MSDE outlines child care scholarship wait list, legislative changes and outreach plan

MSDE officials told the State Board of Education’s Strategy & Operations Committee that the Child Care Scholarship (CCS) program has seen enrollment fall since a partial enrollment freeze in May 2025 and that the agency is preparing implementation plans after new legislation and budget increases.

The update from Anne Stock, chief of staff in MSDE’s Division of Early Childhood, and Siobhan Williams, acting director of the Child Care Scholarship Program, laid out data, recent appropriations and steps to engage providers and families before MSDE submits a full implementation plan later this year.

Siobhan Williams said the program’s enrollment data (January 2023–March 2026) show a spike when a partial enrollment freeze began in May 2025 and then a decline: "as of March 2026, we're at 40,000 approximately, children and 26,000, families," she said. Williams added that the agency has issued more than 2,900 new scholarships since the freeze’s exemptions were applied and that there are "over 6,000 children on the wait list." The presentation also showed participation concentrated in Central Maryland, with Baltimore County among the highest-enrolling jurisdictions.

Stock described fiscal outcomes from the recent General Assembly: "there was a $20,000,000 increase in funding for childcare scholarship, for direct services and a $1,000,000 in new funding to update our childcare scholarship IT system," she said. She also noted $10 million for Pre-K expansion grants and said two provider-support programs were flat-funded but now have statutory funding through FY2028–2030.

On legislation, Stock summarized two bills passed in this session. House Bill 849 codifies existing wait-list exemptions and adds children experiencing homelessness to the exempted categories; it also establishes a prioritization schema for awarding new scholarships that will consider lowest income, members of the early care workforce in qualifying settings, children under age 3, and time spent on the wait list. House Bill 1321 directs MSDE to develop a new co-payment schedule (capped at no higher than 7% of family income), minimize cliff effects, and require MSDE to provide families on the wait list with information about local pre-K seats, Head Start, and other tax credits or benefits while they await a scholarship.

Williams described the Tiger Team work to incorporate provider and family feedback. MSDE convened a provider kickoff reaching more than 275 providers and a 15-provider focus group; the agency will send a 16-question survey to all families enrolled (about 26,422 as of March) and will convene a randomized opt-in focus group of roughly 20 parents for deeper qualitative input. Williams said the 20-person group is intended to complement—and not substitute for—the full survey data.

Board members sought more detail on implementation. Dr. Carr and others asked which outcome indicators the Tiger Team will track and requested the focus-group protocol and survey text; Miss Medina and other members pressed MSDE to explain how priorities from HB 849 will be operationalized (e.g., the algorithm for ranking families when multiple priorities overlap) and how the agency will maximize survey response among 26,000 families.

MSDE responded that implementation planning and consultation will continue through summer and fall—MSDE expects a mid-June Office of Child Care Advisory Council meeting and fall community town halls—and that the agency will share drafts of outreach materials and the focus-group protocol with the committee on request. The agency also said it is sequencing short-term changes into "small wins" while identifying longer-term system changes that require IT upgrades.

The committee did not take formal votes on CCS policy during this meeting; staff said a full implementation plan will be returned to the board later this year for review.

The committee moved on to other agenda items after the presentation; MSDE staff remained available to work with board members on protocols, outreach language and prioritization details in advance of plan submission.