Senate education committee reports bill to extend student-teacher stipend to publicly funded university preschools

The Michigan Senate Committee on Education voted 5-0 to report Senate Bill 83 to the Senate floor, advancing a change that would allow student teachers placed at publicly funded university preschool programs to receive the Michigan Future Educator Fellowship stipend.

Senator Tom Chang, sponsor of SB 83, told the committee the bill aims to "close a loophole in the Michigan Future Educator Fellowship Grant to allow for student teachers completing their student teaching at preschool programs at public universities and other settings to access the stipend just like all other student teachers." He said the existing statutory definition of "district" is narrow and excludes publicly funded campus early childhood centers, which can leave student teachers ineligible for the $9,600 stipend.

The change, Chang said, responds to requests from program faculty and teachers, including staff at Wayne State University. "We believe that the early childhood education centers at Wayne State are in danger of losing student teachers due to this reason," Chang said, and he named other campus programs at Central Michigan, Eastern Michigan, Ferris State, U‑M Dearborn and U‑M Flint as similarly affected.

Honalyn Hendricks, identified to the committee as an assistant professor of teaching in early childhood education and director of Wayne State University's College of Education Early Childhood Center, described campus centers as both service providers and training sites. "Centers like ours and those at many other universities ... are designed to offer high quality preschool programs to children, while at the same time serving as preparation sites for our university students," Hendricks said. She told the panel that Wayne State's centers hold high quality ratings and National Association for the Education of Young Children accreditation and that, under current wording, those student teaching placements are excluded from stipend eligibility.

Senate Fiscal staff, Chang said, informed the committee that the change would have no fiscal impact on the state for the current appropriation. Committee discussion noted two technical points: (1) the bill as drafted would apply to the remainder of the fiscal year 2025 appropriation for the Michigan Future Educator Fellowship program (a line-item that the sponsor said included $50,000,000 in FY25), and (2) if lawmakers intend the eligibility change to persist beyond FY25, the change must be incorporated into the FY26 budget language or subsequent legislation, with a technical substitution expected on the Senate floor if the bill clears committee.

Public support was recorded for the bill by written cards read into the record; organizations listed included Oakland Schools, My Leap, HighScope, the Michigan Educator Workforce Initiative and the Michigan League for Public Policy.

The committee first adopted its rules by a 5-0 vote at the start of the session. Later, after discussion and testimony, Senator Chang moved to report SB 83 to the floor with a recommendation that it pass; the committee voted 5-0 to report the bill. Committee members repeatedly framed the bill as a narrow statutory fix to align stipend eligibility with the program's original intent and to prevent campus early childhood centers from losing student-teaching placements or student teachers from losing financial support.

The bill now goes to the full Senate, where the sponsor said a technical amendment will likely be filed on the floor to adjust the bill's statutory language and to address whether the change should extend beyond the current fiscal appropriation.