Early Childhood Bill AB-546
Posted Wednesday, March 30, 2011 by Shelly Nye
BDR 38-739 (AB-546) makes various changes to provisions governing early childhood care and education, including the establishment of the Early Childhood Council, requiring certain types of training for child care providers and includes an increase to the number of required child care training hours. Read the entire bill.
Please note: This bill was not drafted by The Nevada Registry - this information is being provided as a service to the ECE community. If you have feedback, concerns or issues related to this bill, please contact your legislator or the sponsor of this bill directly. Visit www.leg.state.nv.us for contact information and information on the committee/BDR hearing for this bill which is scheduled for April 6th.
Responses to Early Childhood Bill AB-546
Name: Kathleen Cooke
Comment: I am the owner of Sunflower Preschool in Reno, Nevada (since 1978). I am alarmed at the proposal being considered in AB-546 regarding the increase of training hours for child care employees from 15 to 30 annual hours of training.Many centers require employees to pay for these classes which makes it a huge strain on budgets at typically low wages. If a center does pay for the trainings, it is a financial burden on centers to fund these classes particularly large schools with many employess both full and part time. In addition, employees who have had many years of teaching and taken numerous classes over the years, find these classes redundant and useless. I am supportive of an educated workforce, and as a nationally accredited school, we do, in fact, have to have more annual trainings for our staff than typical non-accredited scshools. However, as the majority of schools are not accredited, I find this to be both a financial and employee nightmare.Please consider the impact this bill will have over small business and their employees.
Thursday, March 31, 2011 at 01:17 AM
Name: Donna Young
Comment: * the training hours were just increased to 15* the cost would be over the top.....who is going to pay for this?? Centers are already strapped with expenses especially with our NV economy.* It is hard to find exciting training already for staff......so much of is repetitive. Most of my staff have been in the profession for over 15 years, how many times do you need to learn about the same thing...............and how many different ways can you teach........* The cost alone for sending 14 of my staff to NVAEYC this Sat. was over $1,700.00 for one day. Now you wish to double it.........* who came up with this Bill? what is their job....* If the State of NV is willing to pay for this as a Director I am all for it..................but with all the cut backs I do not think this is going to happen
Thursday, March 31, 2011 at 05:54 AM
Name: Colleen Petrini
Comment: I am the Director of Noah's Ark Child Center (since 1989) and I am very concerned with the proposed legislation , bill AB-546 and the impact on quality child care centers in this economy. Centers across the state are having trouble keeping their doors open with the high unemployment rate and reduced enrollment. To add the burden of paying for 15 additional hours for each staff member is unconscionable. To ask staff to pay this is an added burden with gas prices, foreclosures, and reduced incomes. The quality of these hours will be diluted when "in house" training is offered for the hours instead of hiring the services of professional trainers and ECE educators. Training will be completed to just meet the requirements instead of furthering the education of the staff. I understand the importance of continuing eduction for staff members responsible for the nurturing and education of young children however the legislature needs to be aware of the economic impact on quality child care providers in these trying times!
Monday, April 4, 2011 at 01:46 AM
Name: Andrea Doran
Comment: While I am not inherently opposed to an increase in required training hours for early care and educators as it provides the field with more educated and updated workforce, my concern is based on access. I stand by the idea that an educated early childhood workforce provides quality care to the children and families they serve. However, in this economic climate where Nevada’s college and community college systems are faced with decisions about eliminating programs including the possibility of losing programs providing Early Childhood Education , Human Growth and Development, and Child Development curriculum access becomes an issue. Child care centers in Nevada have also been able to access free trainings required for licensing through the University of Nevada Cooperative Extension, this program too is in jeopardy of being eliminated. When these programs can no longer provide quality and in some cases credit bearing continuing education units, centers will move to relying on online and correspondence classes for training which negates the move to certified and/or degreed early childhood workforce. The online or correspondence classes and trainings are not always as robust to best practice nor do they provide credit bearing units toward a degree like the classes and training events provided by the aforementioned entities. If the desire of BDR 38-739 (AB-546) is to increase the knowledge base of Nevada’s childcare workforce I would hope the quality of that education would be considered. Quantity is not quality.
Wednesday, April 6, 2011 at 10:19 AM
Name: Shelly Nye, The Nevada Registry
Comment: The hearing on this bill is scheduled for today, April 6, 2011 at 3:15 pm. If you are not able to attend in person, be sure to log onto the website at http://www.leg.state.nv.us/ to view the live meeting and to share your opinion (click on the link on the right-hand side of the home page). Throughout the legislative session, legislators review these opinions to gain perspective on how constituents in their districts feel about legislation.
Wednesday, April 6, 2011 at 12:27 PM
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