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Exposure to teachers and teaching-related activities is vital for young children's learning. When COVID-19 closed schools, teachers responded with a mix of live- and prerecorded lessons and one-on-one communication with students, which necessitated shifts in planning time. The current study identifies pre-COVID predictors of time teachers devoted to each of these teaching-related activities to illuminate actionable levers for supporting educators during widespread educational disruption. Teachers with higher prepandemic job commitment devoted more overall time to pandemic-induced remote teaching. Teachers' prepandemic executive functioning and observed classroom instructional and organizational quality--features of successful teachers during normal times--predicted more during-pandemic time remote teaching, while teacher older age and having more high-needs students was associated with less remote teaching time. These results contribute to an emerging literature that spotlights potential promising avenues for supporting teachers via professional development during normal times as well as in future widespread educational disruptions.

The current study provides new evidence on the sustained benefits of preschool attendance on a broader range of skills--both academic and executive functioning (EF)--than many prior studies have examined. Using propensity score methods, we predicted children's (N = 920, M age at 1st = 6.5 years) literacy, language, math, and EF skills in kindergarten and again at first-grade (2020-2021) based on whether they had attended public preschool (school-based pre-k; Head Start) versus no preschool. In our race-ethnically diverse sample of children (48% Hispanic/Latinx; 21% Black; 14% White; 9% Native American; 9% multiracial) from low-income families, preschool attenders showed advantages on English literacy, English language, and math in kindergarten, which mostly persisted into first-grade. Preschool did not boost EF in kindergarten or first-grade. [This article was written with the Tulsa SEED Study Team.]

In this article, we aim to chart a path for a new generation of early care and education (ECE) quality assessments that accurately and equitably capture key inputs to the social-emotional well-being of the diverse population of young children in ECE classrooms in the United States. We zero in on four promising, socially supportive features of center-based ECE settings that are actionable for research, policy, and practice: teachers' classroom behavior-management strategies, their scaffolding of peer interactions, aspects of their own well-being that shape their capacities to support children's social-emotional development, and indicators of bias-free and culturally responsive ECE environments.

Decades of research suggest that both Head Start and public pre-kindergarten (pre-k) programs boost low-income preschoolers' kindergarten skills. What is not yet well understood is whether there are relative advantages of transitioning from Head Start after 1 year into a school-based public pre-k program for the year immediately before kindergarten for children's developing cognitive and self-regulation skills. This is an important question, because in many communities Head Start and school-based pre-k programs provide competing early education options for low-income 4-year-olds, leaving policymakers, educators, and parents wondering which pathway best promotes the mix of skills predictive of success in elementary school. Only one study--conducted prior to significant recent demographic and policy changes affecting early education and focused exclusively on cognitive outcomes--has addressed this question. We extend that work with contemporary data on 362 low-income children to assess the relative advantages for both kindergarten cognitive and self-regulatory skills of 2 years of Head Start before kindergarten versus transitioning from Head Start to school-based pre-k at age 4. The child sample was evenly split by gender and diverse in race/ethnicity (50% Hispanic/Latinx; 36% Black; 7% White). Results showed that children who transitioned after 1 year of Head Start to school-based pre-k at age 4 showed marginally higher kindergarten literacy (d = 0.13) and significantly greater math (d = 0.18) skills than children who remained in Head Start for a second year, but there were no significant differences in kindergarten self-regulatory skills. Implications for contemporary, pressing policy issues are discussed. [The Tulsa SEED Study Team contributed to the writing of this article.]

Introduction: Although many low-income families have experienced food insecurity during the COVID-19 pandemic, rates have been particularly high among low-income Hispanic and immigrant households. Methwods: The present study draws on data from an ongoing longitudinal study of low-income families and children in Tulsa. Oklahoma to examine food insecurity among English Language Learners (ELLs), all of whom were Hispanic and most of whom came from immigrant families. Results: Findings indicate that, although low-income ELL families were somewhat more likely to experience food insecurity than other low-income families before the pandemic, once COVID-19 erupted, they had 3 times the odds of experiencing food insecurity, even after controlling for prior risk factors and COVID-related income loss. Further, food-insecure ELLs were less likely to receive SNAP benefits than other food-insecure families. Discussion: Taken with other research, results suggest that because of concerns around immigration status, ELL families may have less access to critical benefits that have supported other families throughout the pandemic, such as SNAP and CARES Act stimulus checks. Thus, to meet the urgent needs of persistent food insecurity, aid should refocus on using rapid response systems with community ties, such as mutual aid organizations and school systems, to provide financial and monetary support to low-income ELL families. Public Significance Statement This study documents disproportionately high rates of food insecurity among low-income Hispanic English language learner families during COVID-19, as well as lower rates of SNAP receipt compared with other food-insecure families. Findings highlight a need for food support policies that do not restrict based on immigration status, as well the importance of rapid response systems of food support, such as mutual aid organizations and public schools. Keywords: food insecurity, English language learners, COVID-19. low-income families, Alongside the health consequences of COVID-19, the economic consequences have been devastating, especially for Hispanic and immigrant families (Center for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC], 2020; NPR et al., 2020). [...]

HIV infection is monitored through the National HIV Surveillance System (NHSS) to help improve the health of people with HIV and reduce transmission. NHSS data are routinely used at federal, state, and local levels to monitor the distribution and transmission of HIV, plan and evaluate prevention and care programs, allocate resources, inform policy development, and identify and respond to rapid transmission in the United States. We describe the expanded use of HIV surveillance data since the 2013 NHSS status update, during which time the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) coordinated to revise the HIV surveillance case definition to support the detection of early infection and reporting of laboratory data, expanded data collection to include information on sexual orientation and gender identity, enhanced data deduplication processes to improve quality, and expanded reporting to include social determinants of health and health equity measures. CDC maximized the effects of federal funding by integrating funding for HIV prevention and surveillance into a single program; the integration of program funding has expanded the use of HIV surveillance data and strengthened surveillance, resulting in enhanced cluster response capacity and intensified data-to-care activities to ensure sustained viral suppression. NHSS data serve as the primary source for monitoring HIV trends and progress toward achieving national initiatives, including the US Department of Health and Human Services' Ending the HIV Epidemic in the United States initiative, the White House's National HIV/AIDS Strategy (2022-2025), and Healthy People 2030. The NHSS will continue to modernize, adapt, and broaden its scope as the need for high-quality HIV surveillance data remains. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]