equal, that you have, you know, sensitivity, understanding. And I really think starting at the beginning would be a very good thing. So if you could possibly look into this fact that there's applications to include children with disabilities, physical that do have that the mental and the educational capacities to be able to go to a preschool and please give them that opportunity. Thank you. Thank you. Any further public comment? Okay. We have motion second members. Cast your votes and I'm pleased I'm so. Hi. My name is Christine Integrally and I live in the fifth District. I'm here on behalf of the Long Beach Early Care and Education Committee, and we're extremely excited about this particular item and this discussion here in our city. Given the President's Federal Early Learning proposal, as well as all of the initiatives that are taking place here in the state of California with regards to transitional kindergarten or kindergarten for all four year olds, we think it's really important that the city continue to engage in these conversations and help the public to be aware of these opportunities . And also, as these opportunities come forward, we want to ensure that all of these programs for the four year olds are of the highest quality, with the most well-prepared teachers for the children. Hi, I'm Judy. Carrie Fisher. I'm a consultant with the Long Beach Early Childhood Education Committee. The committee is comprised of more than 40 organizations the school district, private childcare providers, home based providers, etc.. We do want to extend a special thanks again to Vice Mayor Garcia and Councilmember Lowenthal for pushing this initiative forward. Hearing the connections to the school district, I think is really imperative right now because the early learning community is very concerned about the educational shifts that are going on through Common Core State standards. And one of the things that we're doing to ensure that those standards trickle down to the early learning community and can also be very integral in preschool for all to ensure that our children are ready to enter kindergarten at a brand new standard, ready to go. It's not the same kindergarten that it used to be in order to show that movement week of the young child is coming up, that it will be the week of April the sixth. And our push is to engage all of the early learning environments, whether it's home based, center based, whether it's the school district. And you will see banners outside that say children are educated here. There is the misnomer that our child care providers are baby sitters. And our message is that our children are educated here. And the way that will be further reinforced is through a universal pre-K approach that the city takes. For. Our youngest children. Thank you. Thank you, everybody. Good evening, Mayor Foster, council members and staff. My name is Cindy Young and I'm the director of the Child Development Centers for Long Beach Unified. And I'm here just to support your conversations. And we're very grateful that you're entertaining the conversation about universal preschool and wanted to share some interesting statistics. Research shows that if three and four year old children participate in a quality preschool program, they will require less intervention in the K-12 system and will be more likely to continue to go on and graduate for college and career readiness. What we do know is that students that don't have access to a quality program are more likely to commit a violent crime and end up in prison. What we do know is that 60% of our four year olds across the state of California do not participate in a preschool program. What we do know is that low income children, which represents a large portion of the community we serve on average, are exposed to 30,000 fewer words a year than their same age counterparts, and when they enter kindergarten, are more likely to be two years below grade level than the peers that they go in at the same time . What we also know is that children that represent six years and younger represent the poorest and largest population. So we really appreciate your continued conversations. We we want to be a part of those conversations. I believe that it's going to take local level legislators, as well as the state level joining forces with the district in order to make this happen. And look at fleshing out what additional funding sources are available to ensure that we have universal preschool for all. Thank you. Thank you. Very good. Hugh Clark is the address. Let me suggest something that might be a little novel. Why don't instead we focus on educating the kids at this point? Why don't we focus in on educating the adults? Training them and educating them on the merit and holding off excuse me, holding off having a family until such time as they can financially support that family. Right now, as I've often said, the DNC policy is worry not. If you want to bring money into your household, pop out a kit. Don't worry about it. We'll send you the money. For every kid you get, you get more money. Why don't you focus in on educating them to be about educating people to be responsible? Try that. I know it's a novel idea. It's a novel. It. There's no question that the education is necessary. But all one has to do is take a trip up on the blue line and you see where the problem is. One in three people in the county of Los Angeles is on some type of public assistance. From the county or from the state, and the majority of the people referenced are in the lower income. That's where you need to focus. Is focus on the adults, on how to be responsible. Thank you. Any further public comment? Our members cast your votes on item 12. Motion carries nine votes.