A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
AN ACT to provide funding to guilford county to support a data analytics system for early childhood development programs and to establish a high‑quality early childhood care and education pilot program in guilford county.
The General Assembly of North Carolina enacts:

EARLY CHILDHOOD DATA ANALYTICS
SECTION 1.  There is appropriated from the General Fund to Guilford County a grant‑in‑aid in the sum of one million dollars ($1,000,000) in nonrecurring funds each fiscal year, beginning with the 2021‑2022 fiscal year and ending after the 2026‑2027 fiscal year. The grant funds shall be used to support the building, testing, and improving of an integrated data system technology for the purpose of providing empirical data for decision‑making and in furtherance of securing funding for future phases with the Duke Endowment and Blue Meridian Partners for the Get Ready Guilford Initiative.

HIGH‑QUALITY EARLY CHILDHOOD CARE AND EDUCATION PILOT
SECTION 2.  There is appropriated from the General Fund to Ready for School, Ready for Life (Organization), a nonprofit organization that provides a system of care for children prenatally to five years of age in Guilford County to improve outcomes and school readiness, the sum of eight hundred eight thousand dollars ($808,000) in nonrecurring funds for the 2021‑2022 fiscal year to establish a three‑year pilot program for improving the quality of care and education for infants, toddlers, and preschool‑age children in Guilford County. The Organization shall implement the pilot in eight early care and education centers in Guilford County. The pilot shall be based on the Model Work Standards for Early Childhood programs as developed by the Center for the Study of Child Care Employment (Center) at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. The Organization shall collaborate with the Center in implementing the pilot and selecting the centers to participate. The Center shall provide various forms of assistance, including leadership, resources, rigorous selection criteria, assessments, improvement planning, coaching, evaluation, and replication, to the centers selected to participate in the pilot, as well as the teachers, administrators, and children and families affiliated with those centers, with the intent to establish best practices that can be modeled across the State. The Organization shall submit a report to the Joint Legislative Oversight Committee on Health and Human Services by December 31st each year the pilot program is in effect on the outcomes of students, educators, and families participating in the pilot program.
SECTION 3.  This act becomes effective July 1, 2021.