Newsletter
In November 2016, Sue Miller became the new Early Learning Council Chair. Sue has been working in early childhood for over 20 years and is passionate about giving all children a chance to meet their potential to lead rewarding lives. She shared, “I recognize that achieving this goal will require unwavering support for families, beginning prenatally.”
All Early Learning Council members serve at the pleasure of the Governor as volunteers and must submit an application for review by the Early Learning System Director and Lindsey Capps, Education Policy Advisor to the Governor. Applications are ultimately approved by Governor Brown and those approved serve a four-year term (but can serve up to two terms, equaling eight years).
When discussing the work of the Council, Sue said: “The Council’s work is to help build a coordinated and outcomes-focused early learning system so that all children arrive at Kindergarten ready to succeed. We know that achieving this audacious goal will require supports for families and collaboration with our partners in healthcare, social services, education and communities.” She believes the most important charge of the Council is to build an early learning system across five sectors – healthcare, social services, education, early childhood, and business/community – and to ensure that policies, programs, and services are culturally-responsive to our focus population.
The Council’s role is to provide policy guidance for this work and to maintain a focus on results using available data to drive decisions. “We apply the equity lens to all our work to ensure that policies and practices are culturally-responsive and supportive of our focus population, which includes children of color, with disabilities, living in poverty, geographically isolated and/or English language learners.”
As we move into the legislative session, Sue will be working closely with Lindsey Capps and David Mandell, Acting Early Learning Systems Director, to help represent the Council at the Legislature and to support the Governor’s commitment to early learning. “Providing information for legislators and their staff on the work that the ELC and ELD are doing to develop a coordinated system to prepare children to be successful in Kindergarten and for families to thrive will be an exciting part of the next several months.”