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Committee approves resolution creating early childhood education task force
Summary
Senate Concurrent Resolution 142, establishing an early childhood education task force to study childcare, staffing, tuition models and quality across Kentucky, passed the committee 9-0; sponsors said the interim body will review models and make recommendations to sustain childcare capacity and quality statewide.
The Senate Health and Welfare Committee approved Senate Concurrent Resolution 142 on Wednesday, creating an early childhood education task force to study childcare availability, workforce, quality and financing across Kentucky.
Senator Danny Carroll, sponsor of the resolution, said the COVID-19 pandemic exposed and worsened longstanding gaps in childcare availability that affect economic development and early learning. "It is critical that all of our children have access to early childhood education," Carroll said, urging a study of staffing, tuition models, business-based centers, family child-care homes and 24-hour care options.
Debbie Linquist of the Child Care Council of Kentucky told the committee stakeholders are eager to work on a long-term plan to support early childhood education and to examine models used in other states.
Senator Berg asked whether the resolution covers care starting at birth rather than only preschool ages; Linquist and Carroll responded that the resolution takes an early-education approach that includes infants and toddlers and that staff are increasingly considered education professionals rather than babysitters.
The committee approved the resolution by a recorded vote of 9-0 and declined to place it on the consent calendar, saying the task force work will proceed during the interim.
The task force’s membership, goals and components are specified in the resolution; sponsors said the work is intended to produce policy options to make the early-childhood system sustainable and to improve access statewide.
