Bills We’re Watching: March 1 update
The Joining Voices team is watching for opportunities to engage in these bills this legislative session:
| Growing Opportunities for Family Child Care (GOFCC) |
| This bill calls for making GOFCC permanent (currently, it is officially only a “pilot” project) and mandating an annual appropriation of funds.
Did you know: 11 family child care programs have opened in Prince George’s and Anne Arundel Counties thanks to GOFCC? Another 24 individuals are working with the Child Resource Connect team now, and today, March 1, 6 more individuals will kick off an all-Spanish-speaking GOFCC cohort! |
| Child Care Career and Professional Development Fund |
| This bill calls for altering (updating) the qualifications for an award from the Child Care Career and Professional Development Fund to include a service obligation to work in an approved child care setting for at least 20 hours per week; requiring the Office of Child Care to prioritize grant awards to applicants who have not completed any college courses for credit, and, importantly, an applicant who attends or has been accepted by an accredited college or university that offers native language or bilingual coursework in early childhood education or a related field! |
| Minimum Age for Child Care Teachers |
Currently, MSDE regulation holds that center staff must be at least 16; large family child care home providers must be at least 16, and family child care home providers must be at least 18. This bill would put into law (and not leave it to the regulations) a minimum age of 18 to work in centers and family child care. Currently the law says nothing about a minimum age to do this work.
This bill passed the Maryland House and crossed over to be considered in the Maryland Senate! Find out more about the bill’s process and progress here! |
| The Right to Start Act – prioritizing state revenue for child care! |
| This bill calls for eliminating the $300 business filing fee for all new businesses for their first year. All established businesses will continue to pay the annual filing fee. Maryland will then allocate half of the revenue from those annual fees toward the Growing Opportunities for Family Child Care (GoFCC) grant; preK Expansion Grants; and a funding stream for the Child Care Scholarship Program. |
We’re also reading and catching up on several more bills that matter to our community. Working together, we can engage for the right things at the right time! Thank you for being a part of Joining Voices with us!