Privacy Policy for California Early Care and Education Workforce Registry
The California Early Care and Education Workforce Registry Pilot Program (the “Program”) takes your privacy and the protection of information about individual participants seriously. We are committed to maintaining the security and integrity of your information.
- Information Collection
The California Early Care and Education Workforce Registry (“Registry”) is a new tool developed for the purpose of collecting information about individuals in the early childcare and education (ECE) field. The Registry can be used in different ways by professionals, programs, public officials and advocates. The information in the Registry will be used to:
- Bring professional recognition to all those who work in ECE
- Assist individuals and program directors in professional development planning
- Assist individuals and program directors in documenting the credentials required by law and by accrediting organizations like NAEYC
- Inform policymakers and state planners about the ECE workforce to track progress in meeting state workforce goals
- Show the importance of increasing ECE staff salaries to a level which reflects an individual’s education, training, and experience
As an individual participant your personal information will not be disclosed in a way that reveals your identity and it will be used only in combination with information from other participants. In practice, this means that the information will be reported in terms of “groups” of people. For example, a report would state "the average educational level of all assistant teachers in licensed centers," rather than stating the actual educational level of any individual teacher. Limited exceptions to this rule are explained in Section D below.
Your participation in the Registry will be a benefit to you personally by giving you an easily accessible record of your education, training and employment. This record can be used for career advancement, program reporting, accreditation, and for applying for scholarships. Your participation will also benefit the ECE field as a whole, as we help teachers, directors, and administrators improve the quality of care and education for young children.
- Participant Access to Data
Individual participants may view and change their own personal information in the Registry system, however participant education and training information can only be entered or changed by San Francisco City/County or Los Angeles County ECE Workforce Consortium administrators. This is because San Francisco City/County and Los Angeles County ECE Workforce Consortium administrators must verify all education and training.
- Protection of Social Security Numbers (SSN)
When SSNs are first entered into the Registry by the participant, they will be sent over the Internet using the highest levels of security. Once a SSN is saved in the Registry, it will be encrypted and stored in the database. This means that the SSN will show up as a random series of numbers and symbols and not the true SSN. Only the last five digits of the real SSN will ever be displayed in the Registry.
- Access and Purpose of Data
In most cases, only combined summary data from the Registry will be available to authorized users for appropriate purposes. These purposes include: workforce planning and professional development, research and evaluation, informing the public about the qualifications of teachers, and program reporting. However, some authorized users have a legitimate need for limited information about individual participants.
Approved program directors and administrators may view the following data of their own employees: name; Registry identification number; address; e-mail address; phone number; role; scholarship requests; and employment education and training information. Program directors and administrators will be required to verify your current employment to complete your Registry entry.
Program directors and administrators will also be able to use the employment, education, training and scholarship information of their staff for professional development planning and to establish staff qualifications for the Department of Social Services, Community Care Licensing, the State Department of Education, and Head Start since these programs must meet certain teacher requirements in order to receive state or federal funding. Local, state and federal program administrators will be able to view this data on staff in publicly funded programs for reporting purposes and for local initiative management (i.e. San Francisco CARES, CARES Plus).
Some sensitive personal information linked to individuals, such as family income, family size, health insurance, and equal opportunity (EO) information, may be viewed only by local, state and federal level program administrators and only as required for essential program purposes and for state or federal reporting.
Select staff in the San Francisco City/County or Los Angeles County ECE Workforce Consortium, as the administrators of the Registry, may view all individual and program information in order to maintain the system, verify employment and education data, administer scholarship requests and report on the ECE workforce. San Francisco City/County and Los Angeles County ECE Workforce Consortium may also use individual participant information to establish qualifications and credentials required by NAEYC for program accreditation, and other accrediting entities. ChildCare Education Institute (CCEI), the developer and hosting company for the Registry, also has access to the data.