House Education presses Human Services on pre-K language, flags funding and liability questions

Members of the House Education Committee extensively questioned representatives of the House Human Services Committee on March 31 about proposed pre-K statutory language, focusing on who would be responsible for ensuring access, how the requirement would be funded and how teacher licensing and provisional licenses would work in private settings.

"We set up a pre-K implementation committee" tied to Act 76, Teresa Wood, chair of the House Human Services Committee, told the Education panel, explaining the package aims to "increase access" and to expand hours for four-year-olds while maintaining services for three-year-olds. Wood said data show wide regional disparities and that the committee wants a single locus of responsibility so families who want pre-K can find it.

Human Services proposes treating pre-K as part of the education system and using education-fund mechanisms to pay for it. The draft would require school districts to provide or arrange pre-K when private capacity does not exist and would require licensed preschool teachers to be present in private pre-K classrooms, with a seven-year on-ramp for private providers to meet licensing requirements.

Committee members repeatedly warned that the draft could create an unfunded mandate. One member said the language making a district obligated to "begin or expand a program to meet that demand" raises practical questions: who pays for facilities, staffing, bathroom upgrades or other start-up costs where private providers do not exist? Several members urged that funding and the study that will estimate costs be completed and reviewed before statutory mandates take effect.

Human Services acknowledged the concern and pointed to the committee's request for a cost study. Members told the panel that the Joint Fiscal Office (JFO) had reported insufficient information to estimate costs and that the committee expects the study to return specific funding options before any statutory duty goes into effect.

Legislative counsel Beth St. James told the committee the draft's section 4 "does not take effect until the foundation formula takes effect," a point staff highlighted as central to avoiding an immediate unfunded mandate. St. James walked members through draft 8.1, noting several changes that revert language back to current law in order to reduce new district responsibilities.

Members also pressed Human Services on licensing and supervision. Wood and Garopano described data on family child care homes and said many providers already hold AOE licenses or are on pathways to meet requirements, which is why the committee included a seven-year on-ramp. But members raised liability questions about provisional or emergency licenses signed off by a superintendent for educators placed in private programs and asked who would bear responsibility if a licensed or provisionally licensed staffer in a private setting committed an infraction. The committee heard that provisional supervision by districts had been practiced in the past but that legal clarity on liability was limited.

Discussion also covered alternative models: multiple districts pooling resources to fund regional pre-K coordinators, partnerships with private providers, and using Act 76 investments and Building Bright Futures regional councils to shore up capacity without each district building its own brick-and-mortar program. Members said such collaborations may be more feasible in many regions than asking each district to create and fund new programs.

The committee scheduled superintendent testimony for the following day to hear about rural gaps (members flagged the North Country and the northeast kingdom as places with limited private capacity). Representatives asked staff to make the study more specific about how to fund areas without capacity and to clarify effective dates so statutory requirements would not arrive prior to established funding mechanisms.

The committee did not take a vote. Members asked Human Services and legislative counsel to refine the draft language, confirm the scope of the study and return with clearer funding options and legal clarifications on provisional-license supervision before moving forward.