OCSD-backed full-day preschool legislation clears Senate Ed Committee

Feb. 15—Legislation to expand Iowa's voluntary preschool program and ease Oskaloosa's childcare shortage beat the legislature's Friday funnel week deadline when it made it past the state's Senate Education Committee Wednesday night.

The advancement of Senate File 2075, which would provide full-day preschool funding for students whose families meet certain income criteria, comes in the wake of a two-month lobbying campaign by students and staff from the Oskaloosa Community School District in support of funding for full-day preschool. The district debuted its own 20-student full-day preschool pilot program in 2023 as part of an ongoing effort to combat the community's "childcare desert."

"It's a lifelong educational benefit," said OCSD Director of Marketing, Communications and Development Justin DeVore at a Board of Education meeting Tuesday night. "When we see students who have accelerated math scores and early literacy scores in preschool, that carries on with them for their entire life. We are in a childcare desert in this community, and we are hearing from our community, we're hearing from parents saying this would help take a big bite of that apple and help that problem."

OCSD students and staff have been taking Oskaloosa's struggles to meet the demand for childcare straight to the lawmakers who can make a difference. Their months-long campaign for increased preschool funding has included hosting legislators for an educational roundtable at Oskaloosa Schools, and making multiple trips to the State Capitol to meet with legislators and Gov. Kim Reynolds about the issue.

Following the debut of the district's 2023 full-day preschool pilot program, the district has fielded an outpouring of requests for placement. As of December of 2023, the program had a 60-person waitlist, but is battling a lack of funding that prevents the district from expanding their services.

Under the current voluntary preschool legislation, preschoolers receive only half funding for a half-day program from the state. The district takes a loss on the new full-day program, but given the demand, will continue to operate it. More funding is necessary, however, before they can begin to serve more students.

SF 2075 expands the voluntary preschool program to include full funding for full-day students to districts that choose to offer full-day preschool services. The bill does include a stipulation that full-day funding would only be provided for students who qualify for free and reduced lunch, or are at 185% of the poverty level. The House's version of the bill, House File 2357, is yet to advance out of committee, and would expand the program without the income stipulation.

OCSD has been carefully tracking both pieces of legislation this week as lawmakers conduct meetings to advance items through "funnel week" at the capitol. With the exception of bills that involve spending, tax, government oversight, or bills that are sponsored by leadership, pieces of legislation will need to advance through committee in at least one chamber by Friday, Feb. 16 to remain eligible for consideration in this session. If bills do not make it through the funnel deadline, language from them can still be tacked on to other legislation that has been cleared.

OCSD Early Childhood Center Director Katie Trainer says that any legislation offering full-day preschool funding will be welcome in the Oskaloosa community and will open the door for the district to serve more full-day preschool students.

"This bill would allow us to, depending on how many classrooms we offer of full-day, [for] every child in those classrooms we would get funding on them as a full-time student, so that we can purchase curriculum for the classroom, pay staff, all that good stuff that we do," Trainer said.

"We also are hopeful for this because we have a lot of families that just don't have access to preschool right now with transportation, getting [children] to and from," she added. "They work hours that just don't allow them to be in that half-day program."

She did add that the district would prefer the House's version of the bill.

The majority of the Senate Education Committee were supportive of the legislation when they met Wednesday night, with some members arguing that it does not go far enough.

"The research is overwhelmingly positive, as far as benefiting students in terms of their academic achievement, in terms of a whole lot of longer term measures. Things like progression on to college, like avoiding incarceration — the benefits are just myriad," said Ranking Member Sen. Herman Quirmbach (D-Ames). "We should extend this for not just these low-income students. We should do it like we did back in 2006, when we created the statewide voluntary program. We should do it for everybody."

Sen. Sarah Trone Garriott (D-West Des Moines) echoed Quirmbach's remarks.

"This will make a huge difference for our children. Every child," she said. "It will be so good for the State of Iowa. It's something that we can invest in and make it a priority financially, and I think it should be the priority when it comes to educational spending. So I'm very supportive of this bill, but disappointed that it does not go far enough."

Sen. Lynn Evans (R-Aurelia), who introduced the bill, answered remarks that the state's surplus funds should be used to fund full-day preschool for all students by arguing that current surplus funds cannot responsibly be used to fund ongoing projects with recurring costs.

"There are many districts that are finding other ways to fund, some by charging tuition to parents," he said. "[The children at the 185-percent poverty level] are the kids that are getting left out in this, because they can't afford those extra hours. So we can either vote yes and do the right thing for our children, or we can vote no. We can stay with an inadequate system."

The senate file advanced out of the education committee and was added to the calendar as an approved committee bill. HF 2357 is still pending against the legislature's funnel week deadline on Friday, Feb. 16.

Channing Rucks can be reached at crucks@oskyherald.com.