We'll be together for all committee. Let's go ahead and call the roll. Supervisor Marquez. President. Supervisor Fortinato Bass. President. So we'll now have online instructions for Spanish interpretation. Yes, thank you. Good afternoon, everyone. and everyone We will be providing interpretation at today's session. I will be making this announcement in English and Spanish. Bienvenidos. Proposionaremos interpretación en la sesión de hoy. Anunciaré este mensaje en inglés y en español. We invite everyone to please select English if you have limited Spanish proficiency. This way you will be able to hear the interpreters from Spanish to English. If you're on a computer at the bottom you will see a glove that says interpretation. You can go ahead and click on it and select or prefer language. If you're on a cell phone or a tablet or an iPad, you can locate three dots. They're usually located on the right hand side in the upper or bottom part. You can go ahead and click on them lightly. Then you can go ahead and check on your preferred language. And be sure to click done in order to activate and begin the interpretation. We invite all of you to select Spanish if it is limited in your English domain. In this way you can hear the interpreters of the Spanish language. If you're using, and if you're in your computer, you're going to notice a blank logo in the bottom of your screen that says interpretation. You can click and select the Spanish language. If you're using your cell phone, tablet or iPad, you can locate three points in the upper or lower part of your screen. You can click on it, select the Spanish again, and please Este último paso es muy importante para activar la interpretación y poder escucharla de una manera simultánea. Muchas gracias, estamos a sus órdenes. Thank you very much, back to you. In-person, you, supervisor. I'm going to go back to you supervisor. All right. Welcome again to the Alameda County together for all act for all committee. So as many of you know, this committee is focused on coordinating a proactive response to protect support and lift up our communities that are impacted by the federal administration and its policy and budget decisions. We want to make sure as a county that we are ensuring that our community is informed, prepared and coordinated in terms of protecting our critical health programs and social services, and our constitutional rights. So we typically meet once a month on the first Thursday because the first Thursday was May Day. We're meeting today and you can stay informed by visiting our webpage and that is district5.acgov.org slash act hyphen for hyphen all. I want to just share a few remarks before we get started. And just stepping back, you know, we're many, many months into this administration. It feels much longer than it actually is. And every day, unfortunately, we are hearing terrible news about threats to our safety net and our most vulnerable communities and that's creating a lot of fear and uncertainty. I wanted to also lift up that there's also a lot of organizing. There are a lot of communities who are pushing back on what's in front of us and we've even had some recent legal victories. So here in Oakland and the East Bay and actually across the nation just recently, a number of organizations including some in the East Bay demanded that the Trump administration restore $811 million in federal grants for programs nationwide that are proven to save lives including violence prevention programs. And I think those type of of actions are really important at this time. I also wanted to lift up that recently a federal judge in California issued a preliminary injunction blocking the Trump administration from pulling funds from sanctuary cities. Following a lawsuit brought forward by the city and county of San Francisco and other local jurisdictions. And that, the judge in that matter said that cities and counties have also demonstrated a likelihood of a reputable harm in that the threat of withholding funding causes them a reputable injury in the form of budgetary uncertainty, deprivation of constitutional rights and undermining trust between cities and counties and the communities that they serve. In addition to that, I wanted to also lift up some recent news and that is that a judge in Seattle temporarily blocked the Trump administration from imposing new conditions on hundreds of millions of dollars, worth of mass transit grants for the Seattle area, and also homeless services grants in Boston, New York, San Francisco, and other local governments. And so these judges are upholding our constitution. They're also demonstrating the overreach of the federal administration, and that's incredibly important to us. So as we continue, he our work here in the county, including our budget process, we're paying close attention to the possible impacts of both the federal and the state budgets, because there are critical health services, safety net services, food security, and other services that may be at risk. And I know many of us are talking with our constituents and service providers every day, and I want all of you to know that we're monitoring those impacts, including Medicaid, which we have talked about quite a bit at our PAL committee. So as we have future meetings, we'll continue to focus on other issues. Just as a reminder, in February, we focused on immigrant rights, reproductive justice and gender justice. From that meeting, we've invested in deportation defense and immigrant rights education. I wanted to briefly remind folks if you haven't heard that our public defender is advertising for vacancies and openings in his office and that's the result of the work of Supervisor Marquez as our public protection chair and our board. So please share that so we can have some great staff to join our public defenders team. And then in March we focused on data privacy and security. In April we focused on education, K through 12. Today we're going to focus on early education and also receive a critical update on work that is happening in higher education and then in June we'll focus on health and mental health care. So before we get started Supervisor Marquez I wanted to see if you had any remarks to share. Do not but thank you chair bass for your leadership in this committee and for your staff for preparing these presentations and Confirming our presenters. We're gonna be hearing today Really appreciate the fact that we are meeting on a monthly basis to give accurate information out to the public and appreciate the website and the fact that anyone can reach out to our office with any questions or concerns for future topics as well. Thank you. Thank you. So again, today we're focusing again on education. We will first hear from allies in the higher education field and then we will hear very importantly about early care and our early care education system. So without further ado, we'll hear an update on higher education and thank you to Alia Carmali for joining us, who is an attorney supporting students, whose visas were revoked. And then after Ms. Carmali will hear from Liz Jackson, who was a lawyer with Palestine Legal. Thank you so much. Board of Supervisor, class we're having is here for inviting us. Really honored to speak with you today. My name is sure. My name is Alia Carmali. I'm an immigration attorney in Oakland, California. I've been practicing for about 12 years. Um, I've been part of movements in the legal field, including the National Lawyer's Guild currently with the Oakland Long Collaborative. And along with Ms. Jackson and several others, many attorneys and legal workers came together in recent weeks in order to support student immigrants at universities in Alameda County, including UC Berkeley, of course, but also other institutions of higher education, including Berkeley City College. So I just wanted to give a little recap for the daily Cal as of April 10, 2025, 23 students at UC Berkeley alone were affected by the administration's FESA Revocation Program. The breakdown overall is five undergraduates, 10 graduates and then then eight recent graduates. And by recent graduates, by and large, that was people who were in the optional practical training field, which means that they were likely involved with STEM fields. And we're doing research and education and furtherins of their field after having graduated. At Berkeley City College, there were no known beast in revocations to our knowledge. However, we did speak with people who were in non-immigrant status and who were concerned about their eligibility for immigration benefits based on their political beliefs and political activity. I don't know if you guys can hear me better. So overall as you alluded to, there is a climate of fear and there's a climate of political repression at the national level that also filters down to the local level. The students that myself and other attorneys spoke to were terrified in April and in March when we were seeing visa revocations happen every single day. These numbers were going up astronomically. We were seeing people swept off the streets being detained by ICE for nothing more than signing a petition or writing an article about Palestine. Many students I spoke with literally would not leave their house or their apartment. They were too afraid to go to class. They were afraid to work. This is the next slide. They were afraid to get food for themselves just because they were afraid that they would be picked up on the street. Many of these students, the majority of the students that we've talked to, you know, had no criminal record whatsoever. Many of them have been active in encampments for Palestine to varying degrees. Many of them had their studies interrupted because they were afraid to go abroad to do work, right? For their graduate work, or see sick family members because they weren't sure if immigration would allow them to return back into the country safely. So, I mean, I spoke to many, many, many individuals and in fact just recently faculty who've signed on to petitions, denouncing the genocide and Palestine shortly after October 8th and have been doxed. And because of that, are now completely uncertain as to whether or not they'll be allowed to remain in this country, work in this country, and contribute to our society. As I mentioned, a number of attorneys and legal workers got together. We also partnered with great community organizations, AROC, Palestinian youth movement, CCIJ, the Center for Protests Law and Policy and Pallel Legal to provide free consultations, referrals and intakes to students to determine whether or not they were eligible for injunctive relief or other federal relief in our federal district courts, including but not limited to emergency habeas, petitions and temporary injunctions. We're still meaning we're still gathering even though the federal administration has said that they reversed their policies on student visas because we know that this work needs to continue. We know we need to strengthen our networks and our relationships and maintain an open line of communication to affected students. I think the next line. So we're also continuing to do know your rights trainings and we're also assisting with a development of emergency response plans So that people have information about legal representation They have information about what the process of habeas looks like if it needs to be activated they have information about How they can mitigate and protect themselves if they do need to travel or if they and their loved ones are detained by ICE. To that extent, it's really critical that we're working with existing networks, a SEALUP among many others that receive funding from counties and other sources to maintain their hotlines on rapid response work that's existed for years, if not decades, because as we know, ICE is not a new thing. There have been a number of lawsuits, the National Immigration Project, has staff, has members that have sued on behalf of their individual clients in order to prevent their arrest, detention, transfer and deportation. This resulted in a number of temporary injunctions in California and there are others in other states across the nation. To my knowledge, there is no nationwide stay against visa revocations, which is important because it means that people are still vulnerable should the federal administration decide to change their policy again. Several students also remain in ice custody for their work around Palestine and in support of Palestinian liberation and against genocide. What's next for us and how we see this body potentially supporting us. We're continuing to monitor developments around litigation. They should wide doing their rights trainings, continuing our work with the SELP hotline and other hotlines, including the North Cali-Resist Hotline up in Sacramento. And we need to expand and hopefully continue to fund those hotlines and to continue political support for the rapid response work against ICE in this county and other Bay Area counties, and also encourage the universities to step up to pay for illegal support for students. These are individuals that are really critical to our community. Many of them have mental health issues now as a result of living in fear for weeks and months. So seeking support for non-carceral pathways to mental health resources for them. And also supporting the student sanctuary movement at the University of California, Berkeley and other universities such that the universities are prevented from collaborating with ICE and local law enforcement in the detention and deportation of their students in Alameda County. Thank you. Thank you so much. Why don't we hear from Liz Jackson first and then we'll open it up for questions and comments and public comment. Good afternoon. Thank you so much for this ad hoc committee in Chair Bass. I want to just say we are all experiencing so much despair as we organize and this is just being in this room and hearing your introduction is a lifting of despair and feeling hope and action here. So thank you so much. I am a Elameda County resident. I live in Berkeley. I'm a parent of school age children and I'm also a founding staff attorney with Palestine Legal and Torrey Porelle in the audience here has pretty much taken my job as the full-time staff attorney and I'm just down to a few consulting hours a week. But I didn't warn her so I'm here to talk with you. Really I wanted to share context. Yes, there is severe repression coming from the federal government targeting students, faculty, workers, who are vocal supporters of Palestinian rights. Palestine Legal formed in 2012, because this has been a problem for decades where it's routine and relentless repression targeting, really anyone who questions US and Israeli policy towards Palestinians. The repression from the federal government now is severe, supercharged, escalated, but it is not new. This is something that our own universities and local governments unfortunately have been paving the way for decades, which is why Palestine Legal formed. I authored a report in 2015 called the Palestine exception to free speech because this is such an institutionalized problem. Universities and unfortunately local governments too have just trampled on bedrock free speech protections, trampled on shared governance, and criminalized and punished protesters for Palestinian rights. And do I control the slides or that's... Oh, okay. Oh, okay, I'll do it. I just wanted to show some pictures of what these protests look like. This is on our own campus at Berkeley. And highlight specifically the demand of the encampment last spring, which was basically the same policy that Alameda County has already adopted, ethical investment, immediate disclosure and divestment of all the University of California's financial holdings from corporations that enable and profit from Israeli apartheid and in accordance with the boycott divestment sanctions. So these are not radical demands, this is really basic. Just please stop committing the worst crime that humanity has agreed on as the worst crime genocide and let's invest our money ethically. But in response to that, the universities have acted as if there's something threatening and violent happening. So rather than listening to students, I'm reading from a Palestinian legal report summarizing what happened in 2024. And we wrote rather than listening to their students pain and engaging their demands to save lives, universities, bulldoze, free speech, do process, and shared government principles in ways that have facilitated Trump's full-fledged attacks on educational institutions. So I think probably I looked for pictures of serious police crackdowns on protesters and happily there are none locally because the local universities did, oh that's funding for us, did avoid the worst kind of police violence. But I do want to emphasize that our local universities did weaponize the student conduct process and distort discrimination law by accusing protesters of anti-semitism and dragging them through very painful, disciplinary processes that really tee up for the Trump administration, the same justification they're using to abduct people off the street that this interferes with US foreign policy and threatens Jewish students and taking off a legal hat for a moment and just putting on the hat of a Jewish mother and I have a slide on this later but in case I don't get to it, we believe that Palestinian lives, and their right to live, is an universal expression of justice and equality for all, and this is not something that threatens Jewish people. We should be safe in our own communities where Jews are safe in Alameda County because we have deep solidarity and connections with our neighbors here. There is a difference between, it is uncomfortable that the US and Israeli government are responsible for such slaughter, but it is not unsafe for Jewish people to acknowledge that, and that criticism of the Israeli government is entirely separate from anything disparaging of Jewish people. And the university somehow does not understand this, despite many, many scholars of Jewish studies trying to explain this. And so what we do have a problem locally in Alameda County of our own university, weaponizing the student conduct process, and repeatedly accusing our students of anti-Semitism, and that tees it up for the Trump administration. So that's something we'd like to ask you in your power to raise. Okay, so the next piece behind these threats, oh, is the funding threats that the way that this, the federal repression came to Columbia and next Harvard is that the federal government is threatening to, if you don't crack down and stop Palestine activism your funds are gone. So in the opening you went through some of the lawsuits and I just put on the slide here really what I wanted to emphasize is this is a scare tactic. It is illegal for the federal government to pull funds for these reasons. And there's a really great multi-state attorney general guidance on this. And I just put the quote from that memo in here to understand that, yeah, the attorney's generals are saying this is a scare tactic and have a very clear legal memo, laying out that education institutions should continue to foster diversity, equity and inclusion, and that it is in line with state and federal law to continue programs that foster DEI. Now, the piece that I think is really important for you to be aware of is the funding threats to these kinds of programs really threaten working class students of color the most. And I think that's a big problem in our county is that the people who are the most, and we see this with the legal request for support that come to us. The most vulnerable people cannot withstand the threats to their paycheck. And the most vulnerable people are most vulnerable to censorship, because they don't have housing if they lose their federal grant and are cut off. And it's something where you can really see the privilege. And it's a place where working class students end up having less free speech rights than economically privileged people. So I just wanted to highlight that for you. It really comes out in how we see requests for legal support. I think I spoke on this already. But false accusations of anti-semitism are the dominant repression tool. And I wish I could say it's only coming from the federal government. Unfortunately, there is legislation in the California state legislature that seems that looks like it's going to also propose something called the IRA definition, which is the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of anti-Semitism and it's a erroneous and distorted and violates the First Amendment and it's an erroneous and distorted understanding of anti-Semitism. It has examples of anti-Semitism instead of seven out of the 11 refer to Israel. So like I spoke to earlier criticizing a nation nation state, including our own nation states policies, is protected free speech and is an expression of Palestinian suffering and telling Palestinian stories and the government cannot under the First Amendment, criminalize that or prohibit that kind of speech. But we're seeing this not only coming from the federal government and there's legislation in front of Congress, but it looks like there's state legislation as well. And like I said, our local universities in Alameda County have been promoting this for some time. This is a picture of a student whose Palestinian student whose course was canceled in 2016 because it was argued that his course violated this definition of anti-Semitism and it was a major incident of trampling on basic academic freedom protections and shared governance. And this was at the University of California, so I put his picture up just to remember that this does happen in our county. Here's some stuff that I think I don't have time for on the difference between anti-scientism and anti-semitism, and I would be really eager to talk more about it if you have questions or seek help articulating it, but I think I'll not sure if I'm sure if I'm not sure if I'm sure if I'm not sure if I'm sure if I'm not sure if I'm sure if I'm not sure if I'm sure if I'm not sure if I'm sure if I'm not sure if I'm sure if I'm not sure if I'm sure if Iiffs entry onto campus and, you know, limit enforcement and the use of county resources for that. The third is defending professors, workers and students who are punished for their political activities, including activity against genocide and for ethical investment like Alameda County's policy. And a fourth is mental health crisis support. I, you know, I know we have a robust public health department here and it's really a need that we're not seeing met. We've been able to provide so far pro bono legal resources but the severe crisis for people who feel like they cannot leave their homes because they have spoken out on social media against genocide is pretty serious. We don't see the university's meeting this need. And then the fifth is raising these concerns to the state level, both the funding concerns and how much that threatens our first generation college students. And second, the issue of how discrimination law is being distorted with a distorted definition of anti-semitism. So those are both issues that need to be raised to the state. I think I covered it all. And I'm going to give you this report on campus repression from Palestine Legal, but I'll give it to you. Thank you so much to both Aliyah Karmali and Liz Jackson. Really appreciate how through a seal up in the rapid response network that we were able to help support standing up earlier this year, that was part of the coming together as these students had their visas rescinded. And I think it was really helpful to hear, this isn't happening just in the context of this Trump administration or the last Trump administration. It actually predates all of that. And it's really up to us to make sure that we're informing the broader community. We're engaging our universities and our community colleges and those leaders and also shoring up the supports that are needed. And so I certainly hear how support in terms of legal support is needed because while the revocation of the visas was rescinded, we know that the administration said they are trying to figure out a framework around this. So there still might be something looming that we don't know about. And that also leads to the mental health and the fear and uncertainty when you're trying to get an education. An education is a human right. So I appreciate these ass. Certainly given that UC Berkeley is in my district and there's other community colleges in my district. I'll be working to engage those leaders and I have been throughout this process with the international students. And I think it's also worth noting that we should figure out what additional mental health supports are available because this is a very particular crisis that I think the student community is experiencing at this time and the international student community at that. So thank you for sharing all of this supervisor, Marquez. Yeah, thank you for elevating this information and shedding light to many areas that I was not aware of, especially the fact that this has been going on predates the current second term of the Trump administration. When you were speaking I was thinking I'm aware that the city has their own public health department. But behavioral health services are still in our jurisdiction. I concur that we've got to find a way to make sure that students have access to those services. So thank you for bringing this to our attention. So at this time we'll go to the main item or the main portion of this educational session. So today we're gonna focus on how first five Alameda County is navigating and understanding the possible and already real threats. And impacts to our childcare and early education system by the recent federal administration, firing critical staff and closure of offices around the Bay Area. Our guests are also going to share what we can do, particularly in response to the challenges posed by the current administration's policies. So today, we have with us Vanessa Sidenio, whose chief of staff for first five Alamedameda County and we also have Diana Garcia, who's the senior administrator for policy also with first five Alameda County. So thank you both for your work and I know a lot of this information is also just very recent and kind of fast moving so we appreciate you joining us. Okay can you hear me okay? Yeah. Yes. So good afternoon Chair Fortunato Bass and Supervisor Marquez. As you just said my name is Vanessa Sardinio. I'm the Chief of Staff here at First 5 Elimita County and I'm really excited to be here with my colleague Diana Garcia, who's our Senior Administrator for policy. Diana, who, like myself, is a child of immigrant parents is also a former head start teacher. And I myself am a head start child, and my mother is a head former head start teacher. She retired after over 25 years serving as a head start teacher, starting as a parent volunteer herself. So these issues are personal. They're not abstract, as we know. And also want to appreciate the critical work of this committee. We're so thankful for you, for inviting us and recognizing early childhood and early care and education so that we can share an update on the impacts to families with young children and the educators, providers, and caregivers that love and nurture all of our young children in Alameda County. We know that investments early in life yield huge returns in the long term. So investing really early from pre-birth, pre-natal, right, is important and often not recognized as deeply. But we know that the long term outcomes for society and for families yields huge returns for small investments. However, despite us knowing that as a fact, the Trump administration has taken actions that threaten an already under-resourced early childhood system by proposing federal cuts and proposing policies and taking administrative actions that reduce or in effect eliminate the infrastructure that we have to serve families with young children, particularly in our early care and education system. So today we'll feature a few of those actions and talk a little bit about their implications. Just for those who might not know who first five is, first five is an independent county agency. We like to say we're a sister agency of the county. We were founded or established through Proposition 10, a statewide tobacco tax over 25 years ago. And really the purpose was, and intent was for first five at a local level to create a coordinated and integrated early childhood system. And we in Alameda County as supervisor for tornado vast nose having been appointed to our commission are really leaning into that vision about how we create an equity centered early childhood system for families in our county. The visual that we like to call our blooming flower just represents how we think about what an early childhood system looks like in the center is our north star that every child in our county is ready for kindergarten. And in the center wrapped around foundational to all aspects of our work, is meeting families basic needs and ensuring that there's racial and economic equity for families. And so we support programming and services and advocacy in families and neighborhoods because we know as Alameda County Coinge that place matters in health and well-being and learning and care. And we take a whole community, whole family, whole child approach to that work. That's just who we are. In terms of who we're talking about here, we thought I would go quickly through some demographic data and why we're here in front of your committee today. So in Alameda County, 9% of families are living at or below the federal poverty level. What does that mean? That means that for a family of four, with one infant or toddler or one preschool-aged child. the federal poverty level. What does that mean? That means that for a family of four with one infant or toddler or one preschool-aged child, they're making less than about $32,000 for that household. That is very low considering the cost of living in Alameda County. And yet one in 10 children falls under that threshold. Half more than half of our children under five live in a family with at least one foreign born parent. So over half. And nearly half, sorry, nearly half live in a household told English, where a language other than English is the primary language spoken at home. So our young children are immigrants or of immigrant families. You guys know this because we administer the safety in that in Alameda County, but 40% of our young children aren't rolled in Medi-Cal. And importantly, for today's discussion, there is huge unmet need in early care and education. So for families that are eligible for subsidized care with an infant and toddler, so the youngest, unmet need is at 91%. For preschool age children who would be eligible for a subsidized slot, it's at 63%. So with existing infrastructure still, over 91% of families with an infant and toddler can access early care and education or quality early learning opportunities even though they are eligible. And as I mentioned, the cost to live here for a family is very high. We estimate that it's about nearly $160,000 to meet a family's basic needs. So that same family with one infant and one preschool age child. One third of that has to go to childcare. And the cost of early care and education is growing exponentially. between 2014 and 2021, it increased over 68%. It is now outpacing the cost of housing. So we're adding this on top of mortgages or rent. And who are our early educators? Again, who is being targeted through these actions? 96% of our early care and education workforce are women. Nearly 80% are women of color. And 40% are over 50. They're aging out. So we're also losing them. They're vital for our economy, for parents to be able to go to work, to go to school. And so this is who's under threat. And also early educators are worried about paying their monthly bills, and they're worried about meeting basic needs like food. So that's just a little bit about who we're talking about when we talk about early care and education and early childhood. I'm going to turn it over to Diana to talk a little bit about the federal policy updates. All right, good afternoon supervisors and thank you Vanessa. Thank you for having us here today. Reiterating Vanessa's point from earlier. research shows that investing in young children has short-term and long-term benefits for society. By helping give children a strong start, some programs can provide the federal government with long-term return of $10 for every dollar that is invested in children. So in the next few slides, I'm going to be providing an overview of the federal programs that support our early care and education system and how federal threats impact the state and Alameda County. First and foremost I know there's a lot on this slide but it's important to know that the early care and education system is deeply fragmented because early care and education has never been treated as a public good. At the federal level early care and education programs are primarily funded by the US Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Education. So the image on the right is intended to show the complexity of the funding streams that flow to the state and the local level to support early care and education programs. It includes core programs that support our state subsidized child care system including the child care development block grant, head star and also TANF which funds our CalWORKS child care grants and the Department of Education also provides supports for young children with diverse learning needs. However, as we mentioned earlier, there are several conditions that support the health and well-being of our youngest children that are at risk and under the current federal administration, including Medicaid, the Children's Health Insurance Program, SNAP, WIC, and several other nutrition and housing and safety net programs. So right now we know that Congress is working on two critical budget processes that could have dire impacts on our communities. The first one is the budget resolution which only requires 50 votes for it to pass. This process funds TAMF, Medicaid SNAP, and other critical nutrition programs and safety app programs that we've mentioned earlier. And then there's also the FY26 budget appropriations process, which funds, non-descriptionary programs that include head start, the childcare development block grant, and WIC, which are a foundation all for our families here in the county. So we know there's already been federal threats and actions that are impacting our families with young children. Just to name a few examples, President Trump signed an executive order to dismantle the Department of Education and has reduced its workforce by half. The Trump administration has also taken unprecedented actions to harm people and immigrant families within the first 100 days that he's been in office. So in addition to enforcement actions and status restrictions and violations of due process, the administration has attempted to limit access to healthcare, food, housing, and other programs for immigrant families, which we know already many are excluded from. They've also impeded people's ability to pay taxes and contribute to our economic growth. And they've targeted individuals with data sharing agreements that add to the chilling effect and they're a factor. And we're hearing that families with young children are too scared to send their children to school, go to health visits, and access critical supports in our community. Through the budget reconciliation process and the FY2026 appropriations process, CHOMP is also targeting critical and harmful cuts to their safety net program that program rely on, such as Medicaid, SNAP, TAM, school meals, and most recently support for dual-language learners and much more. There's also the possibility that harmful policy proposals may include changes to eligibility criteria that can further limit access to these safety nets. And then we also know that there's also been reductions to the federal workforce. So the administration has reduced the workforce for several critical agencies, including the administration for children and families under the Health and Human Services Agency, which oversees contracts for child care grants, head start, health, and much more. But most notably as you've all heard, this includes the closure of the Health and Human Services which are nine office here in San Francisco that oversees ten jurisdictions. So this was a central coordination hub for public health systems, social services, and our public health infrastructure. And finally, under early care and education, which traditionally historically we've seen bipartisan support, it's already, it has been impacted by the Federal Administration. Headstart in particular is facing a lawful delays to grant funding that has already been approved by Congress. It's also facing attacks to program quality through anti-DI efforts, freezing of research grants, and most recently, the administration has indicated that it was exploring elimination of the program. It's really unclear how this administration will go, how far they will go with this mailing with the foundational supports that families with young children rely on. However, we know that there's already federal actions that are impacting our communities. So what does this mean for the state and for our county? So California and local counties we know are not safe from the federal administration's actions. California receives about 170 billion dollars in funding from the federal government, which makes up about a third of the state budget. We know that the state is recovering from a budget deficit. There's also the LA county fires. There's a volatile economy and major federal threats, which can lead to gaps and billions of and federal dollars that the state can't backfill. Lawmakers are also estimating that California could face a budget deficit of 10 to 20 billion dollars this upcoming fiscal year and 30 to 40 billion the following year. So at risk for Alameda County is 535 million in funding across several programs that provide access to child care, early intervention and special education for children under six. This funding can impact more than 15,000 children in Alameda County. And then going to the health care side, we know that most of our our federal funding that the state receives goes towards supporting our medical program. And for Alameda County, this could impact about 40,000 children enrolled in medical, and their families who rely on the support for critical healthcare services. And statewide, we have CalFresh too, which is at the federal level. It's SNAP. Most of the CalFresh budget is almost completely made up of federal dollars. Locally, we know that any cuts in this area will have huge consequences for the more than 22,000 children whose families rely on programs for food access and food security. And locally here in Alameda County, we know that we have a unique opportunity right now with a measure C to expand access to early childhood and pediatric health care. However, we also know that Alameda County is facing a teacher crisis. As mentioned before, 90% of infants and toddlers don't have access to care. Providers are facing challenges in maintaining safe and high quality early care and education facilities. There's also a need to build a strong workforce which takes time and a significant investment. We estimate that to address these challenges and meet the full need of the early care and education system, it will take an annual investment of a billion dollars plus an additional two to four billion one-time for facilities. So again, this estimate is based on the current infrastructure we have and it doesn't include any cuts for that are being thrown right now by the federal administration. As you can see, the needs are far greater than the funding that's available through a measure C and there will need to be trade-offs and prioritization around how to invest measure C dollars while also working our costs with partners to leverage additional support and opportunities and funding streams. Measure C was intended to enhance and not replace federal dollars. So to ensure that measure C is meeting its intended goals for expanding access to early learning opportunities and improving early educators' compensation, we'll need to continue fighting to protect existing early care and education funding and leverage additional opportunities. So at last months together for all committee we heard about the impacts of the dismantling of the Department of Education. So while federal funds from the Department of Education only make about 5 to six percent of their local school district spudgets, there's a huge need for this funding and huge implications for children's development, particularly for those with special needs or disabilities. So through IDA, which is the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, the Department of Education funds early intervention and special education programs and services for children ages three to five. So through more than 37 hours and community input at our measures, see listening sessions and the community advisory council meetings and through our countywide survey with the impact of more than 1,000 families. And providers, we have learned that supports for children for neurodiverse, gifted or have developmental did lays, disabilities or other special needs is a high priority for our families and our providers here in Alameda County. So findings from the survey we conducted show that 70% of families shared that they want more information on supporting children with special needs or disabilities. And in our county, we know that there is an increased need for improving timely access to community supports, to family navigation and care coordination. There's also an increased need for culturally and linguistically responsive mental health services, parent and caregiver peer supports, and supports for the early care and education workforce, including classroom-based supports for children, professional development, training, and classroom modifications that are specific to supporting young children with the diverse learning needs. So last Friday, my second, the president released a skinny version of his budget proposal to Congress. And while the budget proposal did not include the elimination of a head start as it was leaked in earlier days, there were many other harmful cuts to education, health care, and the social safety net programs that were proposed. Some of those cuts include cuts to maternal and child healthcare programs, elimination of the preschool development grant, English language acquisition supports, and community supports like rental assistance and energy assistance. We know that the skinny budget was very big in detail and there's likely to come a more comprehensive budget proposal is expected later this month. However, things are moving quickly, you know, and a lot of threats are changing. So what does this mean for Head Start? So while the elimination of Head Start seems to have been excluded from the Trump administration's skinny budget, it's also too early to know whether it's actually safe from future budget cuts. We know that Head Start already faces challenges through other federal actions that threatened. Contractor's ability to implement the program as it was intended. One of those actions includes the president's executive orders that have significantly reduced the federal workforce across key agencies. So most concerning as I mentioned earlier was a termination of more than 10,000 health and human services staff on April 1st which included the closure of the Head Start Regional Office in San Francisco. This directly impacts our region, again, region 9, which administers Headstar and early Headstar and our child's current development block grants for California and neighboring states. So there was no clear transition in place when the closures were implemented and currently it is still unclear who will administer these grants going forward. In addition, the Department of Government Efficiency has also frozen funding for community partners. Locally, we learned of a freeze that impacted one of our headstards here in Alameda County while the funding has now been released. These types of disruptions can lead to an anticipated program shutdowns, disrupting care for hundreds of children and families, and has our teachers and staff that are funded through these federal grants. Head Start programs have also received guidance from the federal administration to remove any efforts that support diversity, equity, and inclusion, which we know are critical to fostering equitable learning environments where all students feel valued and supported leading to improved learning outcomes. So a little more background on Head Start for those who are not familiar. Head Start is a nationwide program that provides comprehensive early childhood education, nutrition, and health supports for families living in poverty, or unhoused, or who are in foster care, or with children with disabilities. So it is more than an educational program as a longstanding track record of success for more than 60 years. And it also serves families living in deep poverty. So as Vanessa mentioned earlier, meaning that it serves families who are meet who meet the criteria of living with the income of $32,000 or less or a family of four. Children participating in head start are more likely to complete high school. They're more likely to enroll in complete college. They're less likely to be arrested, less likely to enter foster care, and they're less likely to experience poor health. Overall, Head Start has multi-generational benefits that support families or communities, our economic mobility, and children's well-being. And to add, it also employs a lot of our early care and education workforce. So now looking to Head Start in Alameda County. In Alameda County alone, we have approximately more than 3,300 Head Start and early Head Start contracted slots through eight local contracts that support children, their families and the workforce adding up to about $177 million in funding. So this is what's at risk. Also early care and education programs like Head Start are a lifeline for many families who are struggling to survive here in Alameda County without it. Families won't know where to have their child care for while they're looking for work or at work or accessing educational opportunities. These federal actions trend the livelihoods again of many of our families who are making less than $32,000 when we know an income of at least $159,000 is needed here locally just to meet a family's most basic needs. In Alameda County, it has to our employees more than 700 full-time employees. And this is an underestimate because we're still waiting for the numbers for one of our larger contractors here in Alameda County, providing Head Start Services. And as a county, we need to ensure that our families who are the furthest away from opportunity have the resources they need to ensure that our future generations who will be taking the will be the ones taking care of us are healthy, flourishing and active members of our society. So now I'll turn it back over to Vanessa who's going to share more about what is our first five alamitas doing to support our families. Okay, to close this out, I know you had asked us, well, what are your recommendations? What can we be doing? And so we brought some ideas. But just want to start by appreciating, I think we and I know Tiana and I and all of us at first five, majority of who are Alameda County residents as well. Many have young children are feeling very fortunate to live and work in a county that is as progressive as ours during these times and who is taking action proactively to address these actions and protect our immigrant newcomer and refugee communities. So just want to appreciate the board this committee for their commitment already of $3.5 million to support rapid response efforts legal services defense and also coalition building that's a big theme in terms of our recommendations. So thank you for that and also want to appreciate your partnership in helping us immediately respond to the news that the Trump administration might seek to propose the elimination of Head Start a couple of weeks ago. We know we had sent you a letter and you guys immediately responded to bring it forward as well. And I think that matters. I think showing unity in coordination, coalition, and partnership that we are all united in understanding that these things are unacceptable and that we're not just going to stand quietly when actions like these are taken to threaten both very young children and our older rising young adults is really important. And so we're working diligently with our teams and community partners first to document the impact. We know this from the first Trump administration. We need to be able to capture stories. We need to be able to talk about what's actually happening on the ground. And so we're working with our partners and our programs and our program staff to be able to document when we hear, you know, families aren't showing up for services at a site, or we're seeing lower enrollment in OUSD at our early learning programs. We know that families are scared. We've lived through this before, but it is still important to document and bear witness to the impact. Because if not, others can write our story for us. And so we're continuing to do that, and we welcome the partnership with the county to do that across our safety net. and we're also tracking and monitoring. Obviously we're the policy team. and we're also tracking and monitoring, obviously, we're the policy team, tracking and monitoring, obviously, we're the policy team. We're, we're, we're changes by the minute, but it's really important to keep tracking, keep flagging, keep elevating, as new proposals come forward. And we've been working as well, not just locally with our county and city, elected leaderships, but also our congressional and state delegations to ensure that and we've been working as well, not just locally with our county and city, elected leaderships, but also our congressional and state delegations to ensure that they're aware of the local impact and also concern letters and join our partners and community advocates and fighting back against some of these actions. And I think we should continue to do that. Finally, we're also really glad to say that our local parent voices Oakland, I know many of you are familiar with parent voices Oakland, they are a family advocacy organization here in our county became the only California plaintiff to join a lawsuit with the ACLU, opposing the Trump's administration's attacks on the Headstar program. Deanna was saying this earlier, but in terms of like guidance to not say or do anything to a Headstar program around diversity, equity, inclusion, Headstar was founded as a civil rights program. It literally is a civil rights program. It is kind of shocking in that way. But continuing to join efforts like that, to join lawsuits, to file amics, briefs, in to continue to do that. We also know that information and resources from trusted sources and messengers is really important in communicating to our immigrant and newcomer families and communities. And so I know that county is doing this through posting resources on web pages and working through our network of community partners. We have also on our parent and provider facing website called alamedakids.org created a new section that is devoted to having immigration resources for families that, you know, we're trying to really focus on resources that would be helpful to families with young children or providers and educators that are working with families with young children in terms of like awful things but like how to prepare you know a plan should a parent not be able to come pick up their child ensuring that you have all the legal agreements and communications ready in terms of who becomes a primary guardian of a child things that we shouldn't even think are possible, but that we have to prepare and support our families in having plans because we are living in a reality. And so continuing to support the organizations that are providing trainings and helping families fill out these kinds of plans, make them ensuring that families are aware that these are ways that they can take steps that they can take to mitigate these kinds of actions are important. And so resource navigation and continue to do that in partnership with the county. Our trainings department is also partnering to provide trainings to families and providers. So we did one that was on immigrant and refugee families providing an overview of legal and mental health resources that was attended by over 200 people. So families are showing up there, ego for this type of information. And we're planning one on immigration policy and know your rights in partnership with the immigration institute of the Bay Area for June and will continue to provide trainings. We started these back during the first Trump administration have continued them moving forward and are kind of ramping up our efforts to make sure that we're also providing trainings and information around families rights and other resources. And then in terms of the policy, there's a lot of uncertainty in the safety net. This is not used to you as administrators of the county safety net. But now is the time to really act for policy changes that will at the local and state level that will help protect families when we think about our early care and education system. So we've spent a lot of time talking about Head Start. We should continue to do that, but there are also programs like the Child Care Development Block Grant. Medicaid, as you know, through the waivers that we're implementing locally is no longer just health care happening in a clinical setting, but it's health care happening in schools. It's health care happening within early learning settings. And so continuing to kind of protect against those, TANF, which the county social services or sister agency administers TANF or CalWORK stage one vouchers, two and three. Those are childcare vouchers for families that are on TANF. And so continuing to protect those kinds of programs and advocate for them at the state level are important. There might also be opportunities since it's a bipartisan issue around tax cuts that if Congress seeks to implement or expand access to the child tax credit and the child dependent tax credit. Those are things we can support. We'll see. And then at the state, you know, continuing to again, creating opportunities for us locally to expand the systems capacity. So the state is exploring rate reform. It would be the first time a state shifts to providing childcare providers and early educators for the true cost of care that's transformative. So continuing to advocate for that during the pandemic, the state also implemented a whole harmless policy so that providers and centers were paid on enrollment and not attendance. And so continuing to make that like advocating for that to be made permanent would be really helpful. And then there's also the rollout of UPK and TK, which has come with the addition of slots. And so we know that the budget situation is tenuous, but we're continuing to advocate that the state holds onto its promise to continue that expansion within the upcoming budgets. And locally again we've covered these things but investments in family navigation and families concrete needs, appreciation to the county for the collaboration and partnership around the investments in diapers. Through the supply bank diaper distribution program we're We're really, really happy to be a partner in funding that initiative and are excited that it's about to launch in terms of the expansion of community partners that will now be able to distribute diapers across our county later this month. And so continuing to support families basic needs as the safety net, and we stand ready in partnership to work with you as your nimble sister, county agency, in figuring out how we can expand access to food and housing and other concrete needs. And we've talked about it, but immigration supports continue to be essential. And so we'll need to be engaging philanthropy to think through how do we continue to endow and support expansion now that they're highly needed resources for immigrant refugee and acyly communities in our county including families with young children. And I just wanted to close on a note that is maybe more uplifting. But our work as the county's safety nut is so vitally important and cuts to our public safety nut would increase hardship and poverty for families. It will widen racial, ethnic and economic disparities that have existed due to structural issues, and they would make it harder, and it's gonna make it harder for working families to maintain their jobs. And it's gonna happen as a giveaway in tax cuts for the wealthy and that's unacceptable. And so really at the end of the day, we can talk about specific policies, but we're actually in a debate about the way we construct our society. And who gets to benefit and who doesn't, which is why we wanted to open with like who are we talking about? And the public policy choices that we make as government really matter. And they are choices which means we can change the choice. And so we always, we go back to this quote from Dr. Manuel Pestor, who has spoken to the first five staff in commission in the past. And he said it's not about having families beat the odds. It's about how we're changing the odds for families. And so, you know, I think the hope is that locally, we can show that we can actually as government change the odds for families and not leave it up to families to figure out how to beat the odds individually. And so I just want to thank you for your partnership. Thank you for being in this with us and for creating the space. And we can take questions. Thank you so much. Really appreciate all of that. Supervisor Marquez, are you able to go first? Sure, thank you, Chair. Thank you so much for the tremendous work you do on behalf of babies, young children and families in our county, and really respect and appreciate your love and passion and dedication to this profession. So thank you so much for sharing your expertise with us. As you were speaking, I was just thinking, is there a model county in California that's doing things right? Is there best practices, any suggestions, ideas that you could share with us? In terms of early childhood, as I said, every in California, they devolved it to each locality, so each locality is really different. I would probably to it our horn and say maybe we're doing it the best, but that wouldn't be fair. No, they're just really different. And I think that there's a lot of commonality. I think the movement towards centering equity in our work, really thinking about how to take what is really fragmented. I mean, there's no real, not like health care or even public protection or public assistance in that way, where there's, it's a little bit like older adults where it's like that population and the services that support those populations are spread out amongst other systems that are more robust. So really the challenge is how do you piece and weave together all of the different systems like the mental health services for like families and young children and the health care and the education and all those pieces. We created that flower, but the goal is how do you really pull those and weave them together so that it feels like a cohesive system for families so that they're not lost navigating multiple agencies but can really find the resources that they need that are based on their unique experiences and preferences and needs. And so I would say no one's quite figured it out. It's very, very under-resourced. We haven't treated it as a public good. And so I think we're trying to model and are really fortunate there's some people in this room that made it possible to have something like measure C that would maybe help us get closer to that vision. And it's an opportunity, it's happening at an incredibly volatile time. But I'll let Diana answer if there's like specific models that we want that we have at the top of line. Yeah. Yeah. The funding system is so complex and fragmented that is really the challenge of how funding comes down to the local level. Something we constantly hear from communities and families is like, we wish there was one place we can go to access resources for zero to five where again, healthcare, mental health, child care, but because the system is so fragmented, it really is the funding that dictates those resources and supports that are available. Again, highlighting that we do have an opportunity right now with measure C to be a model for the nation. Thank you. And then what are the ideas I'm kind of planning for tackling the workforce challenges that we're facing? What are we doing to outreach? I know obviously looking at wages with literacy funding is gonna help address that, but any other thoughts of whether there's additional programming in our community colleges, high schools, what else can we be doing? Yeah, we all have, I actually have the emergency stabilization. Fun that you had approved earlier this year, but there's multiple components to how we can better support our early care and education workforce. One of the pieces is professional development and workforce pipelines, so we're exploring and starting to assess what does the current landscape of registered apprenticeship programs look like and other community partners. We jointly with social services and with tipping point have funded an early educator apprenticeship program that kind of does like a wrap-around to really support families with transportation and childcare and all the things so that they can really attend and enter the field. We're going to need a lot of that to be able to build the pipeline. And then once people are in the fields to not lose them, we do need to do things like compensation last night at our our community advisory council, we Disclosed where we think we could establish the wage floor for measure C and we're looking at being able to provide a minimum wage floor for a measure C providers of $25 an hour And so I mean that still needs to be brought forward to our commission and to all of you but that would potentially change the quality of life of many of our early educators in Alameda County. The compensation at the state level, we're trying to work with our partners to advocate for benefits and the retirements. Those are on the table due to budget cuts. It's tenuous right now. It's been reopened. So, CCPU is currently at the bargaining table with the state around that. But again, the budget outlook is not great. But those were transformative wins for early educators in our state. And it would be really unfortunate to see that rolled back. There are also, I mean, there's so much. I mean, like the facilities, a lot of our childcare is a mixed delivery system. Many of them are home-based providers. And so you can't afford things like how do I create, like fix the roof if some things wrong or how do I fix my backyard to create a really beautiful high quality early learning experience for children so they can be outside and that it's safe and ADA accessible. And so there's huge deferred maintenance needs, there's huge capital needs, there's also the needs for like taking, you know, like investing in parks and and beautiful mobile programming for our informal caregivers, family, friend and neighbor caregivers. And so all of those types of pieces are things that we're trying to address. And then there's also the technology, like how can we support and better connecting families to providers that are available to serve them. So there's investments in what we call the centralized eligibility and enrollment system that currently there's like a design team that's working with providers and families to be like, how do we make this in a human-centered design way? Like a really useful tool that will be rolled out as part of the initiatives. Again, just continuing to try to like iterate in terms of how we provide support professional development. And I think that there's also opportunities to better organize providers. Many providers are isolated. They're not, we have a couple smaller associations for a family childcare providers. But thinking about ways that you can better support that kind of professional organization so that you can do things like business supports and TAs and they're not, they don't have sophisticated billing units, things like that, how to market their business. So there's just so many ways we can be supporting providers. And we're trying to think through all the creative ways that we can start to seed some of those investments due to the fortunate gift that are the measure seed dollars here locally. Thank you. And thank you for acting so quickly on coming up with the plan for the measure. I know we've had our setbacks and challenges but really just appreciate your team's work and diligence on that. Thank you. I want to reiterate that thanks certainly. I think the timing was actually quite good of sharing this presentation and I'd like to share some remarks. I'll start off by sharing something that I heard when I was talking to someone who's a teacher and a spiritual teacher as well. And she said that it's only in times of great crisis that true transformation can occur. And I've been thinking a lot about this particular crisis and if we're real with ourselves, we know that this administration is carrying out the playbook of Project 2025 and that their purpose is destruction and that our governments being as institutional as they are not really built for this type of constitutional crisis. And so as we've been having these hearings, it's really been a call to action for us to actually create rather than destroy, to build coalitions rather than divide and to build deep community. And it was really fitting to have first five here because the work that you all are doing is really about that creation of a systemic system that will show and really let families know that childcare is a public good. So one of the things I'm taking away, it's a bigger issue but I think very grounded in the recommendations that you made is that this is really a moment where as we're so unsettled and angry and have all these emotions about contracts being canceled, funding potentially being taken away massively off, you know, soaring costs of living, it's also a time to recognize the humanity that binds all of us and to really come together and continue to push back on what's happening at the federal level. And for folks who didn't hear earlier, I think it is very important that people are pushing back. Even in purple and red places, are pushing back and saying, hey, everyday people need Medicaid. And that cities, counties, and others are filing lawsuits and judges are saying you're overreaching executive orders need an act of Congress or some of these other executive orders are unconstitutional. so it's really a moment where the rule of law is being tested. And so all of that is important at the federal level to push back on. And then at the state and the local levels, recognizing that we, you know, we have a different set of elected leaders. I think there's more possibility. And so thank you to Vanessa and Diana for sharing at the state level around the early childhood education system. We can continue to create this transformative system. I wasn't yet aware or thinking about things like rate reform so that we're implementing and looking at the true cost of care, hold harmless, you know, this idea that providers and centers should be based on enrollment versus attendance. That's a real issue not only for childcare but for schools when so many immigrants are afraid to potentially leave their homes like you said. So I think these are very concrete examples of how we can continue to create and transform the system. And then locally, of course, really relying on our communities, just like we did during COVID, where we had each other's backs. I think with childcare and education and other things that are necessary in public goods, it's really a reminder that we can come together. And so doing things like providing food, providing diapers, they're very basic, but also things that can help build community. So I really appreciate this conversation because while we want to be strategic about where we push back and where we try to shore up, I think there's also a broader message that is really important for us in that grounding as you laid out what first five is, I think is really important. And just really reminding ourselves that here at the county, there's so many things that we are able to impact. We talked about housing and tenant rights this morning. Housing is a public good. Education, childcare is a public good. Those are things we have to really remind ourselves because we're up against so much. So, you know, with that, I think what we can continue to do is, you know, monitor, push back and organize where we can. And through our budget process, and as we get more information from the state and federal budgets. and through our collaboration with First Five, around early childhood education, just really continue to build and deepen that partnership. And I think for the board, reminding ourselves that this is about transforming the system and this moment under this administration that is trying to destroy things is the perfect time for us to create and really push the envelope. So thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you. I couldn't have said it better myself. I'm sorry. I couldn't have said it better myself. Thank you so much supervisor. And thank you. Thank you. Is that? Okay. At this point we'll take any public comment. Mitch Margolis? Hi supervisors. My name is Mitch Margolis. I'm the Director of the International Rescue Committee in Oakland. We're in a nonprofit CVO serving immigrants and newcomers. I'm here just to speak in support of the committee's work and underscore the importance of a strong childcare and early education infrastructure in helping immigrants and newcomers thrive in Alameda County. Since 2022, we've been operating a small business incubator to support newcomers and starting home-based childcare businesses in Alameda County. We partner closely with resource and referral agencies and other community partners. By the way, we're very excited to help our entrepreneurs apply for the upcoming measure c-phones to support their businesses. These businesses have allowed individuals, primarily women, with limited economic opportunity in some instances to generate income from their home-based business, while also providing linguistically and culturally relevant childcare seats that allow other parents to enter and stay in the workforce. In the past few months, we've seen key partners such as Head Start and our IRS liaison who taught our newcomers about taxes, have been laid off or defunded. We're unclear about the future of our own funding for this program, which is overwhelmingly federal beyond this fiscal year. A grant we were awarded in late January to bring a new business center focusing on childcare businesses to free mind and Oakland was was paused and in the current federal budget proposal is slated to be canceled because it supported diversity basically. Regardless of the fate of this funding, childcare will continue to be a critical need for immigrant and newcomers in Alameda County. So thanks. Thank you this committee and the the Board of Supervisors, for continuing to support robust childcare and early education infrastructure and programming in Alameda County. Thank you. I have no more speakers for this item. OK, thank you for your public comment. Are there any public comments on items not related to the agenda? I have no speakers for public comment. Okay. It's 331 and the meeting is adjourned. Thank you.