By, Ruel Nolledo | Freelance Writer
November 19, 2025
The Board of Commissioners convened on November 13 for its last meeting of the year. During the meeting, Commissioners approved the annual records disposition, authorized receipt of funds for the Welcome Baby initiative, and approved a new 5-year employment agreement with President & CEO Karla Pleitéz Howell. The meeting also featured updates on the Whole Child, Bright Futures Initiative and the Early Childhood Policy & Advocacy Fund, as well as a special presentation by CHHS Secretary Kim Johnson on the effects of federal policy changes on the health and well-being of Californians.
Commission Vice Chair Summer McBride opened the meeting by commending First 5 LA staff for responding to numerous threats to L.A. County’s families and communities, including the Altadena and Palisades fires, the ICE raids throughout the County, and federal funding cuts to vital programs and services. She added that First 5 LA was able to accomplish this work while maintaining its core values embodied in the 2024-2029 Strategic Plan.
“You have continued to show up and pivot as the needs presented themselves,” McBride said. “You are the practitioners and boots on the ground, and I genuinely can’t thank you enough for the ways you show up for our community.”
During her own remarks, President & CEO Karla Pleitéz Howell thanked Commission members for their responsiveness and active engagement throughout the various crises. Moving forward, she noted that the discussions during the meeting would center on the framework of systems change that First 5 LA was utilizing in its work, with activities addressing structural, relational, and transformative conditions. That last element was especially crucial, she noted, given how the administration is shaping public policy with a mental model that focuses on othering specific communities.
“When they talk about immigrant communities, about the families and children that we serve, it’s in terms of an invasion or a threat,” she said. “So empathy is being replaced by fear. We are seeing narratives that should be embarrassing for us to hear in the times we are living in. We see the loss of belonging. We are seeing funding cuts like we have never seen before.”
Pleitéz Howell added that several of the guest speakers at the meeting were community partners whose system change work focused on challenging those mental models and putting forth a more authentic narrative about the families under attack.
“In these challenging times, we could choose to accept and adopt some of the mental models that are being thrown our way,” she told Commissioners. “Or we could choose to offer the assets that we hold here in the community.”
Multilingual Learners, Part 2
First 5 LA Vice President of Community Engagement and Policy Aurea Montes-Rodriguez and Program Officer Alyssa Guiterrez were joined by Doua Thor of Everyday Consulting to continue the discussion of the Multilingual Learners priority area under First 5 LA’s Whole Child, Bright Futures initiative. Montes-Rodriguez explained that staff had embarked on a field scan to explore potential opportunities for leveraging nascent and existing systems. One such system identified was the state’s transitional kindergarten (TK), a grade level created in California for 4-year-old children.
“There’s a huge increase in what’s happening in terms of building a system,” said Thor. “But the opportunities to do dual language are still small because the infrastructure is just being built… It’s an opportunity for First 5 to be a part of building that.”
In terms of next steps, Gutierrez introduced a proposed TK-focused pilot that would allow for learning to inform the implementation stage, with the long-term goal of expanding access and increasing enrollment in multilingual TK programs. More information can be found in the Multilingual Learners presentation here.
CHHS Update: The Health and Well-Being of Californians
The Board next heard from Kim Johnson, secretary of the California Health and Human Services Agency (CalHHS), who joined the meeting virtually to provide an overview of how recent federal policy shifts have already begun to erode the progress the state has made in improving the health and well-being of Californians. In recent years, California has been focused on building a Healthy California for All, with initiatives that integrate health, housing, and human services; investments in the early childhood workforce and infrastructure; reforms to foster care that prioritize kinship placements and long-term well-being for children and youth, and state programs that prioritize equity and resiliency. However, the advancements made are now threatened by H.R. 1 and other federal actions enacting provisions designed to reduce access to healthcare, reproductive care, and food for specific populations, fundamentally reshaping how states fund care at a structural level.
“We are seeing a very focused and intentional attack,” Johnson stated. “We’ve seen termination of federal funding, we’ve seen increased enforcement activity, new restrictions on eligibility for federal funding… So many of the policies are targeted at various communities and individuals… Even individuals who are eligible for part of the Health and Social Safety Act are disenrolling out of fear.”
The Secretary’s full presentation can be found here.
EC PAF: Raising Voices for Change
Aurea Montes-Rodriguez was later joined by First 5 LA Policy Analyst Erika Witt and guest presenter Alicia Lara of Community Partners to present on the Early Childhood Policy and Advocacy Fund (EC PAF). Implemented and designed in partnership with Community Partners, the EC PAF is First 5 LA’s grantmaking strategy that focuses on systems change. The fund consists of two funding pools — the Reimagining Systems Fund (RSF) & Community Opportunities Flexible Fund (COFF) — that enable First 5LA to be more responsive to a rapidly evolving political climate as well as new and emerging challenges encountered by families with young children.
“The voice of the community is so important,” emphasized Witt. “By bringing in community partners who are deeply engaged with the community, we know that there’s ongoing sustainability beyond First 5 LA funding.”
As part of the presentation, representatives from three EC PAF grantee organizations — Crystal Stairs, Black Women for Wellness and AAPI Equity Alliance — spoke about their systems change work.
“We build leadership among parents, child care providers, and community members,” said Jackie B. Majors, CEO of Crystal Stairs. “These are the closest folks to the challenges of poverty and inequity.”
As an example, she cited the challenges faced by many families during — and even after — the recent federal shutdown.
“When you have real families talking about it — families that have been given a voice by a mechanism like [Crystal Stairs’] Community Voices,” Majors said, “That’s helping them tell their story. That’s helping them come face-to-face with a legislator. That’s real power.”
More information can be found in the EC PAF presentation.
As part of the meeting’s consent agenda, the Board also approved the following items:
- Annual Records Disposition: A staff request for the disposal of files no longer needed for current business or for historical records, per existing policy. More information can be found here.
- Contract Renewals/Extensions: A contract renewal with California Strategies and a contract extension with Community Partners. Additional details are available here.
- President & CEO Agreement: The new employment agreement for the President & CEO of First 5 LA will take effect on January 1, 2026. More information can be found here.
- Funding for Welcome Baby: Receipt of up to $900,000 from LA Health Care to support Welcome Baby Services. As part of this motion, the Board also authorized First 5 LA to accept additional funding from L.A. Care and to execute agreements for any potential future funding for Welcome Baby. To learn more, please read the memo here.
This marks the last First 5 LA Board of Commissioners meeting of 2025. The Commissioners will reconvene for their next meeting on Thursday, February 12, 2026.
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