Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Peter Conlon (Chair, House Education Committee)]: Okay, welcome to House Education. This is Tuesday, March 31, 03:00. We have excellence presence of two members of the House Human Services Committee to talk to us about the language that came over from them regarding pre K, and it's an opportunity for us to ask questions, put it into context, why they made the decisions that they did. I think it's probably fair to say that there were two concerns that bubbled up during the presentation this morning. One of the big ones is the part down a few pages that says that school districts will be required to essentially provide pre K if there are not slots available in their area. And then the use of, I think there were some concern about provisional licenses and sort of the inability of a school district to be able to have the same level of supervision of somebody on a provisional license in private setting. But why don't you go ahead and tell us what you want us to know and then maybe get into some of those more specifics.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair, House Human Services Committee)]: Sure. Thank you. Teresa Wood, Chair of House Human Services. Greg Dobrovano, Vice Chair of House Human Services. Thanks for the opportunity to spend a few minutes with you. We spent quite a bit of time taking quite a bit of testimony on pre K over the last several weeks. And essentially And I think you all have copies of the cover memo that I sent with the language, so I don't need to repeat it all. One of the things that we wanted to assure and this came directly out of our work with Act 76 and the expansion of child care financial assistance program and eligibility and reimbursement. And we learned during that process that universal pre K, which is tied up with early education in our child care centers, is not universal at all. And the only thing that is really required is that if a family or guardian can find pre K, that the state is obligated to pay for ten hours of that a week. That's really the only thing that exists. And so we, in ACT 76, set up a pre K implementation committee that met for many months and came back with several recommendations and recommendations that essentially looked at wanting to expand the number of hours for four year olds. And that theme has been consistent. The Secretary of Education's governor's proposal expands hours for pre K. And the work of Building Bright Futures in their work with AOE, with DCF, also recommends expansion of hours for four year olds. At the same time, they all recommend the continuation of services at the current level for three year olds. And we did start off our work thinking about three year olds, about essentially having three year olds move totally into the child care financial assistance program. Not all of them would be eligible for that, even though our income levels are quite high for middle income families at this point in time. But for some, that was a step backwards, even though Vermont is an outlier in a positive sense, if you will, for three year olds. If you look at the national map from near, you can see Vermont is the only colored state that's providing access for three year olds. Now, some other states are looking at it, but we're really the one that provides it at this point in time. So we're very conscious of not trying to have unintended consequences for the things that were working well in the system. All but one state in the country where pre K is offered do it in a mixed delivery system like Vermont does. About 50% of the kids, it's almost exactly 50% now, get their pre K education in public schools and about 50% get it in private pre K. So one of the main goals of our committee was to increase access, not to decrease access, because we are really trying to make universal pre K, in fact, true to its name and have it be universal access for any family that wants it for their children. Doing so, however, requires somebody to be in charge of that, somebody to have a responsibility for that. And right now, no one has a responsibility for it. So if you are lucky enough to find pre K and you can see from the reports that we received, we're actually gaining a lot more data than we had previously, which is a good thing. AOE, DCF, and Building Bright Futures are all working together. And their data people are all working together. And that is a big step forward in trying to understand the landscape out there. So for instance, we know in the Northeast Kingdom, only eleven percent of the children eligible for pre K are actually receiving pre K in the Northeast Kingdom. However, in the Northwest Kingdom, if you want to say, the Franklin Grand Isle area is where actually the least amount of providers are in that part of the state. So we wanted to, one, do no harm to the service system as it's working right now. Children are arriving at kindergarten ready to learn at very high percentage. Think that means 91% of four year meet literacy expectations and eighty five percent of children arriving in kindergarten ready to learn. So of course, we were only looking to increase those positive outcomes and not looking to have an impact on things that might be more negatively received. So first was about access. And we felt it important that somebody has responsibility for ensuring the availability, whether through direct provision or in coordination or under contract with local private providers or some combination or through another, depending upon what all ends up here happening in terms of school districts, could be other public school districts as well. So we did. We said that this is education. This is money that is coming from the education fund. And the school districts have the local responsibility, they do for everybody else in the education system, for assuring that educational opportunity is available for children who are eligible. And pre K children are no different. And yet, somehow, we are treating them differently. And so that was a basic premise that we entered into our deliberations about ensuring access and having a locus of responsibility for access. Another key item was this was news for our committee. We had heard oftentimes people refer to there not being comparable quality in private pre K from public pre K. I don't think the outcomes are showing that because we're seeing comparable outcomes regardless of where you get that education. However, those are things that have been talked about around the building by various folks at various times. And it was news to our committee when we learned that the actual pre K statute doesn't require a licensed teacher to be in the classroom, either in the public system or in the private system. However, we know that collective bargaining agreements and other provisions, all schools, if you're offering pre K, have a licensed teacher in them. So we felt it was time to require licensed teachers in private pre K. And we looked at some of the data. We know that through Act 76, there has been a lot of investment in education of professionals and the opportunity to seek advancement. And there's another whole bill that has just recently come over from the Senate around EC early childhood educators and the Office of Professional Regulation. So we wanted to be clear and that we believe that the time has come to require private preschool providers to have a licensed preschool teacher in the classroom, not just available to the classroom, but in the classroom, in each classroom. And obviously, in order to do that, there is discrepancy between what private providers receive and what school districts typically are able to include in their budgets. And you all know better how the waiting system works than I do, but it's about double. Anyways, there's a differential of about double between what public school systems are able to access for pre K and what private providers are able to access for pre K. So we wanted to equalize that in order for them to be able to pay licensed teachers to be in the classroom. However, we recognize that there would be an on ramp that would be necessary in order to achieve that. And so we suggested seven years in this bill as an on ramp for private providers to be able to earn their credentials. I know there was some concern about home based providers, home based pre K providers. Ray has some data about that. So we originally were thinking about whether to exclude them and have them at a different payment rate. And based on the data, which Ray, if you want to share, We then it be decided not to do that.

[Rep. Rey Garofano (Vice Chair, House Human Services Committee)]: Yes. So, DCF provided this data around the family child care home programs that are currently UPK partners. So there's currently 35 family child care programs statewide that are UPK partners and 20 already are operated by AOE licensed individuals. So for those folks, they don't need to do anything different. They're already a licensed professional, a licensed teacher and operating that home. And then the other 15, we have their credentials and looks from the data that DCF provided. One has a master's, two have bachelor's, six have associate's. So all of them are on the way and have some qualifications that would require them that are required for the teacher licensure. So we feel that based on this data and the on ramp that we provided for those private providers to obtain those contributions, we will be in really good shape

[Peter Conlon (Chair, House Education Committee)]: as

[Rep. Rey Garofano (Vice Chair, House Human Services Committee)]: far as what people already have for qualifications and credentials. So we felt like that was a fair assessment of, say, seven years should give you enough time, that part of the field enough time to get the qualifications and the credentials needed to become licensed.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair, House Human Services Committee)]: And I know there's been some discussion this morning about the school district responsibility. And we did receive testimony. I don't know how to pronounce Sue's last name. Thank you. On behalf of the principal, superintendents and school boards. And they specifically said that they felt school districts should be responsible and be responsible entities if somebody was gonna be made responsible. They had concerns about liability, and we wanted to assure them that we were not charging them with liability, that that was still going to be the responsibility of state regulators. So that would not fall onto a school district in terms of what our recommendations were. And so yeah, I think any other points that you want to add? The only

[Rep. Rey Garofano (Vice Chair, House Human Services Committee)]: other thing I wanted to offer as far as the capability of private providers being able to get the qualifications that they need is, as Teresa or Chair Wood mentioned, there are a lot of resources available. And there is very specific criteria for a private provider to qualified. And that's administered by both the Agency of Education and the Child Development Division. And in Act 76, there's a lot of investments and incentives for professionals not only to get their credentials and professional development, but also to increase their quality, which is one of the best standards that need to be met. So there's a lot of supports and specific incentives for private programs to become EPK qualified, which has been a concerted effort, part of Act 76. We wanted to make sure that childcare programs had incentives to increase their quality and offer high quality care, which kind of goes hand in hand with what's becoming EPK of pre qualifying.

[Peter Conlon (Chair, House Education Committee)]: Think, as I said at the beginning, there are probably two issues within this that are making folks a little nervous. For me, it is the language that says that school districts are if there is no capacity, they are responsible for providing pre K.

[Rep. Rey Garofano (Vice Chair, House Human Services Committee)]: Or arranging for it. But

[Peter Conlon (Chair, House Education Committee)]: if none exists, if no capacity is You're talking about the Northeast Kingdom where there just really aren't private providers.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair, House Human Services Committee)]: Actually, there are. That was one of the surprising pieces of data that I don't have it right here in front of me, they actually rank higher than Franklin And Grand Isle County in terms of access from private providers.

[Peter Conlon (Chair, House Education Committee)]: However, ultimately, I can pick on my own district where we have lots of private providers, but there's still more demand than it exists. And so what this says is therefore it is the public school's responsibility to provide that prepaid service. We don't know how education is going to be paid for when that part kicks in. And so maybe a little bit of it. My concern is that it's a little bit of the cart before the horse in that we're requiring it, but we don't really have spelled out how it's going to be paid for. And the fear of it becoming an unfunded mandate and saying, you will provide three ks. And that can mean having to rehab a building or do others. There's the physical cost plus the cost of providing the program. And what if it's a situation when there are four kids who can't find capacity? Does the school system have to create a whole new pre K program or convert a classroom or put in little bathrooms, all that. So I think the concern for me is that without even having the funding decided yet, we're already sort of putting in statute this potentially burdensome requirement.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair, House Human Services Committee)]: So I'd like to respond to that just a little bit. I guess it comes down to a value statement of whether we consider pre K part of the education system or not. And all of our witnesses are very clear that it is. And it seems less clear here because we wouldn't be saying that same thing if we need it more or less for third graders or people who are in high school. If we're going to say that pre K is public education, then it needs to have the same validity and the same expectation that students be able to access it. And that seems to be in question.

[Peter Conlon (Chair, House Education Committee)]: I guess what's in question is how it's probably paid for. And in an era where we are trying to not add cost to the education fund, this potentially adds cost to the education fund. Philosophically, I'm not sure I could possibly disagree with you, although we provide it in a very different way than providing public education. But it's more of not having a funding mechanism to pay for this before we put it in statute as a mandate.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair, House Human Services Committee)]: Which is why we asked in the study for them to consider that cost. And JFO felt like they did not have sufficient information on which to make an estimate or determination. And so they suggested using the contractor with which they're just I think they just signed a contract with. And they are in discussions with them to potentially add this work if this makes it through.

[Peter Conlon (Chair, House Education Committee)]: To me, think you could have a study that says, this is what it would cost to meet the need, and here's how we're going to fund it, then I can't be more comfortable with requiring it.

[Unidentified Member (House Education Committee)]: The question I have related to this is how this intersects with our current statutes around compulsory attendance. Pre K is not required. Parents do not have to send their child to Pre K. They may choose to or not to, but the school district must provide it. So I wonder how that intersects with what our current laws are about, who is required to kindergarten.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair, House Human Services Committee)]: I mean, kindergarten is not required either. You would treat way it the

[Rep. Rey Garofano (Vice Chair, House Human Services Committee)]: as kindergarten, because kindergarten is not required. So it would be the same.

[Unidentified Member (House Education Committee)]: Is every school district required to provide kindergarten?

[Rep. Kate McCann (Member, House Education Committee)]: I think I just wanted

[Rep. Rey Garofano (Vice Chair, House Human Services Committee)]: to make a couple of points about the unfunded mandate that chair you mentioned. I think it's really important to highlight the importance of the partnerships in this space. So I don't think of this as the school district creating a space in their building for maybe four or five, three four year olds or three to five year olds. I look at it as there's parts of the state where regional coordination is working really, really well in ensuring that these private partnerships exist and work well. And there's districts or regions in the state where different school districts kind of chip in a little bit of money to have a pre K coordinator that will work with families, private providers, and the school district to ensure that there is the need, whatever it is, is met. So bringing all those together, so I'm not seeing it as something that the school district has to build something, create a space for this age group. I think it's more about collaboration, partnership with those private providers, which we have really robustly supported through Act 76. So let's utilize that investment to ensure more access for this age group that doesn't exist right now.

[Peter Conlon (Chair, House Education Committee)]: So we don't then need to mandate that the school provide the program?

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair, House Human Services Committee)]: I think that it's real, I'm trying to find the language because

[Rep. Erin Brady (Ranking Member, House Education Committee)]: we were very Page six.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair, House Human Services Committee)]: Thank you. We were very intentional about the Yeah, that's not the one I'm thinking about. Okay, so on page seven, paragraph four, I'm just speaking to the partnerships that representative was just speaking to, that we really looked at the if nobody has responsibility, then we're not going to see whether or not school districts already have responsibility for child finding from age three up. So they know who's in the community, or they're attempting to know who's in the community. And so this really says that they work in collaboration with the if they had pre K coordinators in district or area districts, with AOE, with human services, and the local Building Bright Futures Council to really look, what are the options for making sure that we can have access in our communities for the children and the families who want to access pre K? So I think that maybe four should be number three, and three should be number four. But that's the activity that we want to ensure that happens. That is happening, I guess I would say, a little bit haphazardly now. It happens in some places and it doesn't in others. And in the places where it is happening, they're doing a pretty decent job of ensuring access. And the places where it's not happening, we can see the results, which is why we have differences in access around the state.

[Peter Conlon (Chair, House Education Committee)]: If you look at the bottom of paragraph four there, the final sentence, it's fairly clear. If necessary.

[Rep. Kate McCann (Member, House Education Committee)]: What it sounds like is that you're suggesting that school districts maybe create a position, and that position would coordinate this effort of making sure that three and four year olds have a place to go pre fed. And we're doing this at a time where budgets are being cut, positions are being cut now. So it's difficult to think about how do you add this pre K coordinator position to your staff when you're cutting programs and people from your community, your learning community as it is. Yeah,

[Rep. Erin Brady (Ranking Member, House Education Committee)]: we

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair, House Human Services Committee)]: understood. We live in all the same communities that you all are living in where people are struggling with their budgets. And it's why we didn't require it. I can tell you

[Rep. Rey Garofano (Vice Chair, House Human Services Committee)]: there were some folks on our committee who wanted to require it. It's not required. It says, if any. It's recommended because we have seen in Addison County, for instance, that's a place where it's working pretty well with And it's multiple school districts. It's not each individual school district that has a position. It's more on a regional basis because when you're partnering with private programs, you're looking at it from a regional lens. So in Addison County, as Cheryl would mention, several school districts kind of pool resources together to ensure a position exists. And I think short of that, other collaboration can be done with the other already funded groups, such as BDF, Regional Council. But to kind of our committee's perspective is right now responsibility doesn't live anywhere for access for this work.

[Peter Conlon (Chair, House Education Committee)]: I would say, you're absolutely right. There's no guarantee that four year olds are going to have access to pre K because we don't mandate that school districts have programs and we don't mandate that private childcare centers provide a pre K program. This only mandates that public schools have a program if the need is there.

[Rep. Kate McCann (Member, House Education Committee)]: So again, it's challenging, Representative Brown, in this time that we are in, to talk about adding unfunded mandates or not even knowing what the funding is. Maybe they are funded, but maybe we should wait till we've wrote that. Yeah, just to follow-up on that. I really struggle with this section as well, because I think although there is some flexibility in the language, there are certain things that we sort of already know. We know that the supply is insufficient to meet demand in some parts of the state. And we know that not all districts can afford to fund a position for a pre kindergarten coordinator. So the bottom line is that the responsibility falls back on the school district at a really difficult time when the funding future is really uncertain and there are a lot of work that we need to do around the foundation formula. We all share the values and the goals, but it's a really tough time to put that weight on the public school system. I think the only thing that I would say, I don't disagree with things that you're saying.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair, House Human Services Committee)]: State if we what the goal is or what the expectation is, how are we going to develop a funding system that's going to meet that?

[Peter Conlon (Chair, House Education Committee)]: I would say that you put that in the instructions of the study that's going to recommend a funding system before mandating it would be my answer. Representative Long?

[Rep. Emily Long (Member, House Education Committee)]: So I did share this with the committee earlier, but I'll just give an example. In my region, which I was surprised to see Windham and Windsor County are really high I

[Peter Conlon (Chair, House Education Committee)]: shouldn't say I

[Rep. Emily Long (Member, House Education Committee)]: was surprised, so happy to see and not surprised. But yet, in my area right now, we have a long term relationship with a private provider child care center that has been and because it's been so strong between the school and in one community between school and the private provider, there's been no need to have a public pre K in the school. But there's been talk in the last few years of this private provider not going to be able to stay open. So we were very worried because all of these children go to this private provider. Where are they going to go? And there was nowhere else because the town next door there is closed. So we started looking to the costs of creating a public program in our school to take those children because those children were going from the childcare center immediately into high school. So the costs were really undoable. We haven't done it yet, but we're still tiny in case they close. We're hoping they don't close. But we don't have a playground adequately that meets. We don't have a teacher. So we've already got a teacher trying to get licensed in case this does happen. There's requirements for restrooms. You know all the requirements much better than I do. But bathrooms and all that. And it got to be so overwhelming in a district where we're losing enrollment anyway. And so we put it all to the back burner. I'm just giving it as an example of the cost, even outside of staffing and all of that, or we're going to coordinate a position,

[Rep. Kate McCann (Member, House Education Committee)]: that really would feel overwhelmed for

[Rep. Emily Long (Member, House Education Committee)]: districts right now.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair, House Human Services Committee)]: And so I just give it as an example. In one of my school districts, they're actually moving in that direction already. And I don't know if your committee would be surprised to learn that 19 school districts around the state already combine CCFAP funds with pre K funds to offer a full day of services. And I know both in my school district actually, Mount Mansfield and Harvard are both looking at that for this coming school year to be able to try to meet that. And so I think it's important to recognize on the private side of things, there is probably similar concerns, only not in that same way. Because as public schools actually expand their opportunity for kids to have pre K in the public school by partnering up with CCFAP so that parents are not left with the struggle of what do I do after the two hours a day or three hours day or whatever that local schedule is. Then I have to come pick up my child and take them someplace else if I'm working. That's why these school districts are looking to partner with CCFAP to create a full day. And frankly, I think that has some private providers worried because people will be interested in that, I'm sure, that opportunity. But for instance, in one of the towns that I represent, Huntington, they're out in the little bit of middle of nowhere. They're kind of a distance away from Richmond and they're distance away from Pinesburg. And so their little school is looking at having full time programs, part of it being pre K and part of it being childcare funded by CCFAP. So money part is going in more directions, and it wouldn't surprise me to see more school districts actually doing that. Those are the only two, and that's just in my district. I don't know if other people are familiar with what's happening in theirs.

[Peter Conlon (Chair, House Education Committee)]: Tomorrow, we're going to have testimony from superintendents and we're going to hear about the challenges. I think one in particular will be North Country, which is right up there on the Canadian border. And I suspect they're going to say, we don't have the private providers out there. And this is going to be for us a very large unfunded mandate because we will have to take on all that a time when we don't even know what the funding is because the study hasn't been done or anything. We don't know what the funding system is going to be.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair, House Human Services Committee)]: Yeah. And I get that. Were not intending. Honestly, our committee is not intending on applying an unfunded mandate. I don't want to go into any more school meetings already and hear about any more unfunded mandates, trust me, any more than any of the rest of you do. So that is not the intent. Their intent was to make sure that it was included in the cost of education and in whatever payment mechanism is established and whatever rate is established in a foundation formula or whether ways and means had asked us to think about a I would say the wrong word categorical aid. And we just really determined we had insufficient information on which to make a determination of one over the other for this. Jay and Tom really felt like they didn't have sufficient information to do that either. And so hence the last section.

[Peter Conlon (Chair, House Education Committee)]: I think that maybe we could work on language that would make the study a little more specific to how do we fund areas that don't have capacity. But I know you, I appreciate you saying your intention is not to create an unfunded mandate. But when it says, if necessary, a school district shall begin or expand a program to meet that demand, that is a mandate.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair, House Human Services Committee)]: Well, it is. But I also want to point out that none of those sections go into effect until whatever new funding formula goes into effect. That the concept is that it would be included in the cost of education so that it wouldn't be an unfunded mandate.

[Peter Conlon (Chair, House Education Committee)]: I guess that would be my counterpart before the horse.

[Rep. Rey Garofano (Vice Chair, House Human Services Committee)]: Just want to also add, we heard testimony from First Children's Finance about capacity building in early ed that's been happening through of Act 76 and even before that, but really a lot more of it. And all the capacity building that has happened since Act 76 has passed, every childcare program that has opened has had preschool slots in it. So in areas of the state where there are no private programs, I think there are a lot of opportunities. And I know I've worked for the department and worked in that division. I know the Child Development Division and DCF, in collaboration with AoE and BBF and other partners, have had a concerted effort looking at data to understand where are the gaps. There was just a report that came out for a supply and demand study to understand where are the gaps in programs across the state and private programs. So just trying to make the point that where those gaps exist, there is a lot of resources to create private programs that will partner with the school district in these areas, which is probably a lot more financially easier way of going about it than having a school building build a brick and mortar UPK within their existing infrastructure. So just want to make that point that there's a lot of research. There's a lot of work being done. And I think our point was to really shore up the collaboration and communication between all the parties. And having the school districts be responsible for that would ensure that they're collaborating running with the rights stakeholders to ensure that is happening.

[Peter Conlon (Chair, House Education Committee)]: Yeah, I don't think that that's the objection. I think everybody wants to see collaboration and more resources and more capacity building, I should say, yeah. Any other questions, Representative McCann? I would

[Rep. Kate McCann (Member, House Education Committee)]: love for every elementary school to offer Pre K, but we need to, it needs to be funded in such a way that pre K kids count as a full kid. With the weights now, it's well underfunded. And when we move forward with the foundation formula, we need to figure out how to get it right so that we can move those programs into our schools. We have a capacity in many schools because of the declining moment, so let's get it done, but it's going to cost money to figure out where that costs.

[Peter Conlon (Chair, House Education Committee)]: Realize we're keeping you longer than we intended. So I think the other concern that we're going to hear is the requirement here that it's the provisional or emergency licenses in settings where the superintendent is ultimately responsible for that teacher has no supervision capacity that was in a private pre K setting. And I just wanted to know if you could speak to that a little bit.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair, House Human Services Committee)]: We wanted to assure, since we were putting in place a requirement for licensure, that there be the same opportunity for licensed pre K educators that exist that any other licensed pre K educator would have. And so I know I'm falling back on my own school district examples too, but I do know that in previous practice that that actually has occurred and has changed, and we wanted to reinstate it.

[Peter Conlon (Chair, House Education Committee)]: Could you tell me who would have liability? If the superintendent who kind of signs off on the provisional license, person's placed at a private pre K or someplace that's working at a private pre K doing their job, commit some infraction that might end up with a lawsuit or whatever. I guess I think there's a concern about who has the liability here.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair, House Human Services Committee)]: Yeah, I can't answer. I'm not a lawyer. I can't answer that question. It's generally an employer who has the liability. But yeah, I don't feel qualified to answer that question.

[Rep. Rey Garofano (Vice Chair, House Human Services Committee)]: I'll just reiterate that that practice has been normal practice for early ed side, where provisional licensure was possible through supervision of the school district until very recently. So that is not something new that we're that's been practiced.

[Peter Conlon (Chair, House Education Committee)]: There was a brief

[Rep. Erin Brady (Ranking Member, House Education Committee)]: But my understanding, I think that might be a practice in some places of just sort of something that has evolved on the ground, but that is not statute anywhere, is it?

[Peter Conlon (Chair, House Education Committee)]: Any further questions from the committee? So I think, brought together with you our concerns, appreciate you coming back to us with some of the thoughts from the committee. If you have any thoughts on if there's a middle ground here that might work, be happy, would be over to them. But I think what you're hearing among this committee is a lot of concern over that, especially that one, almost just that one sentence that is a mandate and is a mandate before the funding of that mandate is even known. And I think that if we can perhaps make the study a little clearer about that put off the mandate. It's gonna make many people on this committee more comfortable with it. So any thoughts or suggestions you might have, free to pass them along.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair, House Human Services Committee)]: Well, thank you for the opportunity to share our committee's thinking and early hours of testimony that we took on trying to formulate something that was gonna provide increased access to Vermonters and more equitable access. One thing that we left on the table, frankly, was not something we were able to come to any kind of conclusion about because of insufficient data. And there's wide variability right now from zero hours of pre K to full time pre K. And it's just what you get passed in your budget and what your school district presents to the voters and they approve or not. And so we were not able to tackle that. That's a big equity issue as well. And because AOE doesn't really have data yet, although it is in process of really understanding where in the state and how many hours and all of that kind of stuff. We have numbers of students, but it doesn't really tell us the deeper picture. And that's a giant equity issue, which is really how we started to learn about this in taking testimony around Act 76, learning that it was such a wide disparity. And that is, I mean, I hate to tell you folks, you do public education every day. The kind of disparity in public education.

[Peter Conlon (Chair, House Education Committee)]: You're absolutely right. It was very hard to sort of understand the picture because the district that I represent really doesn't look good in terms of offering pre K, but in fact, there's a lot of private capacity, which is where it's.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair, House Human Services Committee)]: Have all the data by school district now. And actually, they show the total. So I don't know if you had an opportunity to look at the data that's provided to our committee, which maybe you're getting as well.

[Peter Conlon (Chair, House Education Committee)]: Well, our other issue is that we are we've got a clock ticking behind us that is so loud. It's definite. Yes. So we are having to move very quickly.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair, House Human Services Committee)]: Yeah. So if you if you looked at We didn't really get from AOP. It's the BVF. The BVF and Children's Finance. Two pieces of information had a lot more data that would be helpful. That was sort of like caught off the presses kind of stuff.

[Rep. Erin Brady (Ranking Member, House Education Committee)]: Great. Thanks very much. Thank you. Look

[Peter Conlon (Chair, House Education Committee)]: at our agenda, see what it actually is.

[Rep. Emily Long (Member, House Education Committee)]: I

[Peter Conlon (Chair, House Education Committee)]: think we might stay on the topic for a minute and invite legislative council. So if folks could stay on this same topic, We will have testimony tomorrow, which may have an impact on the way people are thinking. I am wondering if it is possible.

[Rep. Erin Brady (Ranking Member, House Education Committee)]: Yeah, talk, please. I mean, it's just the frustration, I think, of our whole legislative process here. But if I could accomplish two things as a legislature, one would be truly universal full time public pre K and better post secondary supports for kids. And I'm well aware we're not going do either one of those things this year or probably God knows when. But I guess it's to say that It feels crummy to have to tell your colleagues in another committee that here's a big subsidy bill, and we're interested in some of it. We share some of the values, but I can't. I don't feel like we could possibly do this justice and do good policy work on this in the constraints and that we're in this tight the peace of the Act 73 or the goals of Act 73, I feel like we have to stick to that this week. Again, I and it's frustrating, and I feel 10 different layers of guilt because it does not align with my values or priorities. But I just think it's the reality of where we are in this incredibly compressed timeline and process and trying to really overhaul pre K and the entire school district system and create CESAs and CTE and mandated that we are just and the year, I will say again, the easy part. We get to sit here, feel stressed about it, read 100 text messages from people telling us to do different things. But it's the people in the field who have to work that have the hard jobs. And so I feel unprepared to do good policy work on pre K in a couple of hour snippets in thirty six hours. And so I am interested in, to be constructive, what is the minimal pieces in terms of understanding the funding as we continue to contemplate much bigger funding changes that we can move that piece along. And this stays on a very important list of ongoing work that we need to get to. Let me That's my take.

[Peter Conlon (Chair, House Education Committee)]: When we were all here last talking about this a couple days ago, or maybe it was a few hours ago, we gave legislative council some instructions and maybe we should go through that language if it's ready.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: That's St. James' Office of Legislative Council. It's not very exciting.

[Peter Conlon (Chair, House Education Committee)]: No, know. So this would be to answer Representative Brady's thoughts. You know, what sort of how can we move things along? But set aside maybe some of the bigger issues that we find ourselves. Unable to spend enough time on to get through, although. I feel pretty strongly about the mandate before a funding proposal put before us.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: You have on your website draft 8.1 of draft request 26 dash eight zero two, which is the pre K language that came over from human services. Until you make any decisions about what you're adding to your own committee bill, we're just going to work in this document. And so the changes are to section four. Section four begins on page four at the very bottom. And

[Rep. Kate McCann (Member, House Education Committee)]: I will

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: just note that section four does not take effect until the foundation formula takes effect. And the changes between draft 7.3 and draft 8.1, so between this morning and now, are on page six in subdivision B3 and four, just reverting back to current law.

[Peter Conlon (Chair, House Education Committee)]: I'm actually gonna have us go back to page five, if you don't mind. And maybe you should share your screen. If we wanna talk about what what's what's in here.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Where would you like to start? Where should

[Peter Conlon (Chair, House Education Committee)]: I Maybe I'm gonna go through and people, you could stop me if I have it wrong. So, on page two, Line 12. We will hear testimony about this, the main the main issue. Line 12 reading that whole paragraph is the part after the comments, including the issuance of provisional and emergency licenses. So we don't need to decide on this tonight. You'll hear more tomorrow. But just to say that the concern will be that if you have somebody with an emergency license, a provisional license in a private setting, who ultimately has responsible responsibility because the license is signed off on by the superintendent, but really has no supervision of that person. So it's kind of a liability question and who has the liability. And if

[Rep. Emily Long (Member, House Education Committee)]: there is a licensed teacher even before that, even without this language in here, with the issuance of provisional emergency license, isn't it the same thing even without that language? As long as there's a licensed teacher, there needs to be someone that person could be hired under provisional because you can do that in any.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: If they meet all of the requirements to obtain a provisional or emergency license.

[Rep. Emily Long (Member, House Education Committee)]: I think the difference here

[Peter Conlon (Chair, House Education Committee)]: is that a private pre K that hires a licensed teacher does that separate and apart from the superintendent. Whereas somebody with a provisional emergency license has got the. Backing with the superintendent.

[Rep. Emily Long (Member, House Education Committee)]: Yeah, I mean, I'm just saying I don't see why adding in that doesn't preclude the problem. It's there.

[Peter Conlon (Chair, House Education Committee)]: From a liability point of view, if somebody is licensed and hired separate and apart from anything to do with the school district. The school district doesn't have any tie liability tied to that person. I'm no lawyer, but

[Rep. Emily Long (Member, House Education Committee)]: when it's got clarity

[Rep. Kate McCann (Member, House Education Committee)]: around that,

[Peter Conlon (Chair, House Education Committee)]: that's all. Yeah, don't know. Yeah. But I get clarity around it. So that's the issue on that section. The page three is the NEK choice issue. Special language has been worked up by everybody. I don't somebody tell me if they have any issue with that. We're gonna need to it's also in a separate bill coming over from the Senate, which I think has passed already out of the Senate.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: On third reading tomorrow.

[Peter Conlon (Chair, House Education Committee)]: That's the same one. Page five, the substantive change here is adding a child who is five years of age who is eligible for kindergarten, but is not developmentally ready, Still qualifying for pre date, we don't currently have that language. Is that right?

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So right now, that is true. The language that is underlined is not current law, but the way it is written now is three or four years old or is five years of age, but is not yet enrolled in kindergarten. I think it's potentially just, if you're just looking at this piece of law, it's potentially ambiguous as to whether you get pre K funding under this for three years or two years. The change here makes it not ambiguous, that it's eligible for enrollment with the exception of kiddos who are not developmentally ready for the

[Peter Conlon (Chair, House Education Committee)]: kid. So why don't you take over at page six? Highlighting current law, right?

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yes, I'm only highlighting current law. This is where the provisions about having the pre K coordinator and being responsible for assisting families to find programs with capacity lift that lived in Subdivision 3, that's gone. And then Subdivision 4 is where you have the language about the consultation between AOE, human services, building right features in the school district, potentially resulting in a school district being required to expand or begin a preterm program. And that language has been removed. So just reverting back to current law and subdivisions. And I didn't make any other changes to what came over to you from human services.

[Peter Conlon (Chair, House Education Committee)]: So the page eight, line 13, that makes it clear that a public school or a private provider could sort of move out of official pre K into childcare and receive payments directly from parents or from CCAP. There's any discussion of that?

[Rep. Kate McCann (Member, House Education Committee)]: School districts get the 10 worth of money.

[Peter Conlon (Chair, House Education Committee)]: They gotta wait.

[Rep. Kate McCann (Member, House Education Committee)]: And then they pay it out to private providers.

[Peter Conlon (Chair, House Education Committee)]: They pay out a voucher to private providers that is set annually. You heard the comparison from them about the wait versus what's paid out and that if you sort of were to convert it all into dollars, they aren't the same. But that's true.

[Rep. Kate McCann (Member, House Education Committee)]: They're paying out what are they taking in? No, no, the

[Peter Conlon (Chair, House Education Committee)]: opposite. In other words, get

[Rep. Erin Brady (Ranking Member, House Education Committee)]: depending on what they're providing.

[Peter Conlon (Chair, House Education Committee)]: Right. Right. So if you are not providing any public pre K, all you're doing is paying vouchers out for each one of those students. That weight is zero point four six, so call it half a kid. The value of that is half of the average per pupil weight, but they're paying out like $3,500 in pre k tuition.

[Rep. Erin Brady (Ranking Member, House Education Committee)]: But if you're providing to get school,

[Peter Conlon (Chair, House Education Committee)]: you're providing a full day of pre K, you are still only getting point four six. Which is why I think the study is obviously not controversial.

[Rep. Rey Garofano (Vice Chair, House Human Services Committee)]: Think I don't know if there's evidence

[Rep. Erin Brady (Ranking Member, House Education Committee)]: of Often, pre K students with special needs are served in Maybe I need I need to add it to back that up. I guess I know anecdotally around my area, often in the public school programs, they first fill all the spots with the students who have IEP or version of that is when you're. Yes, the Tripoli and that's a child blindness. They tend to those. Guess just anecdotally, I'm going stop right there.

[Peter Conlon (Chair, House Education Committee)]: Well, I think that I need further evidence. There is mandated services for three and four year olds through Tripoli.

[Rep. Emily Long (Member, House Education Committee)]: And it's important that earlier you identify. Oh, so, yeah.

[Peter Conlon (Chair, House Education Committee)]: Yeah. And this doesn't this isn't talking about changing it.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair, House Human Services Committee)]: Never mind.

[Peter Conlon (Chair, House Education Committee)]: Right. Quick round table. Where are I've made a lot of talk about mandates. Who disagrees with me statewide? Or should we keep the mandate that they're proposing in this language?

[Rep. Kate McCann (Member, House Education Committee)]: Can I say something kind of different about it?

[Peter Conlon (Chair, House Education Committee)]: You should say anything you want, as long as I don't have to talk first. If we

[Rep. Kate McCann (Member, House Education Committee)]: did, and I've already talked to representative Wood about this, if we did pass out this bill, is this a bill that we could also tack something else on that would equalize the pre K and the post pre K, I guess the regular K experience on? Say

[Peter Conlon (Chair, House Education Committee)]: that again?

[Rep. Kate McCann (Member, House Education Committee)]: So if we did pass out this bill, is it a bill that we

[Rep. Erin Brady (Ranking Member, House Education Committee)]: could It should

[Peter Conlon (Chair, House Education Committee)]: be language we would add to our

[Rep. Erin Brady (Ranking Member, House Education Committee)]: bill. So

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: like, I had

[Rep. Kate McCann (Member, House Education Committee)]: didn't get into this and she said she could have, but she didn't. This quick build I did about epinephrine, they can't keep it in stock pre K and it's really important. Like kids have died. I've received messages from parents whose kids have died. And she said that could be tacked onto this since it would now be part of the K-eighty system to say yes.

[Peter Conlon (Chair, House Education Committee)]: That may even be handled in healthcare. I'm not sure.

[Rep. Kate McCann (Member, House Education Committee)]: I was assigned to them and she was like, oh, I could have put it on the pre K, we didn't use your teeth to do that.

[Peter Conlon (Chair, House Education Committee)]: I would say that would be certainly not totally germane, but we will probably get the miscellaneous head bill back from this slide.

[Rep. Erin Brady (Ranking Member, House Education Committee)]: Okay, all right, all right, I'll wait till then, thanks.

[Peter Conlon (Chair, House Education Committee)]: I

[Rep. Kate McCann (Member, House Education Committee)]: was just gonna say that in this version that we're looking at with Beth seeing the current law status of sections three and four as contrasted with the bill that he Yes, wrote I forget. I'm looking back for the page. So it's the draft that we're looking at right now, page six of 13, sections three and four, compared to I don't know where it is from the human services, though. Anyways, I think that just really I mean, there's a clear legal difference there. And I think it just only confirms my concerns around the issue that you raised about how this doesn't create additional significant responsibilities for public schools.

[Unidentified Member (House Education Committee)]: I am much more comfortable with what we have now for, to what was there. I have another concern. I don't know if this rises to the top of having to do anything about it. But the current system, the private provider has to hire a licensed teacher and this changes it to the person that has to be providing it. And I know there's a seven year on ramp, but even their own data is not showing there's a significant difference in quality between the private and the public. So is that a requirement that might reduce access to pre K in our rural regions that are really relying on the private providers to provide that. And there's the seven year on ramp, it is contingent on foundation formula, but I do want to mention that that has been brought to my attention by providers in my area when the licensing came out a

[Peter Conlon (Chair, House Education Committee)]: year ago. I'm so concerned about it. Yeah, think it should stay there because it's so far in the future. And it's also part of the, they're also proposing as part of the study equity and funding. So if you're gonna say we're gonna pay private providers more, we're gonna have to up the expectation that kids are being taught by the licensed teacher. So, we'll get some testimony tomorrow, but are people uncomfortable with the changes that we have made? And again, I just wanna emphasize, I don't disagree with that philosophy whatsoever. It just seems to me that we should understand how we're gonna pay for that mandate before we put the mandated statute. I think I could not agree more that if we're gonna call four year olds students, and that we should make sure that they're all having access to pre K such as it is, yeah.

[Rep. Kate McCann (Member, House Education Committee)]: I think it's also to remember, I realize this is really hard when we have no money yet, but in the very long game, it's really important to get this early education in and it's going to save us hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars in the future to have an educated populace and a populace with strong early literacy.

[Peter Conlon (Chair, House Education Committee)]: Really encouraging to hear the statistic that 91% of kids are coming to school school ready. I don't know if that was 8585%, but it was just in one to the picture pre K.

[Rep. Kate McCann (Member, House Education Committee)]: I feel it was 100.

[Peter Conlon (Chair, House Education Committee)]: Yeah, we were clearly headed in the right direction. And there's a lot

[Rep. Erin Brady (Ranking Member, House Education Committee)]: of difference in our data. Some would do a three year and four year, some would just do four, some have ten hours, some have thirty hours.

[Unidentified Member (House Education Committee)]: Would also say that The data is really incomplete.

[Peter Conlon (Chair, House Education Committee)]: I would also say there are people who don't do pre K at all, but do high quality childcare and those that show up ready. Anybody else want to weigh in on this? We'll sort of sit on it, get our testimony tomorrow, check it again, have further discussion. Is that like planned? All right. We'll wrap this part of our audio show. As you see me stare into the middle of the distance, it is an indication that I'm not functioning very well. And I was going to We need to be really ready again tomorrow, for it is to hit the ground running. Be prepared to stay tomorrow to get work done. We may have a list of school districts to go within a CISA map, which you could be able to plug in. We may have that first thing tomorrow. We are trying to work on money to fund things. Probably, in the overnight hours, we'll get some more research done on that, so we can plug in some others there. Off the top of your head, what are some of the other outstanding major, we to chore up our district guide map.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Just looking for green. So it's not highlighted in green, but section four on page 13 is the Seesaw grant program. So thinking about whether you're going to amend that in any way, and how does that work with the appropriations at the very end of the bill? How many facilitators you wanna require BTLC to hire? Or how are you giving that direction to them, whether it's a number or a range or guidance there? And then you've already noted the guidance map. And in addition to the amounts of money, all of your appropriations, you would need to think about the source of the money, and in some of them, who the appropriation is to. So the CESA startup grant.

[Rep. Erin Brady (Ranking Member, House Education Committee)]: How that works with what

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: you currently have on the books, I think, just requires a little bit of thought.

[Peter Conlon (Chair, House Education Committee)]: But

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I think that those are the only places that I have flagged as meeting as policy choices that you have not yet arrived at enough of a consensus to keep moving forward with draft language. Not that everything in here that is not highlighted is that consensus.

[Peter Conlon (Chair, House Education Committee)]: Alright, I know some people like me used to get to later on this afternoon, so are people comfortable breaking now?

[Rep. Kate McCann (Member, House Education Committee)]: Sorry,

[Peter Conlon (Chair, House Education Committee)]: we are back in here at nine tomorrow. Thank you all. It was actually