New Report from Californians Together and the English Learners Workforce Investment Initiative (EL-WIN)
California’s Universal Pre-Kindergarten (UPK) initiative is a historic step toward equity—but to succeed, we must ensure our early learning workforce is ready to serve the state’s 1.69 million multilingual learners under age five.
This report, Ensuring a Multilingual-Ready UPK Workforce, offers a comprehensive set of policy recommendations, research insights, and practical strategies to help local and state leaders strengthen the educator pipeline and meet the needs of California’s diverse early learners.
What’s in the Report
- A clear definition of what it means to be a multilingual-ready educator
- A landscape analysis of current UPK systems, workforce challenges, and preparation pathways
- Lessons from five Central Valley counties implementing EL-WIN’s community-centered approach
- Seven statewide policy recommendations to address educator preparation, compensation, and collaboration
- Case studies of promising practices from across California and other states
For Educators
Learn how this report supports calls for culturally and linguistically responsive professional development, expanded career pathways, and recognition of your multilingual experience.
For District and County Leaders
Find actionable strategies for building and retaining a diverse early childhood workforce, integrating EL-focused training, and creating aligned credentialing systems across your UPK programs.
For Policymakers
Use this resource to guide smart investments and systemwide reforms to expand access, close gaps, and ensure California’s UPK expansion truly delivers for multilingual learners.
Key Recommendations
The report outlines seven high-impact strategies to build a multilingual-ready UPK workforce:
- State Agency Collaboration: Convene and fund an inter-agency statewide early childhood education/UPK multilingual education workgroup.
- Local Agency Collaboration: Support and fund local inter-agency collaborations focused on
multilingual prepared UPK workforce. - Workforce Preparation: Fund, expand and build capacity of workforce preparation efforts in developing an ML-ready UPK workforce.
- Educator, Administrator, and Faculty Capacity: Provide funding to expand professional learning opportunities on and integration of the English Learner Roadmap and Policy to UPK teachers and administrators, community college and 4-year university faculty, resource and referral agencies, and other professional development organizations.
- Recognition of Experience and Education: Establish standards to recognize prior multilingual education, experience, and equivalency within child development permit and credentialing programs.
- UPK Funding and Wage Stabilization: Establish a statewide stabilization fund to ensure minimum
funding and guaranteed wages for mixed-delivery UPK providers with emphasis on multilingual prepared educators. - UPK Workforce and Enrollment Data: Utilize and expand monolingual and multilingual UPK
workforce and enrollment data for informed decision-making.