C.R.S. § 26.5-6-101 Plan For Early Childhood Workforce Development

• Library: Colorado Statutes
• Edition: 2023
• Currency: Current through the 2023 Legislative Session and through Chapter 7 of the 2023 1st Extraordinary Session
• Year: 2023
• Citation: C.R.S. § 26.5-6-101

(1) The department, in partnership with the early childhood leadership commission, shall develop a plan for recruiting, training, and retaining a well-compensated, well-prepared, high-quality statewide early childhood workforce. In developing the plan, the department and the commission shall work with the departments of education, higher education, and labor and employment and with organizations that have expertise pertaining to the early childhood workforce. At a minimum, the plan must:

(a) Take into account existing early childhood workforce qualification pathways and create a simplified process for persons in the workforce to attain credentials and meet qualifications;

(b) Ensure the ability to overcome any regulatory and systemic barriers for entry into the early childhood workforce by addressing administrative and policy barriers to entry, including addressing barriers faced by individuals who speak languages other than English;

(c) Address strategies for recruiting and providing incentives for diverse, nontraditional workforce members, such as high school students, teachers from other countries, and parents, and reducing barriers that prevent these individuals from joining the early childhood workforce;

(d) Promote a coherent and aligned system of preparation and ongoing professional development for individuals in the early childhood workforce;

(e) Simplify the requirements an individual must meet to enter the early childhood workforce, clearly articulate the competencies that members of the early childhood workforce are expected to achieve over time, align the system of professional learning and development for early childhood services, and reduce regulatory barriers when possible to promote attainment of these competencies through identified professional development partners, including institutions of higher education;