Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons, Chair]: There's a lot of Good morning. This is Senate Health and Welfare. It is January 28. This morning we're gonna be looking at a number of bills that we've been working on. Starting with the early childhood educator licensure bill and then move on to others. We have a number of folks who are testifying. Katie, the last time we went through the bill, did we do the 2,000, 10,000, 10 Yeah, we went fairly. You asked questions, but that's a little more in the lead. Can you just remind us what's in the bill? What's the Go ahead and remind us. Then we'll move on to our testimony, because I know there were folks who we didn't have time for work with us. Hi, good morning. Katie McLean, Office of Legislative Counsel. Looking at S-two zero six this morning. Okay, so this creates a new chapter in Title 26.

[Katie McLean, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Title 26 is the title on professional regulation, and that chapter is for the licensure of early childhood educators. It creates categories of licensure depending on an individual's experience and their education. It creates a new board of early childhood educators to manage this new profession adopt rules, provide guidelines. It distinguishes from teachers who are licensed under Title 16, which is the education title, who have early childhood education, early childhood special education, or elementary education endorsements. It creates a licensure fee structure so that there would be regular licensure fees that would have to be paid. It offers a transitional license for early childhood educators one and two for up to eight years through 2030, since to give some time to come into compliance. Appropriates funds and create some new positions to stand up the program by 2028. That's sort of the very high level. Would you like me to go through the language as well? Oh, really briefly, I think I know a lot about that. Yes, so I think we'll probably We can wait on Why don't we wait, Sharon? We'll come back to that after we've heard from some folks and see where we need to go. Great. Thank you. No problem.

[Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons, Chair]: Questions for Casey before she comes. Alright. So, I think Morgan, you were here. We were ready to testify. I was not in the room. It wasn't the room. You would like OPR to do the walk through first. Alright. You wanna start with OPR? I do that. Okay. And OPR is up on the screen.

[Sen. Martine Larocque Gulick, Vice Chair]: Madam Chair, I think Yes, ma'am. Lauren Hibbert is standing by to testify remotely by Zoom, but she doesn't have a

[Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons, Chair]: Zoom Zoom link. So she might have emailed the the community. Oh, okay. It's like, oh, sorry. You wanna? I know she's somewhere else.

[Sen. Martine Larocque Gulick, Vice Chair]: She's at DC, and actually, they had a a three day journey to get there.

[Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons, Chair]: I was gonna say. With the first choice of things you do. Yeah.

[Sen. Martine Larocque Gulick, Vice Chair]: The weather was not great.

[Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons, Chair]: Do you have a direct mail? I only have Brian Mills from OKR. I sent it to you.

[Sen. Martine Larocque Gulick, Vice Chair]: Okay. If we could do Lauren, lauren,.Hibbert,hibbert,@Vermont.gov.

[Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons, Chair]: You.

[Sen. Martine Larocque Gulick, Vice Chair]: Sorry for this delay.

[Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons, Chair]: I I know Tom is fresh as well, Lauren. I can't imagine. I with all all that she's been doing, I think, be the first. So she's actually watching. She just painted him.

[Jennifer Gulick, Director, Office of Professional Regulation]: We did hopefully, y'all have we found testimony last week very lengthy, so it was like 12 pages. We've really condensed to be able to present what we need to present today. So we're gonna be moving quickly, but happy to take any questions as we go along. And I would also say that our early childhood education standardized report, which we linked in our testimony, that's about 90 something pages, I think. So that's a more comprehensive view of all the information you're going to hear today. So if you are looking for some know, leisurely reading on early childhood education, that 96 page report. We will look at

[Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons, Chair]: it, and we have. And so, it really doesn't hurt to have redundant information. Right. Doing enforcement is not that. Yes. Oh, there she is. Good morning.

[Lauren Hibbert, Deputy Secretary of State]: Good morning, madam chair. I'm sorry for my delay.

[Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons, Chair]: We maybe we'll turn the sound up a little for myself. It's all the way up. Lauren, something anything you could do to get the volume up would be great.

[Lauren Hibbert, Deputy Secretary of State]: Is this any better?

[Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons, Chair]: Yes, it is. It's good.

[Lauren Hibbert, Deputy Secretary of State]: Okay, great. Good morning. I'm sorry for my delay. For the record, Lauren Hibbert, Deputy Secretary of State, and I'm delighted to be here with you today.

[Jennifer Gulick, Director, Office of Professional Regulation]: And I'm Jennifer Gulick, I'm the Director of the Office of Professional Regulation.

[Lauren Hibbert, Deputy Secretary of State]: And I was watching a little bit, so I understand that you would like high level overview of what OPR is trying to do here. And then if there's specific questions about specific language, then we can get into it And or I know Katie's in the room, and obviously, she's the expert on the language. So we're really excited to talk to you about early childhood education. This is a bill for those of you who are in the building last year, we moved the language. It has changed some since last session, but we moved it through the Senate, and it was passed on the Senate floor last year. And what this bill does is license early childhood education. And I just want to give a brief overview of why the Secretary of State really supports this initiative, why OPR found that it was necessary to protect the public, which is within our public protection mission, and why we're here today. So this really is in line with a long trajectory, which you heard from Let's Grow Kids last week on the work that's been done around early childhood education, how Vermont has been building this workforce, building capacity, building financial reimbursement. You'll hear from Jen about this. We really see this as the next step in increasing quality, early childhood care and education. We did do a sunrise review, which, again, we'll talk about a little bit more, but that's where we review a profession to see whether it's necessary for us to regulate it. And our analysis really is focused on is there the potential for harm? And does the potential and if yes, does the potential for harm necessitate state intervention into the field? Vermont is actually very libertarian. It's a beautiful statute. If nobody's read it, it's my favorite statute. I think everyone should have one favorite statute, and it's my favorite. And it's 26 VSA Chapter 57. That whole section, it's just beautiful. It's all about how the state should really lift everyone up to their highest scope of practice, how the state should only regulate if it's absolutely necessary to protect the public. And then when the state does choose to regulate that it should choose the least restrictive form of regulation. So that is what we do in a Sunrise review, and you'll hear how we did that analysis. And we really do see the strong work that CDD does in this space in conjunction with AOE. So you'll hear when we were doing this work, and I just want to give a lot of credit to the woman sitting at the end of your table. When I say we, I mean, colon, because she did a ton of this work. It's the royal we, and we're very grateful for her. She worked really hard with AOE and CDD to understand the spaces that they are in in a regulatory way, and then of course with the early childhood advocates as well. But this is a place sort of like a Venn diagram. If OPR were to regulate, we'd be joining a space that CDD already occupies and AOE already occupies. So you'll hear us talk about how we would add to the mix and how individual licensure. So what we're talking about is individual licensure would be a benefit not only to the children of Vermont, but also to the families of Vermont, to the economy of Vermont, to the employers of Vermont, and ultimately, really build the profession for the individuals in the field as well. The professionalization of this profession, which has been chronically undervalued, always served by women primarily, not exclusively, but primarily, would mean a tremendous amount. And you'll hear what we found in terms of the training and the expertise, and really why that training and expertise should be valued. So we are really excited and you will hear about the different pathways that we have the stacking credentials. We definitely do want to touch on the increase in educational requirements. We heard that last week. We want to talk about that. What's required now? What will be required in the future if this legislation is enacted? And we want to talk about the places where we have agreement and disagreement with their variety of stakeholders, the big things that we've heard, and the ways that we've tried to either mitigate it, or we are a little stuck, we can't figure out how completely alleviate the concern. We want to be upfront about what we've heard, and the adjustments that we've made. So with that, I'm going to turn it over to Jen to just do a very, very high level of the history, again, knowing that you guys heard this from Let's Grow Kids.

[Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons, Chair]: Well, yes, so thank you,

[Jennifer Gulick, Director, Office of Professional Regulation]: Deputy Secretary of State. Vermont has engaged in substantial efforts over the last decade to increase the quality of early care and education, as well as the affordability and access to it. So, of course, we heard Ali Richards last week talking about Act 76 and how that represented historic progress on the financial piece of early care and education. She led Let's Grow Kids effort in their advocacy to increase that access and affordability through expanded financial subsidies for families. And while there has been progress, there's still work to be done. So but before act 76 and that historic legislation, the foundational work that was done through act 58 in 2015 and then again act 45 in 2021, that highlighted crucial principles in this space that we are moving towards and we have been moving towards for the last decade. So one, quality early education is not basic. And that's a just kind of thought process that a lot of folks have. And, you know, I was born in the seventies, raised in the seventies and eighties, and you we understand a lot better now the the development of the brain and how much development happens in those first few years of life. Early childhood education and care is a very different landscape than what we may have been familiar with growing up. It's based on the science of brain development, where infants and babies are making millions of neural connections every single day, and it includes enriching activities and programming from infancy, and it requires nurturing, safe, and stable environment. So that may seem like a new concept, but really, education from infancy, cradle to career. Two, for each dollar spent on high quality early care and learning, the return on investment yields 4 to $9. Some estimates are as high as $13. As we're investing money now in early programs to provide support and development and enriching activities for children, that's going to pay off in the future. Professionalization of this workforce will create consistent and defined scopes of practice, professional standards, and accountability structures. You'll see that early education standards are set by the National Association for the Education of Young Children. Those are the standards that are followed in public school. Those are the standards that this legislation will then put in those early education programs before public school. Access to quality early education is essential for the state's economy. It impacts whether and how much parents can work in this state, and it influences the choices that people are making to relocate to this state. So as we're trying to increase our population and reduce the burdens on all of us as individuals for taxes and paying for infrastructure, we want to be a state that can attract families to come here, and we can't do that without providing access to high quality early care and education. The goal of the General Assembly is and has been since 2021, and I'm quoting from Act 45, to ensure that all families with young children have affordable access to high quality care and early education, and that Vermont early educators are fairly compensated and well supported. So that financial support, we we see the infusion of funds from act 76. We're seeing progress made in that space. We're gonna continue to see progress made in that space. And now this bill is really focused on increasing the quality and workforce. Independent reporting required by act 45 in 2021 concluded that our state system of early education is fundamentally broken. I just want to repeat that, that our current system is fundamentally broken, and that a new agency, not ALE and not Department for Children and Families Child Development Division, but a new agency should step in and govern and oversee early childhood educators to unify quality and standards. And the reason that that report recommended a new voice in this is because CDD does a great job. They're very focused on regulating facilities, but how they regulate individuals and what requirements there are for individuals, that is not transparent to the public. And When individuals engage in misconduct with children, that is also not transparent to the public. CDD regulates through the facilities, and they put on their website facility inspections and, like, where violations are found, but we don't know the individuals who are engaged in that conduct. So acts two zero six or s two zero six, excuse me, would would provide a more transparent process in that space. And then a and a crucial piece of the groundwork laid for the public investment of act 76 through that payroll tax that Vermont employees and employers are paying, that that groundwork was highlighted or laid in the 2023 Rand Corporation report called the Vermont Early Care and Education Finance Study. And that report was commissioned by the state to figure out how can we financially support all Vermont families having access to high quality early education. And that report projected cost of high quality early education based on implementing licensure at the levels that we're talking about in S206, the ECE1, ECE2, and ECE3 levels. That report looked to the workforce movement that was happening through Vermont AUYSP and efforts to professionalize the workforce and said, yes, to achieve high quality, this is what we're gonna assume in the report. And so they projected the cost, which is what this payroll tax was based on. They projected the cost based upon those increased qualifications for people working in this space. That's really important to know. That's a little bit of the history, but the first 10 or 12 pages of our Sunrise report are dedicated to really delving in a little bit deeper. So there's more information to know. If you have any questions about that, certainly happy to answer those. Otherwise, I would turn it over to Lauren Ginny to talk about the Sunrise review process and our major findings.

[Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons, Chair]: Okay. And then I'm gonna ask you a question

[Jennifer Gulick, Director, Office of Professional Regulation]: about the bill. So why

[Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons, Chair]: don't we go ahead and see if time for this situation. Oh,

[Jennifer Gulick, Director, Office of Professional Regulation]: we can't hear you, Lauren.

[Lauren Hibbert, Deputy Secretary of State]: I apologize. So as I previously discussed, the sunrise really looks to see is there a recognizable, not speculative harm that could endanger the public health, safety or welfare. We are asked to do this type of sunrise across multiple occupations, and it's a pretty common practice for the Office of Professional Regulation. So we were asked to review early childhood education, we did so over the course of about a year, we had two public hearings, where we that were attended by over 100 people, we received many written comments, we sought written comments from as diverse a group as possible. We received many written comments. If you look at the end of the Sunrise review, there's a summary of all of the comments that we received. I think it's a very good reflection of what we were hearing During the course of our review, we obviously engaged with other agencies and professional organizations, including pretty much everyone who's in the room with you. And overwhelmingly, we heard that early childhood educators should be licensed through the Office of Professional Regulation. Unfortunately, while we were doing our review, there was also and continues to be a series of public instances of professional misconduct in childcare centers. A piece of what we found is that CDD, as Jen said, because they regulate the facility and not the individual, we cannot hold or revoke, restrict an individual's license who's committed substantial misconduct to one of Vermonters who are the most vulnerable. Also, there are struggles with the criminal justice system. Obviously, the criminal justice system and as wonderful a job as they're trying to do in many areas, does not have the capacity to move quickly to remove someone from practice. They don't really have the authorization outside of conditions of release to prohibit someone from working in childcare. In the same way that if this profession were regulated, we would be able to pull someone's license, and they would not be allowed to work in this space if they had provided really grossly negligent care. And this is a time where it's important to just talk about OPR, because we have an investigation process, we have a complaints process. But we also have the ability to, if we decide that the conduct needs prosecution, we have the ability to pursue a summary suspension, which is something that we can decide to do, and hold a hearing literally within the amount of two or three days, if necessary. This is something that we have to do when nurses are diverting drugs from a hospital floor, or when a mental health counselor is having sex with their client. These are professional violations, just very black and white, very bad violations of professional standards. When we receive a complaint, and we do the investigation, and we find that there's enough evidence, we move forward and summarily suspend somebody's license, meaning they can't practice for the period of time until they have the full access to due process, and a full hearing. And that's just a very important piece of the space that OPR can cover, particularly when we're talking about vulnerable people. So, when we were reviewing, we heard from all of these people, we reviewed the current regulatory structure, we looked at where the current holes are. And really, the list is, there's some big holes, if there's professional misconduct. But also, we found that if a child does not have access to quality early childhood education, the ramifications of not having quality early child care is significant. And it was shocking to me. Early childhood

[Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons, Chair]: Uh-oh, you just muted yourself. How did you do that?

[Lauren Hibbert, Deputy Secretary of State]: I don't know. I apologize. I'm on one tiny little screen. So I think I did it by trying to touch my mouse pad. So lack of early childhood, quality early childhood education leads to a twenty five percent higher instance of dropping out of school and not graduating from high school. So what happens between those zero to three, zero to five years are critical. Infants, toddlers, and young children who do not have access to high quality early childhood education have higher rates of engagement with law enforcement, addiction, and mental health issues. And obviously, if the child has special needs, then the early indicators of that need, either an OT need or a learning disability need, speech language pathology, those can be recognized at an early age. And as you so eloquently heard from the provider at JPEG, the amount of hours that children in Vermont are with their early childhood educators is far more than sometimes their own parents, certainly with their medical providers. And so, early childhood educators can recognize those early indicators. They're trained to do so, and can help children get the interventions that they need. And this is really important, particularly when we have a diversity of class backgrounds, access to healthcare backgrounds in this state. It really matters that there's quality people who are able to really help do that early intervention work and get children to the specialists that they need as soon as possible. So our Sunrise, in conclusion, really found that individual licensure would really benefit the public, because it would allow one, for the removal of bad actors through our well established enforcement process. It would give the public the knowledge to know the qualifications and discipline history of licensed individuals. That also, by the way, will help facilities know that background as well and provide an easy way for someone to be able to determine if someone's qualified. It will simplify the CDD facility process. They'll still have a robust process, but they right now, they're really deep in the weeds of who's working in a facility. It will require education and training to assure competency that will meet national standards. And we really feel that in doing this, adding this piece in conjunction to what's happening with universal pre K, with regulation at CDD, and with the excellent education that's happening in our public schools, we're really setting up Vermont's children for success. So that's why we found that there should be regulation in this space. We found that it should be a license, not a registration or certification. So registration means that everybody in the field needs to do be registered, but there's not qualifications. A certification means that only if you want to call yourself certified, do you need to get the certification and have the qualification. So a great example of that is a dietitian. And then there's licensure, which is what we're recommending here, which means everybody who wants to do this needs to get a license from us and have qualifications. So with that, I'm going to turn it over to Jen to talk about the license structure that we're proposing, and that we thought would be adequate to protect Thank the

[Jennifer Gulick, Director, Office of Professional Regulation]: you. And Madam Chair, did you have a question that you wanted to ask?

[Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons, Chair]: After you go through your relationship.

[Jennifer Gulick, Director, Office of Professional Regulation]: Okay, great. So you'll see on page seven of our testimony, have a handy dandy little visual here to show you kind of the different requirements for each level. There are four credentials, ECE one, two, and three. Then there's also the credential for a family child care provider,

[Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons, Chair]: which

[Jennifer Gulick, Director, Office of Professional Regulation]: is the legacy pathway for people who are already in that family child care provider space. They've been approved by CDD to be in that space, and they their preference is to not proceed with the ECE two requirements of getting an associate's degree. So let's take a quick look at ECE one. That's kind of you know, putting the labels on is a way to help us easier you know, people who aren't familiar with the landscapes ease more easily understand what these folks are doing. So we did kind of put labels in here, like assistant teacher, lead teacher. But just to just to help for that understanding. So ECE ones, an assistant teacher, they're supervised by an ECE two or an ECE three.

[Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons, Chair]: Can I just I need to Yes, ma'am? Help you. Can I have the name of the report so because Melissa can put it up on our web page or something? The name of the Sunrise report?

[Jennifer Gulick, Director, Office of Professional Regulation]: Yeah. Yep. It's the early childhood education

[Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons, Chair]: Sunrise review assessment. I know we have it under our reports, but it's important to have it on your

[Jennifer Gulick, Director, Office of Professional Regulation]: on your page. Yeah. So that's it. And you you may be able to find it by just searching for reports on the legislative website and put in early childhood education. It's like the second one, but I'm not saying. So in e ECE one, assistant teacher, they are supervised by ECE two or ECE three. Those are folks with high school diplomas or GEDs, and they have a hundred and twenty hours of training and education. And you'll hear testimony, and you I don't believe you've heard testimony yet, but I think you will hear testimony. You know, people who are in the tech centers and in those programs, they're graduating with enough experience to to be at this ECE one level. So right now, the requirement for that ECE one level let me just we also have another visual at the very back of the report kind of showing what the current requirements are, minimum requirements versus what we're proposing. So right now, that role is required to have forty five hours of training within twelve months. So it's a it's a bit of an increase to a hundred and twenty hours of training and education. That ECE two level, that's a lead teacher. They supervise ECE ones. They can receive guidance from ECE threes, but they're not supervised. They are have full scope of an authority to be a lead teacher. And that those are folks with a high school diploma or a GDP. They're going to have an associate's degree from an approved program in early childhood education or a related field. This is going to be a board profession, so it's going to be made up of people from the workforce, early childhood educators that are licensed through OKR. And that board would help us determine what are the related fields that we would want to include in rules that would be appropriate. For ECE two, also, can have an associate's degree in that unrelated field plus 21 college credits in early childhood education, and there are four knowledge areas that they would need to have those additional twenty one hours in. And, again, that would the board would help us determine that through administrative rules, which is why we kind of one of the reasons we need a two year runway to get this program up and going. So if the legislation passes this year, we'd be able to offer credentials in 2028 because we need to do extensive rule making and work with stakeholders and the board to figure some of these details out. Then you'll see on that back visual an ECE two right now. Currently, to be a registered home care provider, you're required to have a forty five hour training course. And those folks in the new regulatory structure would be required to have an ECE two unless they have the legacy credentials, which we'll talk a little bit more about in a second. And then center based teacher associates right now have to have 21 college credits and twelve months of experience. Then as we move into this new regulatory structure, they would be required also to have an ECD2. Then you'll see an ECD3 is also a lead teacher. They supervise ECD1s. They can help guide ECD2s in their practice. These are folks who have high school diploma or GED. They have a bachelor's degree in early childhood education or, again, a related field. Or they are folks with bachelor's degrees in unrelated fields. And they also have to have those 21 college credits. Again, that will be in core knowledge areas identified in the goals. All of these credentials require field experience, will require field experience. So again, that field experience will be determined by the rule. And we're also leaving room that if at some point there's a national examination, we may be able to require that national examination for folks in this field, again, by rule. Then we also have a family child care provider credential. This is that legacy credential for people who are already working in the field. This was really a measure to include those folks in this regulatory structure, so it's a measure of inclusion. Also, it's a workforce measure, because we've heard concerns that we were worried about losing people who are the family childcare providers, and workforce has been an ongoing issue in this space. We don't want to lose those folks. We want to provide them with a pathway, and this would be the pathway. They would be able to keep this credential and renew it every two years just like our other license holders. But if they let it lapse and don't renew within that two years, then the credential is gone and then they would not be able to get it done. So it would be something you'd have to maintain. We'd offer this for a limited period of time just as we make the transition into folks obtaining the education to meet these increased qualifications. Which is a great segue to talk a little bit about transition measures. How are we gonna help the current workforce get to this stage where they are fully qualified for that ECE one, two, and

[Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons, Chair]: three

[Jennifer Gulick, Director, Office of Professional Regulation]: license? First thing we're gonna do is we're gonna offer transitional licenses for ECE two and three. So if you're currently in the space where you're a lead teacher, you will be able to get that ECE two credential from us, and it will be a transitional license. And that transitional license can be good for up to eight years. So we're giving a very long runway for people to be able to achieve that associate's degree level of education. The other thing that we're The other thing that we're doing is we're incorporating the Community College of Vermont career ladder. Right now, there's a career ladder that dictates where you can work in the early childhood education space. We're going to incorporate components of that into our initial credentials, our transition credentials, so that people, again, who have been working on, for example, career ladder 3B, that level, they can easily translate that into a credential through OKR. And then the other thing that we're doing is approved programs through OPR for associate's degrees and bachelor's degrees will be able to offer people college credit based upon their experience. So there are prior learning assessments, and CCB is excellent at doing this, where they you know, an individual can put together a portfolio showing their prior learning, and they can receive college credit for that, and I believe that's up to 30% of the credits required for the degree. Those are some of the transition measures that we have. Let me just make sure I didn't miss any of those. The other thing I wanted to also cover, and I should've when I was talking about the structure that's offered by s two zero six, is who who is not covered by this legislation? That's really important. So let's look quickly at that. That is on page as I flip through my very lengthy testimony. I believe that's on page nine of our testimony. So it's very important to note that our recommendations do not pertain to after school program staff. After school programs are regulated by CDD. Those are not the primary educators of young children, so we don't include those program staff in this. Universal Pre K teachers who are licensed by AOE and who are required to be licensed by AOE, they are not included. So even if they're working in a private setting, a lot of private childcare bring in a licensed AOE educator so that they can offer universal pre K at their program. We are not proposing to regulate those folks. They already have a credential from AOE, and we do not want people having dual credentials. We're trying to avoid that. Jen, can have some question? Yes, I have page nine of your testimony. Is that bench nine of the sun writing? Or No, ma'am. Just of the 12 page testimonial that I offered.

[Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons, Chair]: Right, so we need to get that up on today's date. It's from

[Jennifer Gulick, Director, Office of Professional Regulation]: last week. On Wednesday.

[Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons, Chair]: On the twenty first. Yeah, it's on the twenty first. So these are exceptions?

[Jennifer Gulick, Director, Office of Professional Regulation]: Yes. Active AOB licensees with endorsements in early childhood education, early childhood special education, or elementary education. Again, these folks are exempt. They could have a credential from us, if they want one, we will give it to them. But they're not they're not gonna be required to have one. That kind of, in a way, reciprocity of us you know, giving them a credential from OKR if they want it, that's not that's not gonna be offered on the flip side by AOE. In other words, if you're an AOE licensee I'm sorry. If you're an ECT licensee through OPR, you can't go to AOE and say, I also want a credential from you. You have to meet their requirements. Also, we're not regulating at this time, or we're not closing to regulate individuals whose childcare homes are exempt from the CBD regulations. CBD does not require licensure or registration for individuals who are providing home care for families, two families or fewer, and their own. In other words, if I'm a mom and I want to provide childcare for my own kids and then the families of two other people, I do not have to be regulated through CBD and OPR is not proposing to regulate those folks. It still does leave space for people to be able to do that with friends. Get off the school bus. That's as far as Not get out of the car. That's right. That's right.

[Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons, Chair]: That was Get a great out of

[Jennifer Gulick, Director, Office of Professional Regulation]: the car. Yeah. That was a great analogy. And then other settings exempted by CDD, so hospitals, churches, like Vacation Bible School or childcare provided by churches, that's not what what where we're regulating also, so we're not gonna require that. I think that's it for me. And next I'm going to turn it back to Lauren or kind of areas of concern that we heard from stakeholders and how we've addressed that through this process.

[Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons, Chair]: Okay, and I'm going to suggest that we do it fairly quickly because we've got a number of folks waiting to testify. This is helpful. Know 14 pages of testimony and expecting us to digest everything you just said. This is a good help for us. It gives us what we need to go ahead now. Read it with some understanding. Okay, thank you.

[Lauren Hibbert, Deputy Secretary of State]: So I'll go as quickly as I can, Madam Chair, on the concerns, because I think this is what you'll hear from from your constituents from lobbyists and from people in the building. That individual registration and regulation will increase the cost of childcare. The license that we're proposing is two seventy five dollars for a two year credential. So we're talking about $138 a year. This bill also includes an appropriation from the childcare fund to pay for all of the initial licenses. Now, is a policy decision that the legislature can make that I would advocate that the legislature makes. But it's a policy decision, obviously, within the scope of the discretion of the legislature, it would pay for all of the initial licenses, as well as the first renewal of those licenses. So for the first four years of the credential being offered, there would be a reimbursement for the licensing fees. Also, hope and the evidence shows that by increasing the credentials and the requirements, that we will be able to come even closer to providing a livable wage for educators. And so a livable wage should be able to hold the cost of licensure at that $138 a month, if we continue to increase and support as a state our financial investment in early childhood education, which has paid off dividends. I'm sure, you know, Jen and I are not the early childhood money people, but you absolutely should hear from the early childhood folks in the money space, because the amount of new programs that are opening and the strong work of all of this legislative initiatives and the impact they've had on small business owners and early childhood educators in this state is truly remarkable. So that was concern number one. Concern number two, the cost of achieving the new degree requirements. Right now, there are substantial financial supports that are helping people pursue education. And Jen, can you just give that statistic that we talked about this morning? It was amazing. Percentage of new.

[Jennifer Gulick, Director, Office of Professional Regulation]: Yeah, so my understanding and Building Bright Futures, think this may have been, you may have heard more from Doctor. Crossman, but there's been increase of twenty two point four percent for individuals holding verified associates, bachelor's, and master's and doctoral degrees between December 22 and 2024. So there's been a substantial increase in people holding degrees in this space, which is really exciting.

[Lauren Hibbert, Deputy Secretary of State]: And so with that financial support, and with the long transition time that we're proposing, that eight years of transition time, we feel pretty confident that the cost A, will be as de minimis as possible, but also that it can be spread out over time, understanding that the cost is not just financial, the cost is also time. And so that's why the eight years is there. If the cost was not also time, then the transitional period would be less. But we're talking about people who work hard all day, and then may need to go to school at night or on the weekend. So we wanted to make sure that there was adequate time for those individuals to get this additional training. That was concern number two. Concern number three is really title protection. We heard from AOE, the Vermont NEA, the school administrators associations, that they don't agree with the use of the word educator in this bill. Why they don't agree with it is really they, and I'm sure you will hear from them, they believe that only people who are working in the school system, the public school system should be allowed to call themselves educators, and that allowing others to call themselves educators will cause confusion. We sat down with them for an extensive period of time over a series of days. And this is an area that we just fundamentally disagree. And I want to flag that for this committee, because we believe that the word educators is an intentionally we intentionally used it. It conveys formal education, qualifications, and standards, as well as individual accountability. And that's really what we believe Vermonters deserve to know about their early childhood educators. When you look into what these individuals are doing for Vermont's youngest, it truly is education. And to call it anything else is disrespectful, honestly. I'm just gonna call it that. And I've said that to this group of people. They are educators. They're educating our youngest and our most vulnerable in the state. Getting them ready for public education, getting them ready to graduate from high school, getting them ready to enter their chosen career or to go to college. They play an essential role in the long, as Jen said, cradle to career, which is what our goal should be for all Vermonters in that cradle to career pathway for our children. And the other reason why we intentionally used educators is this is a national movement for licensure, which is really supported by the National Education Association, not the Vermont chapter, but the national chapter. And that has been focused and has really centered on early childhood educators as a priority, as a national moniker, and as, you know, the name of this new profession, growing profession in the nation. And I just want to say that, you know, it may seem like this is new and cutting edge. And I think it's just helpful to remember that, you know, nursing, although it's one of our oldest and most valuable, is I think only 120 years old. You know, we have professions that come, midwives who help women give birth in their homes was first

[Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons, Chair]: in I'm the ask if you could just go through the individual issues that you have, because our time is now getting compressed.

[Lauren Hibbert, Deputy Secretary of State]: Yes. Got it. The fourth is that the ECE three credential is duplicative, because AOE issues one. Well, it's really not duplicative because the AOE credential is for people who work in public school, or for people who provide universal pre K in the private setting. And those who do provide universal pre K in the private setting are not the zero to three providers, primarily, and they also are not getting the benefits of collective bargaining and working in the school system, summers off, there's some big differences between those folks working in the zero to five, including the universal pre K versus the educators in the public school system who are providing universal pre K there. And so there's a lot of people who don't want to get the AOE license. They don't see themselves as part of that system, because they're not part of that system. They're not part of that collective bargaining, they're not part of that all of the health insurance is a really big hot topic. So it's not duplicative, it's supplemental and a standalone. The last

[Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons, Chair]: You just muted yourself again. Last one, just a half a minute.

[Lauren Hibbert, Deputy Secretary of State]: Licensure confusion, that was the other big concern. And that's why we put in a mandatory disclosure in this profession that will require that early childhood educators provide disclosure of everybody who's working in their facility with credentials and license types, and how to make a complaint against them if one arises. We think that's really important because it is a new profession and new to Vermont, and this will give families knowledge of who's providing care to their children, the credential of the person who's providing care to their children, and if they have a concern, how to make a complaint to OPR. And with that, Madam Chair, I will not mute myself if you guys have any questions.

[Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons, Chair]: Thank you. I think we're good for now. You've touched on just about every question that we might have because I'd like to move along to other folks. And I'm just gonna throw one question out there because I I think you've answered it. I'm not looking for an answer now, but going forward when we go through the bill, we might have this question, and which is the alternate pathway to credentialing for someone who's been working in a facility for a hundred years without a degree. So, I'll leave that question out on the table and then we'll just move right along. And I would say thank you very much for saying that this has been great. This has been a good way to understand what you're bringing to us through the SUMMARIZE report and your testimony. I appreciate it. Great.

[Jennifer Gulick, Director, Office of Professional Regulation]: Thank you so much. Thank you.

[Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons, Chair]: Yeah. Thanks. Alright. So now we're gonna move to Morgan Cross. Right? Building right footage. You use the whole picture. You the beginning of both pens not together? Go ahead and introduce yourselves for the record. And then we'll, after you will hear from the VA, VYC.

[Dr. Morgan Crossman, Executive Director, Building Bright Futures]: So for the record, I'm doctor Morgan Pressman. I'm the executive director of Roving Fight Futures, which is Vermont's early childhood state advisory council. And because of deputy secretary of state, we have her favorite statute for us. It's title 33 chapter 46, which is the one that puts us in place as your primary advisor on kids and families in the state pre and middle to age eight, and that's across all systems of service for kids and families, not just childcare and pre pay. So in terms of our role, we just want to be very clear, we are not lobbyists. We serve in a very similar role to the Joint Fiscal Office. What is the data and information you need? How do we elevate family and community voice, as well as empowering the professionals and others who are partners in this work? And most important, it's using data to drive decision making. So how do we monitor the system to know whether or not the policies, the laws, and the implementation of programs is working in a way that works for families and is based on the intent of that law? We were named specifically in Act 76 as the entity responsible of reporting back to you all on whether and how this law is working. And what we'll be talking about today is both a little bit about what's working, but how we can look at the broader strategic plan for kids and families. Sorry. It's on the massive glare. Stringing across the room. And you have a comfy chair. And I have a poofy chair. I don't. But we really want you to see where the vision and strategy is on behalf of the system for the next five years, where proposals like the one that is in Fix Now or on S two zero six fit into that context, and make sure you're hearing from partnership processes. The visual that you're seeing on the slide right here is the newly adopted strategic plan for Kids and Families. This is a Vermont wide strategic plan, so it's not our organization's, it's on behalf of the entire system. It was built using five years of data, as well as information gathering from partners at this moment in time, and is really setting the next five years of goals and priorities on behalf of kids and families. I'm happy to come in another day and talk to you about all the areas that your work fits into that, but today we're really gonna be focusing on the workforce employment, and I think the big takeaway is we're moving away from just a collection of programs for kids and families, and actually building a strong open rent system that works for kids and families. As we are moving into Act 76, we gave a full thirty minutes in the Senate Appropriations. Again, happy to come back and talk with this church. The few things that I want you to hear today is, one, the headline, which is, Act 76, this massive investment that you made in kids and families is working. We're seeing it delivered at sale for the first time, and I mentioned to Senate Appropriations, I will be the first one to tell you that I did not expect this to change in two years. I expected this to be a five and ten year round of progress, and we're seeing some really major progress already in such a short period of time. We're seeing a really big expansion in access and affordability. We're seeing much stronger, more predictable finances for programs and the system as a whole, as well as for families. We've also seen investments in the actual infrastructure on behalf of this system, and we're now seeing the finance system that's actually functioning in the way that it was designed. And so, again, where we are right now is a couple of years in fully operating at 76, at scale, which is really exciting. And I am gonna present a couple of stats for you. Jen stole my thunder slightly, so I'm not gonna do that one around that, of course. But the quick thing that I wanna name for you is that all of this data is online. You have it in your inboxes in the Act 76 report, and you can find it at vermontkidsdata.org in the full dashboard as well. So what I want you to see on this slide, in terms of Act 76 overall, is where we're seeing the most progress. First, it's in access and affordability. So when you're looking at tax docs for kids and families, and thinking about enrollment rates and child care capacity, what we're seeing is capacity is growing, and we're seeing enrollment of this program rise across every age level. And I also want to call your attention to specifically infant and toddler care, and that's so important because even before this law, you're seeing that those are slightly lower than we're seeing for preschool and school age. Those groups, we've always struggled as a state to ensure that they have access to childcare. So we are seeing growth in all of those different areas. And what you're seeing in terms of the enrollment trends, just because Senator Beruth was very clear about our visuals, this is quarterly data that you're seeing, and all of the data we're presenting is in partnership with the Child Development Division, the Agency of Education, First Children's Finance, the Association for the Education of Young Children. In terms of affordability, this is again the second major call out for you all. So in 2025 alone, we saw 2,800 more working families were eligible for additional support, and the share of working families jumped from 54% to 65%. And just to put this in context, for for a typical family, this is about 2,000 per month being in financial relief, and then the families are consistently reporting to us and to other partners that this is a really game changer for them to be able to access care. I think it's really important to call out too the tiered subsidy levels. What you're seeing on the left hand side of the screen is what we'd expect to see based on what we prioritized. And to put that in perspective, when you're looking at that 275% of the federal poverty level for a family of four, that's about 88,000 a year. And so when we're looking at what this public investment is doing, especially at a moment when families are struggling to meet their basic needs, needs, we're seeing a significant impact on affordability. Before we talk a little bit about workforce, I want Nana to talk about just some of the things that are so limiting the system. As you heard from OPR, there are a range of challenges that we are so experiencing, and the workforce is one of them. So before you leave the previous slide on affordability, I do have some question, and this is a question that fills out to you as well as to OPR. So the OPR, policy recommendation that the child care fund that we have is currently helping families get access to care, that that fund be used for educational purposes for the workforce. And my question is, have we done an analysis of the fund and its growth trajectory?

[Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons, Chair]: Because I know it's a huge topic of conversation in appropriations. And do we know that the fund will accomplish both if this were in as a policy goal, that the money would be used for teachers for increasing their access to connections. If that were added in as part of the policy, does the fund have the capacity over time to also provide subsidies for working parents? And then the further question is, have we looked at increasing the poverty level? Because we know our goal has always been to have as many families as possible with wraparound support. So that is a question out there and I don't know who does that analysis but it's one of the questions that I want to have an answer for before I can make a decision on that particular policy. And I know that that will be a huge in appropriations as our pro tem is very interested in maintaining the fund and that's just a little heads up. You. Great question. Thank you. We'll work with Senate Appropriations but also the tax department, the child development division. Right. I mean, the policy decision needs to be based on the data that we can get, and we aren't gonna leave it to appropriations to make the policy decision. That's our decision. At the same time, we want to make sure that when it gets down there, there's happiness. Thank you, Senator. Coming into this after this bill has been in place and just a little bit of education, said about $2,000 a month per family. Is that per child or per family? Her family. K. And about what is the average cost per family or child care? I don't have that off the top of my head. I will get back to you. And it depends on all sorts of things, like where they live and about eight or 12. I'm trying to put the 2,000 in Yes. I'm not sure. Yeah. Is there a provision in this as cost of inflation continues? Is there a factor in there that looks at increased cost and then a substance? Yes, again, the Child Development Division would be the best folks to talk to about that. There is lots of work going on right now on cost of care. There's just a new report on the cost of care that they've worked for Children's Finance Commission that will support their ability to update reimbursement rates with all of your support going forward. So, that's something they're thinking actively about is how to make sure that the program keeps track and keeps pace with the current policy providing that therapy. So, there's a lot of information that we'll have on CBD comes in. This is the CCC test, the Child Care contraception tax, that was all. Right. Yeah. So we have we're trying to be quicker today. We're terrible at that, but we do have a slide in the testimony that Martine referred to with Senate Appropriations as well as in our Act 76 Monitoring Report, which gives you a little bit more information about how the payroll tax is performing, the revenue, and how that winds up with spending on the programs. Okay. Let's talk a little bit about some of the challenges. Yes. And we will keep this short because our our colleagues at OPR did a phenomenal job, but just wanted to kind of highlight the the challenges of the Act 76 annual monitoring report that Building Bright Futures is charged to deliver to the legislature highlighted this year. The number one kind of challenge that we've heard from partners across the state, having conversations with early educators, with families, universally, was kind of workforce shortages and workforce sustainability. As you've heard, there is a really kind of exciting initial growth that we're seeing in regulated childcare as well as the number of educators with degrees. But there's also other things that are are including kind of the the broader workforce shortage and challenges, but also specific things like the fingerprinting supported background check delay that you all have likely heard a bit about, that are just really, really challenging for early education workforce pipelines. And additionally, as the slide highlights here, administrative complexity and kind of uneven supply and access certainly do not help kind of that situation. So, as as Building Bright Futures kind of points you all to these these things that are limiting the system's full intent of capacity to to see the promise of Act 76, we really are kind of trying to draw attention to policy design choices about the workforce really matter at this moment. So, with that being said, just want to point you all to the alignment between S206 and a Building Bright Futures State Advisory Council policy recommendation of this year. The full text of that is on the screen. I'm not gonna read it, but essentially, licensure supports clear expectations, professional recognition, accountability, and consistent quality benchmarks. This is also really well aligned with language that's in the Early Childhood Strategic Plan 2030 that Morgan talked a bit about. This was endorsed by our State Advisory Council this fall, and is kind of the latest and most robust synthesis of data and research and family and community voice on where the system as a whole is heading. Again, really aligned with this desire to advance a well prepared, well qualified, early childhood workforce. And finally, there is an opportunity, I think, to make sure that we're really focused on implementation and that the financing system that is is working for Act 76 aligns with potential changes and proposals like this related to the workforce. So what we heard in terms of concerns and potential confusion from the field, from communities aligns really well with with what you just heard. And we urge the committee to consider h s two zero six in terms of how it protects and grows workforce supply while raising standards over time, not shrinking the pipeline while expectations go up, aligns new expectations with compensation, higher education capacity, and support supportive infrastructure so that we're not setting people up to fail, reduces fragmentation and duplication rather than adding an additional layer of complexity, strengthens coherence across child care, pre k, and the broader education systems. This is a real systems building opportunity in many ways, and maintain the access of rural communities in family childcare settings. I think many of these potential challenges or concerns have already been considered and in many ways incorporated into the current draft you all are considering. But they, again, align with what you have heard from the Office of Professional Regulation. So, I think that concludes what we have, but we're happy to answer. And it's with the the written testimony that you have. Yeah. Thank you. Questions? Thank you both very much. Thanks, Jen

[Sen. Martine Larocque Gulick, Vice Chair]: and Lauren, for all of this hard work. I, you were the experts, so I I sometimes feel a little awkward and humble asking questions because you've done so much work already. That said, I'm going to ask anyway. You're going to be the first state to have this certification, is that correct? Yes. Okay. Do you know why other states don't have it? What's been holding back this kind of certification in other states?

[Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons, Chair]: I think it's a great question for Sharon from Vermont ERC. Full disclosure, Senator Gulick is the state advisory council representative for the Senate. So we are working really closely with her.

[Sen. Martine Larocque Gulick, Vice Chair]: Thank you. I look forward to hearing more about that. In terms of access, I understand quality. I 100% understand how this is gonna elevate quality. In terms of access, I sometimes see this I don't see the connection because I can see this as a barrier to access in terms of folks not wanting to do the extra credentialing or certification, not wanting to pay or spend the time or whatever name your, you know, pick your thing. So how does this expand access? And if you can point me if there's a page I should need to reread, that's fine. But can you speak to that briefly?

[Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons, Chair]: Yeah. I think access is an interesting and really multifaceted word. Right? Because when we say access, we're not just talking about open and available slots. We're talking about families being able to reach those slots by ways of various importation or if they work for their, like, work schedules and personal and cultural preferences. Right? Like, access is a really multifaceted word. So I think when we think about expanding access in this context, we're thinking about expanding access to the highest quality care. I think something that we're thinking a lot about at BBF as the entity charged with monitoring the success of Act 76 is, as you all have noted, this is a huge public investment. This is we are investing public dollars in the system and betting that they will pay off because we're investing in our youngest children. And this is about ensuring additional individual accountability so that the access that we are providing more children, more families to this public investment, we know is as high quality as it can. So, it's not necessarily about providing more slots. I think it's really about providing the highest quality care, and that is a facet of access. I also think it's a really important question when we think about what our goals are and what we're trying to monitor and measure. Right? So if we're really prioritizing access, what are the specific mechanisms that we're using and what are the measures? And when we're looking at quality, what are those? And how are they different levels? Yeah.

[Sen. Martine Larocque Gulick, Vice Chair]: I hear, especially from the Northeast Kingdom, that they're they just struggle so much that you have to find find, you know, providers. Yep. We do. So I just, I do, I am concerned that this might be a barrier. I, but I'm obviously picking up my,

[Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons, Chair]: do you mind if I ask you a couple more? Yeah, just very conscious of time.

[Sen. Martine Larocque Gulick, Vice Chair]: Yeah, we do have a leprosy. Yeah, so happy.

[Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons, Chair]: Yeah, it would be good to know what the questions are.

[Sen. Martine Larocque Gulick, Vice Chair]: I mean, we were, so earlier we were talking about removing bad actors from the landscape and I'm wondering what the process is now. I'm curious about the national standards because if no other state has this kind of licensure, what national standards are we talking about? And then we had

[Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons, Chair]: a question earlier about cost. So here's my suggestion. Yeah, I think that folks who might be answering your questions with their testimony. Correct. And then hold that. And then if they are not answered, we'll make sure that we get answers to those. Sounds like a good Senator Jones, just One of my earlier walks through this committee is when we started looking at, we found out that seemed to be childcare on either coast, east or west side of the state. But, yes, from the Northeast Kingdom South, in the middle, there was a huge desert. At that point, we had childcare providers who were not even collecting the copay because they knew if they did, the kids would be hungry that night. I think we've come a long way in providing funding, but I want to make sure that we're also looking at making sure that some of our poorest children also have access. Make sure that as we go forward, we want it. We're not leaving people behind. Right. And I also want to make sure, given all the things you hear, teachers about behavioral issues, not just readiness to learn, that as this group of children go into schools, that they are indeed better prepared for knowing how to go on a straight line down the hall. I appreciate that, Senator Cloak, especially because, and

[Lauren Hibbert, Deputy Secretary of State]: we can come back and talk

[Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons, Chair]: to the committee again about what we're seeing in children with disabilities and social healthcare needs. Let's do that. That would be helpful. I mean, I'll do this. That will answer some of the questions that I think that both Senator Gulick has and Senator Tillich may.

[Sen. Martine Larocque Gulick, Vice Chair]: Thanks a lot. Thank you.

[Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons, Chair]: Thank you. So, moving on to the Vermont Association for the Education of Dumb Children. I have Susan Tittenden and Sharon Mary Ginny. Thank you. So, if we could both like to come up together. He would. Terrific. I'm gonna

[Sen. Martine Larocque Gulick, Vice Chair]: say goodbye so that I can steal your seat.

[Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons, Chair]: Okay. Thank you for being here. So why don't you introduce yourselves for the record and then you've heard some of the questions and the testimony, if you can consolidate your comments that would fit into all of this, who you are, what you do, what your organization is across the country, across Vermont. I'm trying to share my screen. Susan, I'll you introduce yourself while I get this.

[Susan Titterton, Project Coordinator, VTAEYC]: For the record, I'm Susan Tiggerton, and I've been the project coordinator for the workforce led initiative to establish the Scholarly Childhood Education Profession sponsored under Vermont. Sorry about that. Thank you. Good morning. It's so nice to be here.

[Sharron Harrington, Executive Director, Vermont Association for the Education of Young Children (VTAEYC)]: For the record, I'm Sharon Barrington, the Executive Director for the Vermont Association for the Education of Young Children, which I hear a lot of people tripping over. So we often refer to ourselves as Vermont, A U I C, And we really appreciate this opportunity to testify today on S206. And I wanna begin by saying that Vermont AUIC fully supports this legislation as the necessary step to strengthen our early childhood educator workforce. And a strong workforce is what we need to ensure every child and family have access to quality child care, which we've talked about. For those of you who don't know, Vermont AUIC is a nonprofit organization that is the largest membership and advocacy organization for early childhood educators in our state. And we are the state affiliate for the National Association. Do we believe we don't have this set of slides? I did provide you. So we have the state affiliate for the National Association for the Education of Young Children, MACI. MACI is one of the country's leading early childhood education organizations, and their key role is to promote high quality early learning for each and every child, birth through age eight, by connecting practice, policy, and research. In my testimony, I described a

[Lauren Hibbert, Deputy Secretary of State]: little bit more about

[Sharron Harrington, Executive Director, Vermont Association for the Education of Young Children (VTAEYC)]: what VermontAUIC's role is in the system, but we have been directly connected to this work, and our workforce has requested recognition and clear career pathways, And our role has been to support the workforce, leadership and engagement that has resulted in this workforce informed recommendations. And the request for the OPR summarized review was from our organization for this regulation, which ultimately led to this bill. We partnered really closely with the Child Development Division to administer a broad range of programs and services for early childhood educators. These resources are foundational to our systems readiness for professional recognition. Ultimately, Vermont ADYSP is laser focused on recruiting and retaining our workforce that educates our youngest children, and the resources are working. Since that '76, you've heard the childcare workforce has increased by 8.5%. That the trend nationally. We now have over 8,000 early childhood educators. The number of people working in the workforce with this degree has increased by 22%, as Jen and Morley and I are very excited about. So, to level set, you may hear childcare, you may hear early childhood education. So the question is, what are we really talking about? And this quote comes from Tammy Haslett, who's a family childcare program owner in Bethesda. She was on the task force that stumbled on with us. She said, We call some programs childcare. We call some programs preschool or pre K, but early childhood education is what happens in every quality program, no matter where it is set or what ages are taught. So just to define the territory of it. Taking a look at the next slide, we thought it might be helpful to just think about where young children are. And we know they participate in early childhood education in a whole variety of settings, The Child Development Division, CDD, regulates some of them, as you have heard. And so we've created this visual just to try to suss out a little more clearly where are we talking about this licensure piece. And so it's in all that section you see to the left of the slide with highlights. We know that there are probably about 8,000 early childhood educators working in non public school settings. We also know that thousands of infants and toddlers and preschoolers attend those regulated programs, some of them for forty or more hours a week. And beginning for many of them as young as six weeks old, they can find a spot. And you know education looks like playing and making friends and developing language and motor skills and learning about their work, their world. Learning to read has to happen by the time they're eating. Well, they have the saccadic eye movements. Mean, People don't understand the significance of some of those really brain related. Yes, it's amazing the things that are happening And so you've already heard a bit about complicated system that our youngest children are served by including the Child Development Division, the Agency of Education, and now as proposed OPR. We do support regulation proposed by OPR because it meshes with the structure that we have now. Our childcare workforce deserves the support and recognition and accountability that will come with this professional regulation, and they can't wait years for creating a new system. So this would each agree to mesh with the current system they believe. We also agree with OPR's finding that early childhood education should be governed by its own board with expertise in early childhood education rather than one, for example, such as the Vermont Standards Board. Their expertise spans the public school system from pre K through grade 12. And so they're not able to really focus in on this unique part of life and really childhood education, which is delivered across mixed settings. And then I also would add here that currently CBD has many regulations for childcare programs. In the future, it may well be that once individual licensure is put in place, that there can be a process of unwinding some of those regulations. We don't know what that will look like if that's a thing considered for the future. So why would we be talking about a licensed practice? OPR has provided tremendous testimony about that. I wanna touch on two particular areas. One is clarity and career pathways. The current system is complicated, And we think licensure through OPR, as has been described in the bill, will offer transparency and consistency. Think about nursing. And we know that in nursing, for example, if someone has an RN, it doesn't matter what settings they're operating We know what their background and their training is. So we think that a professional licensing system for early childhood educators would clarify career pathways, support career mobility. It would help them to communicate their expertise to the public. And it would also ultimately create fair compensation across COVID times. Many in the current workforce need licenses and means also to signify respect for the profession. And then in terms of accountability and public investment, we've heard a lot about Act 76. We believe that with increased funding, public funding comes increased public accountability. And that accountability to the public will be ensured through a system of individual professional licensure. Turning it back over to you, Janice. So I'm gonna skip over some of the things that are in my written testimony, because I think they've touched upon, but I encourage you to check into it, because there are some linked documents that will be useful for you as you dig into this a little deeper. One of the things that we like to emphasize is that by ensuring consistent qualifications across all early childhood settings, we're ensuring that no matter what childcare program a child attends, they're supported by an educator who is prepared to help them become a life longer and ready for kindergarten. These standards proposed for the EC one, two, and three align with, as we've talked about, align with the national standards and Vermont Public School standards, complementing, not competing with the existing system. This creates tiered stackable system of qualifications and accountability that does not currently exist. Jenna talked a little bit about the Bill's Fourth designation, which, for family childcare, which we also support because we value family childcare and we wanna make sure that our rural communities have access to high quality childcare as well. Your question related to the national context, I'll touch upon that a little bit, but I'm happy to share more if I can't get through it all today. Much of what we've discussed is specific to Vermont, but the framework for the early childhood educator profession, which includes licensure, NEC one, two, and three designations, is embedded in national recommendations from the Commission of Professional Excellence in Early Childhood Education. The commission is working toward compensation parity, unified competencies, reciprocity across states, and practice autonomy for early childhood educators across states, systems, and programs. And so last year, the commission submitted a memo to the Senate Government Operations Committee, which sort of described the national process, the consensus, the designations, and a brief work of what is going on in other states and what's happening towards implementation. Other states are making strides toward advancing the recommendations, including transformational investments. I think that has been the lever similar to Act 76. So, they're improving and stabilizing early childhood educator compensation, increasing access to early childhood educator preparation programs, which we have very strong programs here in Vermont, and working to align with professional standards. In that document, you will see that Alabama, Connecticut, District of Columbia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Washington, and other states are working towards one or more of these recommendations. To date, as you could tell from the question, no state has done more than Vermont to move ahead on compensation, preparation, and recognition. The commission is recognizing our state's leadership, and our colleagues at AC are reminding me their states are taking notes, so it's always good to hear that. Heard a lot about this is workforce led, workforce informed. And so I just wanted to share a little bit of information about that review. These recommendations that Humana EYC submitted to OPR, OPR is moving forward, were developed through years of engagement with early childhood educators. And we reached out across all settings all over the state, including the Northeast Kingdom, family child care, center based programs, public schools if folks were interested, workforce preparation programs. And so we've been working with the Vermont workforce for about ten years to see, is this something that they would be interested in? Do they want to pursue the work that it would take to become a recognized profession? And so that was our first question. And with that resounding, yes, let's move forward with that. I think 75% of the folks who participated were saying, yes, we want to do this work. And then we began to take these recommendations from that unified framework that Sharon talked about piece by piece. And each time we would say, here's what's being proposed. What do you think? What excites you? What concerns you? And we did surveying as well and so forth. Identity, these three designations, compensation, licensure, the results were 89% to 98% in favor and supportive of those. And people shared their concerns and we documented them well all along the way and moved them forward. So those are important. If you look at the next slide, this just shows you the alignment. I know it's hard to read. There's a lot of text there. The left hand side of the slide kinda takes you through what the different pieces of recommendations that came from all of this workforce engagement were. And then you can see the direct connection to the pieces in s two zero six, which OPR was recommending. The next slide, really the title Honoring Our Workforce puts forth one of the central principles as we've done all this work is we really wanted to make sure that we weren't losing current workforce. And we heard loud and clear and again put forth that change must be phased in. Time and supports were critical so that no one is driven out, no one feels the need to leave. And then the implementation timeline, this is just a visual representation of what Jen described to you in terms of the time to set up the board and do all the rulemaking, and then the phase in time with transition licenses so that individuals could have up to eight years to meet any qualifications. And we support this legislation because we think it is intentionally designed to support and retain the current workforce and we believe it will help to attract and improve the future workforce that we need. Vermont, we're so fortunate, has invested significant resources to help early childhood educators increase their qualifications. And I find sometimes we need to do a little myth busting around how the workforce feels about increasing their qualifications. We found flexible timelines and targets for make the critical difference. Chris Nelson, who owns a family chapter program in North Troy, said, New qualifications aren't a concern, and we have the time and supports to reach them. Family child care educators want to be their best. They just need clear pathways that show their efforts will pay off. The better we are at our jobs, the better our kids are. So scholarships, student loan repayment assistance, and apprenticeship programs are already in place and are extremely popular. These resources ensure that early childhood educators are not burdened with the financial cost of any removed obligations. It's a recent data that we referenced at the start about that increase in qualifications. It's also supported because through some of the data that we collect ourselves at VermontAYC, we administer many of those workforce supports. And so, year, this reflects some of our own data, eight thirty six early childhood educators received incentive grants and bonuses for increasing qualifications. That's 30% more than previous year. Of 135 teach early childhood Vermont scholarship recipients, so that's AABA licensure, half were first generation college students, and students represented every chapter, role, and setting from all 14 remote counties. We were able to expand our youth apprenticeship program from 19 to 31 youth apprentices in career technical education centers because the legislature approved additional funding last session, which we really appreciate. So, is, when we talk about recruitment, this is what we're talking about. Clear career pathways, so people can have stackable credentials. We've done what we've done to clarify those educational pathways and making them flexible and available for part time options. And I'd like to share that I am a career changer, which we have a lot of early childhood educators who are career changers. And I went through the Community College of Vermont's Priority Learning Assessment process, which we talked about, and became a first generation college graduate myself. So, the critical pieces that we need to think about are overcoming the obstacles. Financials, time, and fear of not belonging. Vermont has excelled in this area, investing in resources and building pathways, and putting a strong emphasis on mentoring. And we've seen that through the data that we've talked about already today. So we have a career management team at Vermont EYC, and they're taking input from the field, thinking about what the implementation might look like for this bill, if it were to be passed, and building models to support the current workforce. So, we're preparing to launch a cohort model that includes assessment of prior learning for family childcare, that includes mentoring, so those participants can receive college credit for their experience and continue to learn together as a group. People want to join this workforce, and they want to be well prepared to do this work. Every early childhood educator who enters and continues in the field, thanks to access to these programs, means that a classroom or program is open or staying open, and obviously it means richer experiences for the children in their care. Individual licensure will strengthen workforce commitment and stabilize staffing. That increases the capacity that we were talking about earlier, and helps programs serve more children and families, and that children have access to equitable learning opportunities. This is why we support this bill. Professional recognition, streamlined care pathways, parity in public school sector, the early childhood system, accountability and transparency, and most of all, it does create a system that meets the best outcomes for children. So thank you. I kind of rushed through it. Know we're over time.

[Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons, Chair]: Thank you. No, this was great. And the information that we have, I think from you, is very helpful. I particularly enjoy the timeline. So I've been writing down timelines as we go along, and so it's good to see that, and I think that will help folks who have concerns about putting this out of all of your months. Absolutely. Good, thank you. Thank you. And we have one more person to testify, and it's just I'm just gonna go to your seat and somebody can Oh, bring it to a musical chair.

[Sen. Martine Larocque Gulick, Vice Chair]: I'm gonna stand by the door. Maybe we

[Johanna de Graffenreid, Public Policy Manager, Vermont Businesses for Social Responsibility (VBSR)]: have our chair there.

[Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons, Chair]: Just So folks know we're going to have this testimony and then we're going to take a short break.

[Sen. Martine Larocque Gulick, Vice Chair]: Think Right. So we'll see here at the Of course,

[Johanna de Graffenreid, Public Policy Manager, Vermont Businesses for Social Responsibility (VBSR)]: of course. We wanna make sure

[Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons, Chair]: that the experts leave you out there today.

[Johanna de Graffenreid, Public Policy Manager, Vermont Businesses for Social Responsibility (VBSR)]: And I will submit this in writing to the York Committee Association, so I can review it later. I always like to talk first, then submit later. I'm gonna zoom us out here to end the conversation because at BBSR, again, I'm Johanna DeGravenry, for the record, I'm the public policy manager for Vermont Businesses for Social Responsibility. I wanna thank you all for having me today. We fully support S206, an act relating to licensure of early childhood educators by the Office of Professional Regulation. I represent nearly 600 members of Vermont businesses, nonprofits, and especially small businesses. I think when folks think of VBSR, they think of Seventh Generation or Ben and Jerry's, and those are certainly big members of ours, but over half of our business members are businesses with less than 15 employees. So we're overwhelmingly represented by small businesses all across the state, every county in The States. For us, we've supported access to affordable, quality childcare and early education in Vermont for years. We've been a longstanding partner of the Vermont Association for the Education of Young Children and with making sure that we're supporting Let's Grow Kids. I want us to recognize that while there is a transition period, that what we're looking at here is a workforce development bill. We ultimately know that there's not enough slots, period, for the children in our communities, which means that there's not enough people who are receiving the childcare necessary to enter into the workforce. Right? Our businesses see that childcare is a crucial challenge for their employees, and it's definitely a crucial challenge for attracting new workforce folks to Vermont as well as retaining existing workforce here. So this will ultimately result in expanding childcare slots with qualified professionals for Vermont's workforce, parents who are working in every economic sector across the state. Families need transparency and confidence in the qualification of the educators caring for their young children. And as a public investment expands Vermonters' access to childcare, Vermonters' recruit and retain qualified workforce to work in these programs. To attract this workforce and early childhood educators in non public school chair settings need to be recognized for their skills and qualifications and have a clear map for professional growth. If we're gonna institute a workforce development bill, we need a clear pathway to make sure that these early childhood educators are respected and given the qualifications and training that is necessary to provide good quality early childhood education in the state. As you know, the bill will create an individual licensure through OKR for more than 8,000 early childhood educators in nonproblem and public school childcare programs that are currently not licensed under the existing regulations, as you all have been seeing. Addressing this regulatory gap in the system ensures that all children have access to qualified early childhood educators, no matter the childcare setting. This means that early childhood education is a stable and attractive career choice, something that simply can't be overlooked, as Vermont both addresses the epidemic of young people leaving our state for places where they can raise a family and retaining a workforce for BBSR's member businesses. The bill introduces retention provisions to help the current workforce increase qualifications over time, as you've heard from our excellent professionals. And we already have many well prepared early childhood educators who want their expertise recognized. We've heard this clearly when we started to engage in this policy work as VDSR. We went directly, of course, to Vermont Association for the Education of Young Children and said, What are folks on the ground looking for? Is this really necessary? And we heard a resounding yes. This is absolutely essential for continuing a workforce development pathway and for making sure that we are making young folks excited about becoming early childhood educators in the state of Vermont. It's not just about our educators who are working in the space right now for which there will be a transition timeline. So I'm making sure that this is an attractive career for folks moving forward. Something that we need to do in order to ensure that the slots that are currently not available in our early childhood education centers are filled with young Vermonters who wanna stay in their communities. As I've heard repeatedly, there's this lack of folks who are available, whether it's in the Northeast Kingdom or through our rural communities. If we want to make sure the young folks who are in our rural communities right now stay there, we need to make sure that we're providing workforce development opportunities for them, and this is one crucial workforce development opportunity that they can pursue once this pathway continues to get created and stood up. I also wanna note that the bill aligns with the national framework. You all have heard this. I think that's so important. I know that in Vermont we can face it a little challenging if we wanna get too far out front or step too far outside of boundaries. I think that that's so important to note is that, again, this aligns with these national standards as they're being developed. We might be the first state, but it doesn't mean that other states aren't moving forward right now. Do we want to be playing catch up to other standards, or do we want to set our own standards that

[Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons, Chair]: are coming directly from our early childhood educators? We

[Johanna de Graffenreid, Public Policy Manager, Vermont Businesses for Social Responsibility (VBSR)]: want our state to compete on a national level to retain and expand Vermont's workforce. We must address the challenges of those in early childhood education, because without those educators, there simply aren't enough spaces in our early childhood education centers and preschools to meet the demand for working parents to be able to go to work and to contribute to Vermont's economy. A recent report in 2022 on the supply and demand regulated childcare in Vermont for children under five likely to need care determined that needs, currently there's about 8,752 additional childcare slots to meet that demands. So almost 9,000 slots that we need to create to meet existing demands. As we're trying to encourage new folks to move to Vermont and to stay in Vermont, we know that that demand is only going to increase exponentially, Right? Which means we need to prepare these young folks and folks who already have early childhood education opportunities for out of state to move to Vermont, to see this as an appealing profession for them.

[Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons, Chair]: I'm being really cynical today. We don't have any housing for those people, unfortunately. We wanna bring them in, but we don't. Well, that's partly why it's so crucial,

[Johanna de Graffenreid, Public Policy Manager, Vermont Businesses for Social Responsibility (VBSR)]: as I mentioned earlier, if we're gonna keep folks here in Vermont, if we're gonna keep young people here in Vermont, say if you are a junior in high school right now and you're considering what career pathway should move forward for you, then why would you pursue a career in something where your expertise is not recognized, where there's not a pathway for professional development, and where the parents who are pursuing your licensure may not know the quality of the skills that you bridge to the table, Right? So if we're thinking about achieving young people in their mind, just bringing in a workforce, then we need to think about what career pathways we're creating for those young people. And this

[Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons, Chair]: is one really important space for that. I'm gonna ask if you have how many more? I only have one last time.

[Sen. Martine Larocque Gulick, Vice Chair]: You go. There we go. I

[Johanna de Graffenreid, Public Policy Manager, Vermont Businesses for Social Responsibility (VBSR)]: just wanna note that, again, EDSR fully supports this bill because this is how we continue to take a pragmatic, constructive, and serious steps to meet our workforce demand for qualified, well trained early childhood educators. Not only is this so crucial for our existing workforce to make sure that parents can continue to participate as employees and business owners too, especially small business owners in our states, but it also makes sure that we continue to support our workforce pipeline for other folks who are continuing to work here. If we wanna maintain not only bringing in new folks to Vermont, but our existing population and keeping young people in Vermont, we have to create workforce pipelines for them to do so. And this is one important goal for making sure that happens, not only for their children if they enter into another sector, but for themselves too. This is how we keep early childhood education centers going. It's by having people who are qualified and getting the resources they need to staff them.

[Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons, Chair]: Ann, thank you. Thank you. Good work. As we continue to look at the bill, be comfortable to keep your eyes on them. Yes, absolutely. And we do know housing is an issue.

[Sen. Martine Larocque Gulick, Vice Chair]: There's no question about it. It's one of

[Johanna de Graffenreid, Public Policy Manager, Vermont Businesses for Social Responsibility (VBSR)]: the top issues that we're also speaking There's no denying it as well as healthcare. So we know that you all

[Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons, Chair]: are working Oh yeah. A little bit of child care. We've been talking about that. Remote worker survey that we've done a few years ago indicated that child care was the number one priority along with second housing education. She missed property taxes. Yeah. So, thank you. Gonna stop here and we're gonna take a break for two minutes, not just two minutes committee. Just two minutes.