County educators, Judy Center coordinators and parents press MSDE on access, providers and data gaps

Participants from multiple Maryland counties used the Ready for Kindergarten charrette to press operational concerns tied to the department’s flagship strategies.

Abigail Porsche, a special education teacher from Kent County, told the panel the state needs to give teachers time to plan and sufficient resources so classrooms can deliver high-quality early learning experiences. "For teachers to have these high quality lessons...we need the time to plan and gather the materials and have all the resources," Porsche said.

Several rural participants described a shortage of early childhood seats and home-based providers since the pandemic. Christina Clark (Caroline County) described limited center capacity and the difficulty of affording child care when working part‑time; Erica and Darlene Schmidt urged incentives to recruit family child care providers and to make participation in Maryland ExCELS (the state's QRIS) feasible for small providers.

Speakers repeatedly raised transportation and space constraints. Diane Shorts (Worcester County) said some parts of her county are losing centers and lack room in school buildings to expand pre‑K. Elizabeth Sailor (Caroline County supervisor of instruction) cited transportation and geographic spread as barriers that reduce family access even where slots exist.

Several participants highlighted the role of Judy and PADI centers and Head Start in reaching families with multiple needs. Tess, a Judy/PADI coordinator, said those hubs can offer food, clothing and home‑visiting supports and allow relatives or caregivers to bring children for services when parents cannot.

A recurring technical concern was data: Ismenda Johnson, a Judy Center coordinator in Baltimore City, asked whether MSDE could develop a database to locate where young children live so outreach can better match available seats with families. Facilitators said MSDE is considering validation work and data updates; Shana Cook noted the department is "looking into doing a validation study of the QRS system once we've put in place some updates to that system" to better measure whether rating levels correlate with readiness.

Participants described common policy levers they want to see prioritized: incentives and supports tailored to family child care, streamlined ExCELS processes for small providers, transportation and space solutions for rural counties, and robust outreach to find children not currently in pre‑K or early intervention.

The charrette did not produce formal decisions; the session ended with an invitation to continue ranking strategies via Slido and to complete the department’s online survey.