 Okay, we are going to I want to welcome on Samara and Marsha and Allison. We are committee going to turn our focus back to H 171. And we have the up and I'm. We have the opportunity to I'd miss anyone who is okay when we have the opportunity to hear from, we actually have four people on our committee witness list to provide us with some feedback and answer some questions that we gave them as it relates to the childcare. So, Allison, thank you for coming to our committee. Really appreciate it. Good to see you. And if you can take yourself off mute and don't know if you are starting first with comments or some prepared testimony, or just to begin paper. Sure. Thank you so much, Madam chair, and thank you all for inviting me here today. And thank you for sending questions that helped to condense what I wanted to share with you today. All very good questions. And I'm so excited that you are looking at this bill so deeply and intensely. So I'm just going to dive right into answering the questions if that's okay with you. Certainly is but if you could introduce if you could to you and to to everyone else who was here if you could introduce yourselves when you come when you start to speak, because we are on not. We are on tape, and we are on YouTube. If we don't have our agenda up. People not may not know who you are or from what position from what place are you providing testimony. Sure, sorry about that. Yeah, my name is Allison gris and I am the director of the Bennington early childhood center down in Bennington Vermont. And I joined you here today with my directors hat on. So you asked if I believe that advanced degrees are important for childcare providers to hold early childhood educators as I like to say, and what is my own practical experience. I absolutely believe that advanced degrees are important. So I myself started with a bachelor's degree in psychology, and then started working with young children and quickly realized I wanted to learn more and went back and got my master's degree in early childhood education, and also got my teaching license through the peer review process. And that being aside, in my center, as well as in many other centers throughout the state I know Head Start programs, public pre K programs that are in elementary schools. We all are already requiring that our lead teachers have bachelor's degrees, maybe not in early childhood education but at least a related field. It's not a case for all programs, but there are many programs out there that are already doing that. And in my ideal world, I believe all to lead teachers should have bachelor's degrees. I know that's a big jump from where we are now so I'm not suggesting that we immediately jump to that. But I think it's something to work towards. I realize that it's really hard to recruit these folks to work in our programs, because the pay is so low, and the benefits are severely lacking. And there are also some people working in the field who have been doing this for many, many, many years, and they are just naturally great at working with children and they don't have degrees. I don't want to disrespect them at all. But it's my experience that advanced degrees do make us even better teachers, and I have an example to share for you. I have a teacher that I hired about five years ago, and she did have a bachelor's degree but in a totally unrelated field, although she did have some experience working with children and a passion for working with children. But since starting to work for us, she went back to graduate school and started working towards her master's in early childhood education. And it's been wonderful to witness the enormous growth in her quality of teaching since she started taking those advanced classes. It was like you could track it. She was a great teacher to start with, but she's a fabulous teacher now that she has these other classes under her belt. One of our biggest hurdles that we face as early childhood programs though, is that once folks are working with us, and then they continue their education and get their teaching licenses. They often move on to the public school system where the pay is significantly better for the same work. So that's my take on advanced degrees and why I believe they're important in early childhood education. Next, you asked if we accept families who utilize the state's childcare assistance. Yes, we do at my program. And do we have a cap on the limit of number of children from those families that we take? No. And in fact over the years that number has grown and grown. If changes in H171 that expand childcare financial assistance to lower income and middle income families, would that would changes improve access to childcare at my program? Yes, I think this would make a huge difference. Currently, families that only qualify for partial subsidy or just miss the cutoff are really, really struggling to pay their tuition. They might only pay their financial burdens. Some of them are being crafty with their hours that they attend care. They might only come four days instead of five days or they might come seven hours a day instead of eight hours a day to cut back on their tuition and make sure that the subsidy that we're getting covers it. Other people, a couple of the families in my care, are asking grandparents to help pay their tuition because they're just not able to cover it on their own, even though they don't make the cutoff for financial assistance. One parent has said to me that she feels like every time she does something to better her life, like accepting a promotion at work, it ends up hurting her more financially because then she doesn't get the benefits that she needs and she ends up paying more out of pocket. So I believe an expansion of CCFAP, both in how many families are being reached and in the depth of that assistance would significantly assist a great many families at my program and other programs. Next, you asked what would impact what would the impact of being paid based on enrollment versus attendance have at my program. Well, when a regularly paying family, not one that receives financial assistance, if their child is out sick for a week, or they go on vacation for a week or a couple weeks during the year, they still pay for that slot. And it with childcare financial assistance, you might get a few sick days or a few vacation days but after a certain point, you don't get paid for those days. We should get paid for those days because we're still holding the slot for that family. So if we could get paid based on enrollment versus attendance, it could have a significant impact on programs, especially those programs that have a high number of families who receive financial assistance. When we submit our programs information to the state for market for the market rate survey. You asked how do we do that. I submit what our maximum tuition is for a week of care, we're open from 730 to 530 every day. So what would that maximum figure be. The problem is that that doesn't truly cover the cost of care. We know that parents can't afford to pay more so we can't increase our tuition more. But the actual cost of care, especially if we were to pay our staff what they're actually worth is way more than what we charge. So that market rate isn't isn't accurately portraying the true cost of care. Next, if our program takes children under the age of three, which we do, what does a typical day look like. Well, when our children arrive, things are a little different now during COVID restrictions so they get dropped off at the front door and we bring them down to their room and wash hands and get them settled and they play. They explore materials they play for a long time. They go through a round of diaper changes, have their morning breakfast snack, go outside. Have a gathering circle time. You might think that sounds strange to have a circle time for kids that young but they do they come together and sing and read stories and play instruments. Then there might be some more indoor playtime. Another round of diapers, lunchtime, nap time. Another round of diapers, the afternoon snack, and then more outdoor play before they head home for the day. I thought you were going to say another round of diapers. There's a lot of diaper changing. Alison, as you're talking, I'm trying to, you take children under three. Yes. At what age do you start taking children? I'm sorry, I'm having a little trouble with the concept of my six month old being in circle time. You may not take, that may be a different, that may be not children. We start with one year olds. It's not exactly the same as calling your four and five year olds over to sit on the rug and having a 20 minute time where you're doing calendar and weather and a story and song and activity. It's more like the teacher is singing and she, it's so engaging that the children want to go and be near her and play with her and do instruments and finger plays and stuff like that. And if they don't come over, then they don't come over, but there is a time that she designates for that sort of activity. So up until up until a few years, maybe five or six years ago, we only started at age two, but we had such a need for, especially for some of the families in our program that had second children, second or third children. There was such a need for one year olds that we opened a one year old classroom. So next you asked, what do I think about the concept of the state setting the lowest amount you would be allowed to pay an employee of your program. I just wanted to say that early childhood educators definitely need to be paid more than they currently are, especially those that have education under their belt. It's, it's pretty crazy that someone with a bachelor's degree or master's degree might only be making $15 an hour. If those CC FAP rates increase significantly, then this might be able to be a reality. And maybe it would be helpful if the states and set benchmarks for those who have various levels of training. For example, those with an AA degree would not make less than such and such amount. The degree, bachelor's degrees would not make less than those with master's degrees or teaching licenses would not make less than possibly, but I think the most important piece is that we need to be paying our workers more and increases to CC FAP could make that happen. Next you asked, if I could identify one thing that the state could do to improve our interaction with them and support our business and the children. And the first thing that came to my mind was updating the bright futures information system, which I know has been talked about and I think is in the works. It could be huge, especially if those updates were to make the system easier to navigate and more streamlined. What is one thing that the state should stop doing. I think that the state should stop trying to make band aid fixes and throwing a little money here a little money there, patching things up in bits and pieces. What we need is a big systemic change that acknowledges the work we are doing by saying it's both valued and supported, and that would likely be financially supported. And what is one thing that the state should keep doing. I think communication is key. The more the workforce feels as though it's being kept in the loop and listened to the better. I hope that those that helped to answer some of your questions, and that it will help you keep pushing this bill on further. Do you have any questions for me. Thank you Allison, I'm going to open it up to committee members. Representative from said, sorry. Thank you very much, Allison for your comments and stories I love to hear about the woman who went back to school and then what were their next steps so interesting. Yeah, I'm curious about one of the things during coven, we were when the coven relief funds were here was we had put money aside for centers to apply for money to do special projects that would either open up access or help with some of the needs that centers had and I wondered how that process went for you and if you were able to ask for some of those funds out of that. I think that the DCF set up a fund that people applied into Yes, we were able to access every time there were funds available we were able to access them we continued to provide essential care throughout the closure period so we were serving the children of essential workers. And once we were able to open up to more workers did so. And at that time. The CDD offered restart grants to get things going again we did take advantage of that that was a very easy process. The next round of funds was the operational relief grants. It was a little bit trickier we had to show that we had a loss in income that we had increases to expenses and we had to, you had to prove that I did apply for that as well and did receive that. But that was a little trickier of our process to go through, but not, not too hard. So what is the creativity of different ways that you could maybe for I'm just thinking for future ideas of ways for people to have more children or more program. Um, yeah, I mean, a lot of places are limited in how many children they can serve. Right, we have licensing restrictions. So there, there are also other types of restrictions for example, my program being not on a sewer line, a city sewer line, we have a septic system. And so our wastewater permit, which you get from the state limits us to how many people can be in the building at one time. And so we actually cannot expand any bigger than we already are. So, and I know other people have restrictions like that as well. We would expand if we could. Thank you. We have a question from representative Redmond. There, a question, you know, you mentioned the age old problem of people investing in their education getting their masters and then losing them to the public school system and I'm wondering, you know, we're talking about more subsidy of CC FAP, and the that that subsidy would, would help toward going toward wages and kind of raising those wages. But I'm wondering if you feel the plan on the table and what we're discussing is adequate to somehow stem that issue, you know, I'm really wondering about, you know, with everything that we're talking about and doing, will we be able to, you know, kind of chip away at that issue of teachers leaving and going, you know, to place where they have really good benefits and that's what I want to do is, is create a plan where we can keep those folks I mean ultimately it may not be in the short term but over the long term. I have a question and I liked that you used the term ship away, because I think this is something that needs to be done. It needs to be planned for but done in baby steps you can't just all of a sudden say, yeah we have millions of dollars for you here you go. It takes some time to build up to that, but setting the infrastructure in place for a plan is a great step and I think that a lot of people really like working in a private child care program as opposed to the public school and really like working with that under the age group. So it's not so much a matter of wanting to leave, but sometimes it's financially necessary. And I think if we can get to a point where people are at least seeing that we're making progress. It's going to help keep people where they want to be. Are there other questions for Allison. Allison, thank you. Thank you for taking time from all those kids and speaking to us. It's been very helpful. Appreciate it. You're welcome. Thank you for having me. Next we have Christie Swenson. Hi Christie. Hello. Hi. Thanks for having me. Thank you. Thank you. And do you have prepared remarks or do you want to us to paper you with questions? I can introduce myself and say a little bit about Head Start because I'm here to represent Head Start. And then you can pepper me with questions. Okay. My name is Christie Swenson and I'm the director of Capstone Head Start, which serves LaMoyle, Washington and Orange Counties. And all of Vermont is served by various Head Start programs that are seven Head Start programs that cover the length and breadth of Vermont. You're a multi-generational program that provides early childhood education for young children and then also at the same time provides social services for their families. So under the umbrella of Head Start, there is Head Start, which serves three to five year olds and early Head Start, which serves pregnant mothers through three. So we serve across the young spectrum. For children, our services are designed to promote school readiness. And they include things like early childhood education, health, nutrition, mental health supports, and other services for children with special needs. And for their families, we provide social services in order to work to stabilize those families. We set up, we work with them to develop their own goals and we help them work toward those which in some cases may be getting a college degree and other cases may just be maintaining their housing. You know, we have folks at all different, we individualize by wherever they're at. Each Head Start program is uniquely structured. So all of the programs in Vermont have what we call center-based care that you might think of as childcare. But there also are some Head Start programs that work in collaboration with elementary schools to have a classroom in an elementary school, or may work in partnership with private child cares to have slots in private child cares and support the child care to improve their quality. And then lastly, we have home visiting programs and some of the Head Start programs and any given Head Start program could have any combination of those services available, but they all have center-based childcare. We provide really high quality research-based programs. All of our curriculums are research-based, whether it's the curriculum for the children or the curriculum for the family. And we have a proven positive outcome with children that we serve, most notably in the level of education they attain as they grow older and the incarceration rates for past Head Start graduates. So that is sort of my opening. Do you want to ask me some of the questions? Certainly, I'm going to start with, and maybe I didn't hear it clearly enough, what is, at what age do you, in terms of the center-based care as opposed to the home case, at what age do you do most Head Start programs start accepting children? So I believe, and this is going to be my best knowledge, but I think there are three of us that start at six weeks, and then there are four that start at three years old. Okay. Thank you. You want me to go through the questions that you sent out? Yeah, that would be great. Thank you. Why don't I do that? So you asked, you know, academic research says that advanced degrees are very important in childcare. What has been your practical experience? My experience is that, yes, higher education does result in better quality service, particularly in the teacher's understanding of where the child is developmentally, and then their ability to put together and implement an appropriate lesson plan. So, for example, in the area of literacy, if the majority of the class is working at the level of learning how to rhyme, a well-educated teacher can put together an activity that really helps them learn rhyming, but then they also, for those one or two children that already have rhyming down pat, they can mix in a few things that will help them work on alliteration, which is the next step up. Or if they have children, a couple that are not ready to do rhyming yet, they can have things built in so that they can work on tapping out syllables, which is the level below. And so I think, you know, all those complexities about putting together the lesson plan for each of the many activities of the day, it's really helpful for you to really have a firm solid understanding of child development, how to advance child development, and to be able to observe your children and know what level they're at. Sorry, Representative Wood has a question. Okay. Thank you, Kristi. I'm just curious in your experience in Head Start programs, are you able to hire professionals with at least a bachelor's degree, or, and if so, or if not, your staff accessed the professional development that's been available through the department so far. We really struggle to find staff that have what we because we like teachers to have a bachelor's degree. And we do struggle to find those folks in the 1920 program year I think the average time to hire when there was a vacancy in a teacher position for Vermont Head Starts was I want to say eight months. That's relying on my memory but you know it was a while. We do have some teachers that make use of the teach program. We also as Head Starts are, we are given separate funding to provide training for our staff that's separate from our operating budget. We really try to help teachers grow and come along so if you hire someone with an associates degree, we will pay part of their tuition to get them up to a bachelor's. But, you know, as Allison mentioned, then, often, once we assist them with that, they move on to the public schools where they can make much more than we're able to offer. And are you able to offer any benefits to your staff. We do. So we have optional medical and dental. We have a 401k that we offer a partial match on. I'm sure there are things I'm forgetting but yes we do provide benefits. Thank you. Go ahead. Should I move on to question to. Do you accept families who utilize the state's childcare assistant. Yes, all all Head Start programs, you know we are are our whole reason for being is to provide early childhood education to children who are at risk. So, a great majority of the children that we serve are very low income. And so we accept childcare subsidy, and to go on to the next section of that court, that section we do not have a limit on how many enrolled children can accept childcare subsidy. Do you. If the subsidy does not cover, for lack of a better term, what is charged every week. Then, then we eat that. Okay. That's not very eloquent way to say that but that's a pretty blunt way to say, you know, but and so is that. Just ask people here is your co pay or here is your piece. And if they choose to pay fine, but if they don't if they're able to play fine but if they're not, you don't. Correct. Sometimes, if you know if they have partial subsidy, we might ask them to work with one of our money coaches before we sign off on that. And perhaps don't have a program through our community economic development program, where one of the things they offer is is coaching on money management. And so sometimes we will ask that that before we, if you will forgive that co payment that they go work with our money coach to find out if they really can afford it or if they can't. And then the last section of that question is, would changes in h 171 that expand the child care financial assistance program to lower income and middle income families improve access to your child care program. Absolutely, actually, because at Head Start, we really believe in having a diverse classroom, a mixed classroom. And what we often end up having is is a classroom that's all very low on income children, and we would love to have a mix of socio economic background in those classrooms, but we often find that middle income families are not able to afford our services. So I think that would be a positive thing for all the way around if we were able to get those mixed classrooms. Should I move on to question three. Okay. What would the impact of being paid based on enrollment versus attendance have on your program. It would be huge for us. Certainly the things that Allison spoke to in the long term around us continuing to be paid when a child is out sick for the week. Things like that or goes on vacation for a week would really be helpful for our planned budget. But the other thing is in the short term, during the pandemic. A lot of Head Start programs and I'm sure many others are really struggling with their budget because we are not receiving as much in childcare subsidy as we have traditionally. For Vermont Head Start across the state. They received $950,000 less in childcare subsidy that was anticipated between June at the early June and the end of December. There are a number of reasons for that. The main one is that we have reduced some of our classroom sizes to be in alignment with the CDC recommendations. But another big piece of that is that we all have a number of families who are enrolled with us, but are not comfortable coming into in person services right now. So what we're providing them with is virtual service so every week we drop off a packet on their doorstep that has lots of activities and has the meals and snacks for the week. And then they once a week have a virtual like a zoom with their classroom teacher where they talk about the activities and they work with the parents to figure out how to make use of those activities over the course of the week. And then they have at least weekly check-in from our social services folks sometimes much more than that. And in addition as needed we pull in an RN, a registered dietitian, a mental health consultant, dental hygienist, whatever that particular family needs. We're providing all of those services at the family's request, but we're not getting paid for that service because those children are enrolled but they're not attending. And so that that would help us out quite a bit in that regard. Christy, you actually we actually have two questions for you at this juncture. Teresa, Representative Wood and then following Representative Wood, Representative Redmond. Thank you, Madam Chair. I was just curious, sort of in follow up to represent Brumsted's question from the last witness. We're headstart programs able to access the relief funds that were set out and so is the figure that you gave of the 900 and some 1000 dollars. Were those at all offset by some of those programs or was that loss of revenue, even after those programs? Yeah, that that is the loss. I don't, I can't speak to other programs, but you know that the monies that we were able to obtain were significantly less than what we were short. Short about $200,000 in my program. And, you know, we accessed, you know, maybe $5,000 worth of of state assistance for the pandemic. Okay, thank you. Representative Redmond followed by Representative Rosenquist. Thank you, Madam Chair. A question about the enrollment base versus the attendance. I'm trying to kind of get under that and understand what the impact for a headstart program would be going to that enrollment base. Do you have a sense of like where, what could that allow you to do? Where could that money be directed? Would you be able to pay staff more, you know, like what, what, obviously it's going to fill a big hole. But I'm just trying to get a sense of like, you know, what are we talking about for like a headstart organization? What does that mean to go to an enrollment based system versus attendance? It likely would mean a little bit more income for us in the long term because of, because when children are out and, you know, we generally have a few children who have special health needs that cause them to be out for a week, not that infrequently. So we have to pay staff less because our income is less during that, you know, because we don't have consistent income. We make more some weeks than others. So we can't pay our staff at the rate we otherwise would be able to do. So, so just so it means you can employ people more regularly, more consistently, you know, more full time that that it would contribute to that. I think it would not contribute to that because whether we have 10 kids in a classroom or 15 kids in the classroom, we need the same staffing. But what it would allow us to do is to provide a more adequate wage, you know, we could bump up their dollar per hour. Great. Thank you. Great. Thanks. Just this goes back to the last one of the question before, and just wanted to make sure I understood. You said that you would like it if you could get a more mixed classroom as far as socio economic diversity, if you will. And what part of the bill contributes best to that or in the best way. I think that it would expand eligibility to more middle income families, and, and some of the families frankly that that wouldn't be head start eligible based on income but our, but get partial subsidy they can't afford to pay the partial subsidy to join our, our centers. And so, if we could, if they didn't have that cost burden, it would be much easier to get a mix. Thank you. Thank you, Carl Christie if you could continue that would be great. Okay, great. So the next question is for and I have to be honest I didn't understand what you folks were looking for with that question. When you submit your program's information to the state for the market rate survey. What do you submit and how do you come up with the figure. We don't. We don't participate in a market rate survey or you may be thinking about what we, what we post and be fist. I'm not sure what. No, no, that, that you answered the question. Okay, which is you don't participate in the market rate survey that the department goes through. So thank you. Well it would be good if, if we were a part of that now I know that's not in your Bailey with but because we do try to have some slots for, for children that are enrolled outside of head start, so that we can get that mix of children so you know we do have numbers that we could provide for that. Okay. I'll move on to number five then. Our program takes children zero to three what does it the full day look like we do take children zero to three in my program in our program. We have two infant rooms and two toddler rooms and and their days look different from each other so the infant rooms. We don't create the routine so when they're tired, they take a nap when they're hungry we feed them, you know when they're ready to play them we provide play activities. So it really looks like each child. We do what is their biological need at that time, and we try to put in mix in as much one to one interaction with their teachers as possible, and as well as developmentally appropriate books and toys. And of course, once they start to be crawlers we provide a lot of motor activity opportunities. Once they get busy. In toddler classrooms, we have a flexible routine again, based on their basic needs, you know, eating toileting sleeping. But we do begin to do some group activities with toddlers so that may just be reading a book together. It may be playing playdough at the same table, but the expectations are age appropriate. You know, so if, if somebody comes over and looks at the playdough and says, no I don't want to do that and they leave that's okay that you know that's that's what's appropriate for that age level. So it's pretty flexible. Thank you if you could. I don't see any questions around that. So if you could. That helps. You can go to the next question. Okay. So, what do you think about the concept of the state setting the lowest amount you would be allowed to pay an employee of your program. Basically the state requiring you have to pay at least this right. I think it's absolutely needed as long as childcare subsidy is is helping folks to be able to do that. If it were say child to child could accepting child could set her subsidy, then that would be great. I think there's a real shortage in Vermont but country wide of early childhood educators we really need more folks to go into that program. I believe that there are a lot of folks out there that would be fantastic early childhood educators and would really enjoy and thrive in the work, but who do not choose to go there because it doesn't make a lot of sense to get a college degree and take on the college debt that's likely associated with that in order to make just over minimum wage. So that's a nut we have to crack and I think this would be a good way to start, as was said before chipping away at that issue. Thank you, and you're being very helpful and really appreciate it and the final I believe that's the final question. What's the state doing well. Oh, what's the state stop doing and what ideas do you have but before you go to that last question. We do have a represent from state has a question. You can finish up and then I'll ask my question at the end because maybe it'll come in this one. One thing that the state could do to improve our their interaction with us and support our business and our children is is that move to the subsidy based on enrollment rather than attendance. I'm going to sneak in another one though to say it would be great in the short term. If they could provide us assistance. I think our subsidy can provide us assistance for those classrooms that we're running at lower capacity in order to maintain what's recommended by this by the CDC. So, for our, I'll just use us for an example. We are have been serving our preschoolers the three to five year olds. We're just with the class and half so we're serving everybody, we do half of the children on Monday and Tuesday, and the other half, we see on Thursday and Friday so we're serving this full numbers, even if it's not ideal that they're serving three days a week. But for infants and toddlers. We just couldn't bring ourselves to do that because it's so inappropriate for that age group to have that lack of routine that we have cut our numbers. We're only serving in each of our infant and toddler classrooms we're serving as many children as can sleep and still have their heads six feet apart when they're laying down and it's what we're using as, as our, our attempt to, to meet the recommendations that we know we shouldn't have all of those kids moving around together so if they can support us this through the pandemic. To be able to follow those guidelines that would be wonderful. One thing the state should stop doing I don't know that I was able to come up with anything for that. The state should keep doing. I really value the culture of the child development division CDD, and that they really understand that their primary stakeholder is children and families. And I would really like to see that preserved. Thank you very much because that was really interesting. I just have two quick questions. I hope maybe they're not. One is, if you were to think about a typical week when we're not in a pandemic, you know back before that which now to me anyway seems like a lifetime ago. If you were to think if you if we were to switch to enrollment versus attendance. How many of your children I mean how much would that impact a week is there that many absences in a week. Do you see where I'm going with this. I do see where you're going. I think there are many absences in a given week. We do, though often have certain children for whom, because of their medical situation, they are frequently out for a week at a stretch. And so, there certainly are occasions where it is a little painful. And my other question is totally not not in that same vein but is and maybe you've already told us this, I sneezed for a while and missed a little bit. Did what do you what are you able to pay a bachelor prepared new provider at this point is it just you said something about just a little over minimum wage. We start with subs at about $1450 an hour but that doesn't mean that they that doesn't bachelor level. We also have teacher a's who come in at either a CDA or an associates degree. And I think they start at 15. A teacher with their bachelors or masters will start out at around 16 and can go all the way up to 18. And is that a sign that you pay them by no no I mean hourly that's the hourly sorry I should. No I understood that it wasn't but I just meant do you get do they get a pay, even no matter how much they work in a week, for example, but I guess we pay. I understand the number of hours they work but they almost are always work exactly 40 hours a week. It's unusual for a situation to arise where they were fewer or more. Thank you. Sorry, Christie I was having trouble unmuting. It doesn't look like we have other. Oh, I'm sorry it does look like we have another question, but representative Rosenquist you're up at the corner. I didn't see you. You're not there. Okay. Anyway, I was just wondering what you were talking about the child development division, and that you like that group. And there is some talk about eventually moving child development if you will, into the Department of Education. So you would you like that or you would not like that or you'd like it to stay where it is now. I think it's working well, where it is right now. I don't know enough to say what I think about moving it to the Department of Education I, I am hoping to find out more about that on Monday when there will be a presentation on that. Thank you. Sorry, pressing this space bar did not work. So I apologize. Christie, thank you. This has been really very, really very, very helpful to us and thank you for spending the time and at start isn't a program that we all think is really important. Thank you for having me. Now, next we are our next witness is Marsha far far and ours. And so Marsha I'm going you can correct my pronunciation I do apologize. And please go ahead and you are on mute. Madam chair you're not the first to mispronounce that last name it's for any hours so thank you for any hours for any hours yes many hours. Yeah. So hello, my name is Marsha for any hours and I am the interim CEO with the greater Burlington YMCA. I've been with the Y for 39 years. And my titles and positions have changed, but the vast majority of my experience is in school age and early childcare. I've served the state in various capacities around childcare to include being part of various building bright futures committees, serving on the governor's childcare advisory board which was the predecessor of building bright futures and helping to create the first set of licensing ranks for school age programs in the state. I served just over 200 children in its early childcare programs. Approximately half of those children are infants and toddlers. We have four locations to in downtown Burlington, one in St Albans, and we have a partnership with the UBM Medical Center to provide care at a Winooski based center for medical center employees. I did receive your questions in advance and in my testimony, I believe I've addressed each one. I of course welcome your questions. Before diving in, I want to thank the committee for the opportunity to testify and express my sincere appreciation for time, attention and energy that's being dedicated to the incredibly important issue of early childcare and education. Thank you. I will start by stating what you've heard that one of our biggest challenges at the Y and across the state is finding and retaining qualified staff to work in our early childhood education programs. It's not so much a problem for the Y as it is for the over 100 infants on our waiting list, looking for care, not at our downtown facility, and for families all across Vermont. We are desperately trying to open two more infant classrooms in one of our two Burlington locations, but we can't. We simply can't get enough qualified applicants to fill our head teacher positions. Professionals are leaving the field as they can't afford to work in early childcare. We need to incentivize staff to not only come into the field but to remain. For that to happen, I think they need to be paid commensurate with other educators in the public sector, and they need opportunities for advanced degrees. Our experience is that those who come to us with advanced degrees are our future centerhead teachers, assistant directors, directors. They're committed to the fields they have the education and experience, commensurate with what's needed in early childcare to run high quality programs. Two of my center directors currently hold those master degrees. The reality is that in order for us to pay our staff commensurate with their K-12 peers, we have to have financial support from the state. Families simply cannot afford to pay out of pocket the true cost of care and subsidy currently falls well short of that cost. At the Y, we're fortunate in that we have a development team who's tasked with raising funds in the community to help support families to access many of our Y programs. The biggest chunk of the money we raise goes to early childhood care. 31% of the families we serve are families receiving state subsidy. We currently do not cap the number of families we serve who receive this subsidy because to turn families away seems antithetical to the Y mission. That said, it's a conversation we have had many times when we're talking about our ability to remain financially viable. Currently every week the Y subsidizes our families on subsidy to the tune of approximately $4,000. That's weekly. This includes families who utilize our Burlington and St. Albans centers. As an example, allow me to share that our tuition cost for infant care is currently $389 a week. A family who qualifies for 100% subsidy will receive state support in the amount of $238.94, leaving a difference of $117.60 from the rate we charge. And again, what we charge does not cover full cost. The family simply cannot afford to cover the weekly gap. And after arranging for a manageable payment for the family, which may be $5 a week, the Ys left to cover through scholarship, the remaining balance. The amount the Y covers to help ensure families who receive state subsidy that families can receive this subsidy to access high quality care can be even greater due to other factors. This gets to that question of payment for enrollment versus attendance. There are some dollars that are tied to days we don't get paid if families need to take a significant number of days off. That's why we have families. If you want to travel, you have to quarantine. So often there's families who need to take a lot of time. So yeah, there are dollars that we don't receive because families weren't there. We don't receive dollars. If we close beyond the number of days that the state says we're permitted. We need to have training days. It's important that you know staff have not just what's mandated. We go above and beyond because we have children with a lot of issues coming into our center and our staff need to be trained to work with them and their families. We close for holidays and we close for a week at Christmas so staff can get a much needed break. If you add in snow days, often we will go beyond. But I think it's bigger than just the dollar figure. I think administratively, it can be a nightmare. My staff have to actually have conversations with these families about why were you out yesterday. Why did you miss three days? Was it a vacation? Was it a sick day? They have to track it. It's, you know, we don't want families to worry about it. We don't want to know because we have to track it, turn it in, turn it into the state. And there's a lot of administrative hours that go into doing all of that reporting. These are families who are on the edge. They may be experiencing food and housing insecurity, in addition to their childcare challenges. So why add to their burden by putting restrictions on how they use that care? What they use is why early childcare that does not need state subsidy but rather pays the full amount can take as much time off as they want and secure their spot because they can afford to pay for it. The system as it currently exists puts undue stress and worry on subsidy families should events out of their control dictate the need for them to have to be absent. Because their childcare should not be a worry they have to think about and they should not have to call the centers in the state to ask for variances. The why is in the scheme of things fortunate. We're an organization with a business office and center directors who don't have to be in the classrooms every day. Although lately with our inability to hire staff, that's not the case as much. No idea how smaller centers or any home based childcare programs can find the resources necessary to serve families receiving state subsidy. The financial burden of providing care to these families should not fall on the providers and families. And if you expand the CC FAP to lower and middle income families. There has to be increased funding to the providers so they can afford to provide the care. Again at the why we have scholarship dollars to help these families who are kind of on the edge, but so there will be more who will qualify, but again, we will still be subsidizing them. The why is uniquely positioned to be able to provide scholarship dollars and we still struggle. Most centers and home based care cannot afford to face the financial hits of below market subsidy rates and high administrative costs. An additional consideration that must not be overlooked is the fact that an investment in early care and education of children through high quality programs will certainly lead to savings down the road. We, unlike K through 12 see our families every day. We're in constant communication about the development and well being of their children. We know if a child isn't coming with enough food. We know if a family is in need of housing. We can identify if a child's experiencing any trauma at home, as we have eyes on them every day. And we know the earlier we can intervene to help families and children, the better chance that they'll have a success and maybe avoid costs down the road. When they enter public education. In development is critical in the early years. Our infants are not just getting basic care every day. Our staff ensure they receive dedicated time for songs and books each day to work on literacy. They work on spatial awareness, problem solving, how do I get that toy, what will that toy do gross motor and fine motor opportunities to build their skills and muscles so they can roll, then sit, then crawl then walk. Our infants, everything is new. They're little scientists, all day long. They're learning how something new relates to what they already know. They're constantly exploring and expanding their minds and a high quality program maximizes on that opportunity. I see you asked us three questions. What can the state do to improve your interaction and support your business and children. I went to my staff, I went to the business office and they said the same thing, improve the existing BFIS system. That would help significantly. They currently see it as unreliable and complicated to navigate. One thing the state should stop doing. Again, I went to my team. Just to limit or bring to an end the unique the undue burden on families and providers created by ever increasing and changing regulations processes and procedures and inadequate subsidies. That's the one thing the state should keep doing. That was easy. Keep making investments in early childcare and I've been so appreciative in the past years. I've been here for 39 years. In childcare. I have seen investments over the past years and I thank you because it helps, but I'm sure you know it's not enough. We need more. It might help one area, but certainly doesn't help us in another. I'm really encouraged by this bill. It comprehensively addresses the many challenges facing early care and education of children. I want to thank you so much for the work you've done to date your support of this bill and the heavy lifting that I know will come. There's nothing more important than ensuring families and children have the supports they need to be successful and simply put high quality childcare is essential. What young child needs to support their growth and what parents need in order to work and then contribute to a vital Vermont economy. So I thank you all for your time and happy to answer any of your questions. Marcia, thank you. Thank you very much for the clarity and thoughtfulness. And for the years of history that you put to the YMCA and stepping up to be interim executive director, perhaps when that wasn't really what you're expecting to do as that. Thank you. We have questions or comments from four folks. We'll start with representative Redmond. We will go to representative Rosenquist, then representative Bromstead, and then representative Wood and committee as I am having trouble muting and unmuting at a quick level. If you can just go one after another that would be worth good. Thank you Madam Chair. Thank you Marcia. A question for you you mentioned one of the onerous things is involving the changing procedures and regulations and, and that whole process and you know that obviously as you know these, you know the way that we serve involves of course those things are going to change it. I wanted to understand more what you were referring to that we could change as a state on our end that's onerous for you. Yeah, so, you know some examples go back a little bit unintended consequences the whole Act 166 and the burden it put on providers just the paperwork the administration of it. And then the rules kind of kept changing and keeping up with that. And I think it felt, I can only speak for the childcare provider community that sometimes the, you know the burden was falling on us to have to change our ways and do all this, all these things differently with little notice. You know recently came out a mandate for fingerprinting and this probably came fit from the federal level I'm sure that we were going along fine with the fingerprinting and all that was happening and now we found out that are out of state employees that all of a sudden need an additional level of background check, which meant immediately, we could not leave them alone with children. So we're, we're understaffed as it is and now we're having to reconfigure how we can stay in ratio. But this person can't be with a group of children in this. So I think those are the kind of things they refer to. Yeah. Thank you, Marcia. I think you were very comprehensive and how you addressed all those questions. Mine was, I'm terrible with initials. So you mentioned one of the things you'd like to see, how should I say less of is the BIF system and maybe that's what you were just going to say to you. I'm not sure. But what's BIF stand BFIS is the bright futures information system, which is a system that we have to go in to track our professional, you know what our staff have done professionally. I don't use it myself so I can't speak completely about all the uses, but BFIS is something that my staff have to. They have to enter their credentials any trainings they take. It tells us where our licenses are at it. I believe the business systems office uses it for various items but it's your main software system. And you're saying that's a lot of work to do and it's not worth much to you at that level, right? I think they're finding it unreliable. It's somewhat outdated. Information isn't always kept up to date. So we think we're good in one area and then we find out we're not. It just wasn't updated in the system. So I have heard many concerns about that system. Thank you very much. Yeah, thank you. Thank you, Marcia, very much. I am. You should know that hopefully it's, we feel that we've put some money aside for improving that BFIS system and hopefully there's help on the way. Good. I am, and I also want to thank you because two of my grandchildren go to the YMCA and they love it. I know that. I have some questions and I appreciate that you put out the numbers. And I have a couple of questions around it. Your first statement when you were talking about that was that the charge is less than the cost. And I'm curious if you have any sense of what the cost is for a child zero to three to be there for a week, compared to this $389. Thank you, Representative Bromstead. I don't have that exact number. It is north of $400. And I don't have that I could certainly get you a more accurate number and would be happy to forward that to you. But what we currently charge is not the cost when we look at our program. No program stands on its own. Yeah, that would be great to know, you know, as we look at costs across the state. But if you're, if you, if you have one child there, that's one price, the $389, but if you have two, you have a little bit of a discount or no. There's no discount for second child, but it does go down as the ratios go down as we serve children so infants are the most expensive that's a one to three staff to child ratio. If the number and get older, the, the numbers can decrease a little bit by the time they get to preschool, it's very different. So, okay, it's based on a lot of it is staffing, I mean the biggest expense and most childcare programs, the staffing. Great, and just one last question, your bachelor prepared teacher I've asked this question a couple of times today. What would a bachelor prepared teacher make working at the YMCA. So the Y has put some significant investment in what we pay staff because we had to to remain viable. We weren't, we were losing staff left and right to public schools. They were leaving so currently a teacher with a bachelor's degree. It's great makes 20 an hour, and we do salary. Most of our teachers are salaried. There's great benefits that come when you work at the Y, a generous paid time off program medical dental retirement. But that $20 an hour is not what a public school teacher would make. Okay, great. Thank you very very much. Yes, thank you. Thanks for being here Marsha really appreciate the thoroughness of your testimony today. And I had a chance to visit your new facilities back when we the ribbon cutting happened it was, it was great. Thank you. So my, my question I have a couple of questions. When you submit your information for the market rate survey, what, what information are you submitting are you submitting your true cost or you submitting what you charge what we charge what you charge. Okay. Thank you. And then my second question is we've had. Actually, I think all of the witnesses so far this afternoon I've mentioned the bfs system. And it just occurred to me. No, there is a module already under development for improving that system and have had as the end users have has the state reached out to you for your input regarding changes and bfs in terms of how you would use it and you would think that that would be helpful. You know representative would they have it reached out to me but they wouldn't they may have reached out to my directors and I will ask them who use the system every day and I can certainly get back to you with that. I don't know that they have if they've reached out or not but I can find that out and I can let you know. Thank you that that would be helpful and I don't know if the other two witnesses can answer that question because it seems to make sense to if we're if we're putting in a new system to ask the end users, who interface with it on a daily basis, how they are experiencing it and what are the things that would make the most sense. Okay, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. And if there are no further. I think Teresa and others said it. Well, thank you very much. Christie, you are next, but I'm wondering if you are not in a time crunch. I would love for you to be our final witness, and I would like to be able to make a testimony that the person is not able that we had asked we had asked representative Rosenquist to find testimony. Oh, sorry, Samara, I'm sorry. I, Samara, are you able to stay. You are. Yes, yes, I can say. Okay, good. But represent we had asked represent the royal we representative wouldn't I had asked representative Rosenquist to try to find a registered home provider to provide input. And while we have gotten it. I think in our email. I think I want to respect represent representative Rosenquist's work and getting it. And either I will read it or representative Rosenquist you can read the testimony from that was that you so that you got for us. I prefer to do would be because how, how we couch those questions I didn't ask her those questions so she wouldn't ask those things specifically. So what I'd rather do is get her address which I don't have right at the moment okay, and have Julie send her those questions and get answers to those directly. And we'd read that at the next get together on this if we could. That sounds very reasonable on committee her testimony right now is on the committee. Web page and I don't think she touched on all the all the area that you identified and I'd like her to be able to absolutely absolutely she touched on a lot but absolutely and representative Rosenquist we do have her email address and so we can email the questions to her. Oh, that would be fantastic you do have that right now I wonder how I missed it. You just have to go down the email that you got. I'm still learning, you know, please, I'm having trouble getting mute and unmute so we are all learning here. Quick question, what name should you be looking for and finding the testimony that has already been submitted. Tammy dodge. Thank you. Can we send those questions and to Tammy and ask her to respond or do them. That would be great if she could do that. I am confident that Julie probably has already done it, as we have had this conversation, but and she will do it. Thank you. Samara. Thank you. Are you still there Samara or did you know I'm sorry I'm here I was just seeing out my last teacher of the day. You know, you had work to do. Yeah, multitasking a little bit. Thank you. Thank you for multitasking and thank you for taking the time to help us figure out what people in the field think and how we're going to think about the bill that is in front of us. Thank you madam chair and thank you members of the committee I'm really grateful for this opportunity to provide testimony. I do have some prepared a prepared statement that I'd like to read, but also by way of an introduction. I'm the owner director and the preschool teacher at Montpelier Children's House were a five star program. This is also an act 66166 participating provider. My dad started this program in 1984 first as a home program before moving to very street Montpelier. This past winter we had an opportunity to move our program to Mountain View Street, the love works program was closing this location and national life found himself seeking a new tenant. With a make way for kids grant we were able to grow our program from preschool only to include children from birth to three. This space has capacity for up to 44 children, but we are currently at capacity at 30 children due to health and safety concerns during Kobe and also due to certain staffing challenges. Right now we're working to open a desperately needed infinite toddler room I have a long waiting list and get new calls every week. The barrier to making this happening to making this happen is finding qualified staff. A quick look at the Vermont early childhood jobs board and was disheartened to see I was among many, many programs trying to hire staff right now. Of my 30 families 18 have their tuition reduced by act one 66 funds and for received received CCF AP. There are eight teachers total at Children's House to hold an associates degree five of the bachelors and three of us hold a current educators license. And I went ahead and just answered the questions as posed. The first one about academic research says that advanced degrees are very important. My response is that my practical experience is that holding a degree is often but not always important in providing a high quality childcare. I have had teachers with stellar credentials and little practical experience who were not effective teachers and others with a handful of community college credits who had spent many years in the field who are magical in the classroom. I would love to see those amazing teachers without degrees be supported to more easily be able to convert their experience into credentials so that they could advance in the field, especially as we move toward a future state where early educators are paid well and their expertise is recognized. In my experience based on what I'm able to pay it can be very difficult for people with degrees to be able to work for me. At the point I was hiring for a licensed teacher for a preschool and interviewed a highly qualified enthusiastic recent graduate. Early on in the interview it was revealed that she would need to earn at least $25 an hour to make her student loan payments, something that was far beyond the reach of my program. In my experience that for many educators holding a degree or license a job in the public school system makes far more financial sense for them and enjoy they enjoy a higher rate of pay and benefits that I simply cannot offer. As an Act 166 provider we are required to have a licensed teacher on staff for a preschool classroom and in the end I decided to get my own teaching license through the peer review process. Because I knew that finding and paying a licensed teacher would be a constant struggle. I struggled to find and retain qualified teachers with any level of educational attainment. The wages are low, particularly in relation to the ongoing training requirements. The work is incredibly rewarding but it is hard and working with groups of children, particularly the very young. There are a few minutes of downtime. There are far easier ways to learn a similar wage and teacher burnout and early education is very real. I have a second question about accepting families who utilize childcare assistance. We have always accepted families who utilize CCFAP. We do not have a cap on the number of children from those families and that said we could reach a point where this could become financially challenging. Payments are received weeks after care is provided and this is the same with Act 166 tuition. After a point we would need to find a line of credit to bridge the gap between care provided and payments received. Changes in H171 that expand CCFAP to lower and middle income families would absolutely improve access to my program. Full time enrollment for an infant is nearly $1,200 a month and for many families this is prohibitively expensive. In response to the question of what would the impact of being paid based on enrollment versus attendance have on my program. Being paid based on enrollment versus attendance would have a tremendous impact on our program and for our families. This past summer when the state shifted back to paying based on attendance when programs were encouraged to reopen. I had a child who received CCFAP funds whose family had a school age child for whom they could not find care as was the case with many school age children this past summer. This family also struggled with adequate transportation and because CCFAP provides only so many allowable days of absence. This family was faced with paying the full cost of a day of childcare or finding a way for their daughter to get to school when they had no other reason to leave home. And at this point this was not the best option for the family by paying based on enrollment families receiving CCFAP are able to make the same choices about their child attendance as those not receiving funds. It's simply a matter of equity. Question for when I submit our programs information to the state for the market rate survey. We submit at this time I submit what we charge our families. That said I have had many conversations with conversations with my local directors group when it came time to update rates in the system. And we all struggled with knowing that what we're charging families doesn't come close to covering the true cost of care that we provide. But then I didn't feel right to publicize a rate that's so far out of reach for so many families. And right now it's programs and staff that are subsidizing the system by working for such low low wages and with few or any benefits. My program does now take birth to three year old children, which is new to us and what a typical day looks like I'm providing a dramatic reenactment for you. I got to spend some time in the classroom yesterday and so a little vignette. It's a rival time page greets baby tea outside the front door with an open smile and he smiles back really revealing a new tooth poking out. After a brief exchange with his dad he goes into her open arms as page has both the baby and all of his daily supplies back into the classroom. As they enter the classroom they are greeted by the joyful squeals of toddlers as they walk up the stairs and then run down the ramp of the low loft tees eyes follow them as they move purposely through the classroom navigating the space. You see Peter running up the ramp. He is so fast. Alana sits close by on the floor and moves in quickly as Peter greets another child with a two handed shove. His playmate sits on the ground upset and stunned out she says softly I bet that didn't feel good. He crawls into her lap for comfort. She turns to his playmate who stands close by. Do you want to play. She signs with her hands. Peter signs play back with a big smile and runs off to get a ball which he hands to his playmate who smiles back. They both move away to play with the ball together. Amidst the sounds of the room page sings a made up song as she changes tees diaper letting him know what she's about to do. And so the day goes in constant motion with love, care and intention through caregiving routines, supporting growing play skills, learning how little bodies can crawl, crawl, climb and navigate, making sense of the world as it emerges around them. To a person off the street, it would look like a fun day of play and nurturing. And in fact, every interaction is intentionally structured to support brain development and aligns with a planned curriculum intended to support the whole child. In response to question six about my thoughts on the concept of the state setting the lowest amount I would be allowed to pay an employee in my program. I would be absolutely open to this but there would need to be money coming from somewhere other than the tuition coming out of parents pockets. Parents are stretched by the cost of childcare and my program is barely getting by and the economics simply do not work right now. And for the final three questions, as someone who is doing the work I wear a lot of hats and early education. I'm a small business owner I am the program director. I'm a classroom teacher among all of my other tiny roles in the program. If I were to identify one thing that the state could do to improve your interaction with them and support my business and the children. I'm a small program, I'm a small program and I'm the full time administrator in addition to many other roles. Program administration, particularly around act one 66 and CC FAP take a lot of my time, making programs less administratively cumbersome would be tremendously helpful. I was unable to apply for the last last round of much needed COVID grant funding, because I simply did not have enough waking hours in my day to get the application done. Oh, and I also wanted to piggyback improvements to the bf is system would be tremendous, just in streamlining the, the time that I do have to spend and making that more effective and efficient. One thing the state should stop doing the state should stop putting the financial burden of accessing childcare and being a childcare provider on families and caregivers. Program 66 has made a huge difference for my families who are eligible. It's a great start for many, but for many high quality childcare remains out of reach childcare providers do this work because it is hard work we do it because we love what we do. And we know that is some of the most important work to be done. The trade off is that many of us sacrifice our own financial stability to work in a profession with very low wages, even for teachers who hold a degree. Many programs, including my own cannot afford to provide benefits and many teachers are uninsured or underinsured, which is particularly unsettling as a we are in very close contact with children during the pandemic. And from a very personal perspective, owning and operating a childcare program is not the best financial choice for my own family, both my husband and I are self employed he cars ban granite and Barry, and neither of us can access employer sponsored health insurance. What it means is that we pay a total of $32,000 each year to buy insurance on the exchange. My youngest child is the type one diabetic and we meet our hefty out of pocket expenses by early summer each year. The state could stop forcing the hundreds of self employed childcare educators around the state from having to purchase health insurance on our own at prohibitively expensive rates that are out of often out of reach. Lastly, what is the one thing the state should keep doing keep giving your attention to the importance of childcare for the healthy development of our youngest for monitors and for the huge role that childcare plays in the Vermont economy. Keep working to make it possible for early educators to earn degrees and further their education without taking on a financial burden that cannot be repaid by comparatively low wages, and keep talking to and listening to program directors and administrators to understand how hard it is to balance the true cost of high quality childcare, the perennial challenges of staffing and the financial burden of the cost of childcare for Vermont families. Thank you so much for the opportunity to provide the testimony. Samara, thank you. And committee Samara's testimony is also on our committee webpage, as it is for anyone who wants to access it, who is listening to your eloquent and thorough testimony. We have a question from representative wood. Thank you madam chair and thank you Samara and I really want to particularly thank you for this last comment regarding the cost of health care and insurance for your family. I just want to, I guess, make a comment about that because I do have a home family care provider who contacted me with that same concern and wishing for some, some way to attack that issue. And right now her family is not able to afford to pay for any insurance so they're living without a family of five living without health insurance which worries me. So, thank you for, for highlighting that, both for yourself and for my constituent too. Could, could you just answer the question that I asked previously about, have you received any requests for input from the child development division regarding the changes that are currently being made to the beef this system. Have you have they provided any opportunity for end users to, to give them some input. I am not aware of any opportunities that I've been given to provide input but that said, I am not a very timely reader and answer of my email so there's the possibility that that came through and I didn't see it. It probably would not have been recently because they've been working on this one for this the current module for about a year so yeah, a little more. I don't know. Okay, thank you. Thank you representative would I believe that representative from said has a question. Representative from said before you respond. We do. Christy Swenson is adding a comment and Christie, just because we are. This is on YouTube where we. Read your comment out loud. And I would offer to to any of the four of you who were still here if you have a final or additional comment to raise your hand and we can call on you then. But Christie's feedback is that she's confident that no one in her program has been asked to make any comment on the beef of system telling. Yes, very, very interesting thank you madam chair and thank you representative would for starting us asking that question because it is very informative. And thank you Samara so I just your testimony was unbelievably interesting and I loved your, your story of the day that you added in. So thank you to me miss my babies. I am asking everyone the same question so I want to be sure to ask you as well. What are you able to offer a bachelor teacher or is that just you like I was trying to pick up on the numbers at the beginning of your testimony. And I think my program has really committed to hiring as highly qualified teachers as we possibly can because we have struggled so much with turnover. And, and really have made a priority to attract and retain qualified teachers we pay our teachers with a bachelor's degree $18 an hour. And then, you know, we've been successful and we have this this staff that I have right now is academically the most qualified as I've ever had in my history. It is killing us financially. Looking at our numbers at the beginning of the year this has been an incredibly challenging year for us enrollment wise which we've never experienced because families are having to make really hard decisions about if they can afford to keep their career if they lose their job. And so, while our students and teachers enjoy a high level of teacher qualification as a as a director program administrator that I'm having to make some really hard decisions about whether what not we can sustain that because of the cost. So, I'm just curious I asked this question earlier too but that your comment just made me think of it as well in the past before the pandemic. In a typical week. How many absences would you do you think you'd have in a group of in one classroom for example so that would be a smaller number. We were in school six so that, you know, one was at school that no one was gone. You know, in a typical week, it was, we'd have a smattering of children out but it wasn't. There weren't prolonged absences. It was, you know, we didn't have many children out. And so, when we were thinking earlier about enrollment versus attendance and then the payment and then the payment of parents, most parents pay for the days that they're not there if they're not on CCF AP is that the same in your Absolutely we simply could not cover the cost of days out. If parents were not attending we're very clear that if their child is not there we still need we're still paying our teachers we still have our bills we need to, we need to make our payment. Right, right. Okay, so that's helpful. Thank you very much. Thank you for their committee. Do you have. Is there anyone else who has a question. Samara, thank you. Thank you very much. And really, thank you. Samara and Christie and Marsha and Samara. I sort of want to know if any one of the, if any of you would like to make any final comments, please raise your hand. Thank you. Thank you for educating all of us and answering our questions, which may have seemed odd, but have really helped us hone in on some of the aspects of the bill. So, thank you. Thank you very much. And please feel free to stay on if you wish. We're going to begin to wrap up the committee and move off from 171 and just do some committee business so welcome to stay on. Thank you so much for your comments and Samara Marsha and Christie but if you have other things to do and kids to take care of feel free to leave as well. Thank you. Committee. I've now I have a mind like a said, did I tell you 10 o'clock. No later. Okay, no later than 10 o'clock tonight you will get me your stuff and and get it by the time you wake up in the morning. I'm not going to ask you when will that give you enough time to get it to members of the committee by 930 or so. That will be tight if they're if they're short changes and I won't have a problem doing that. It also would you like it to go through editing. They're expecting it tomorrow morning. I guess what if it had I mean, how's this Katie I was, you know, we're getting comments no later than 10 I could get them to you by, you know, depending on what they are, either by 1015 or 11. Because I'm working then does not mean that you have to. So I so what what is realistic for you to get it to us. I'll do my best. I'll, I'll, I'll have it done. No, Katie. Our, our, our. Perhaps our, anyway, our time frame and the fact that we didn't keep to our time frame does not. If you need more time, tell me. So, no, that's a different way. What, when might you be able to give it to us so that. I think it totally depends on the, the extent of the changes I think if there are just a few word changes and changing a few sentences and it's very clear, then I could do that quickly and have it to you by maybe 930. If there are more extensive changes, I think I'm going to need a little bit more time. Okay. Okay, then committee we're going to be flexible. We are going to be flexible and we have Katie doesn't because she has other committees and other works work to do, but we have until we have until the afternoon to smush this into other things that need be before we. And if you know, and if, yeah, so we have that. I also wonder is anyone here go to the women's caucus. Okay, oh good. Two of you go to the women's caucus I happen to look at their agenda, and they're talking about the Office of Child Advocate. And they are talking. They're having someone a provider from the Brattleboro area speak about their thoughts as to what they understand the governor's proposal is around the organization of the of child of delivery of childcare. I either I'm trying to think of I don't know how to frame this the taking to having there no longer be a division of child development and moving those functions into other parts of state government but as it relates to childcare. I see representative Rosenquist and then representative would just a quick question. I know at one point you asked us to rate the priorities of our spending requests if you will do are we still supposed to do that or not. We're waiting for this letter to be published first. Representative Rosenquist what what the majority of the committee came down to was that this was a unique year and we were not going to send the committee's top three priorities, but rather we were going to send. This is our comments on the governor's budget. And so do it that way. Thank you. Yeah. Representative Wood. Um, Madam chair, I might have missed this along the way. We saw. We saw the draft memo up on the screen but I haven't seen it come through any place for us to comment on yet. That's what I wonder. So we can't really get you our comments if we haven't received the memo. Okay. I do have you have provide there is, I believe that what we were working from. Oh, have we not. Have I not sent it to you. Okay. That's a problem. Okay. Yes, Katie. I've just been waiting. It sounded like there are few emails that didn't get to me. So as soon as I get those emails to finish up those last few little loose ends, then I could send you a clean copy to look at. Um, Katie, okay. I will send you what I have and then if you wouldn't mind, is it fair to ask you to send something out to all the committee members. I'm happy to do that. Okay, so Katie's going to do that. And I will send those two. It's the two emails around numbers I thought we were talking about but one of those one of those I believe you've gotten the update. And I believe that was the only one. So I think you can you can send out. I mean that's what we're sort of doing this. I think people need to see it as a, as a full. So if you could send that out to folks, can you send it out to folks not in a PDF. I'll send a word version, I'll try to have it out in the next, maybe 40 minutes or so half hour to 40 minutes. Okay. Madam chair I know that for a few of us like Kelly and I and Taylor and I we're going to try and get this to you right away so hopefully it won't be so late. But I am. We picked to 10 o'clock time I am, I am. I am not going to be able to do anything for a period for a block of time. I will not have access to a computer. Okay, I was just trying to be. Yeah, that's why I thank you, thank you. So, I guess Katie. Yeah, I will get I will do the best I can and getting you stuff in the next few minutes. And this is a work in progress. Okay. I think this ends the policy. Little update and how we're going from place A to place B around our comments to the budget. And this ends. We had a great, great afternoon. I like giving people questions. Sorry, we can talk about that later. And this ends the house human services committee meeting on February 18.