To ensure we have a strong workforce, we must have reliable and affordable child care. Head Start and Pre-K Counts programs are vitally important for young children in need but are falling short of the necessary teachers to operate or expand. This is especially concerning for rural counties, where available classrooms are too far away. According to a 2023 survey, in our Commonwealth there are more than 4,000 open staff positions that must be filled in childcare centers, largely due to low wages. Because of the lack of staff, half of child care centers have closed at least one classroom, and 85% of centers report staffing shortages. 35,000 children in Pennsylvania are on child care waiting lists, placing a burden on families as they must make alternative arrangements for their children.

While recent budgets have included funding increases in early childhood education, they do not go far enough to target the wages needed to recruit and retain staff to support the child care needs of working families and the educational needs of three- and four-year-olds in the state. In some school districts, there are unfair pay differentials between Pre-K and K-4 teachers, despite having the same qualifications. Additionally, the cost to expand high-quality education in rural areas of the state is often out of reach. For these reasons, I am proposing a package of bills to:

• Create a pilot program to provide salary supplements to all Head Start and public school teachers. The supplement would not be for a specific dollar amount; but would aim to alleviate the pay differentials between Pre-K and K-4 teachers who have the same qualifications.
• Create a similar pilot program as Bill 1 to provide salary supplements for Pre-K Counts and public school teachers to ensure they are being paid in parity to other teachers in the school who have a PK-4 certification.
• Require that all school entities pay teachers in parity with their colleagues across their common certification grade span.
• Create a grant program to establish new child care facilities in rural counties.
• Create an Early Childhood Educator Tuition Assistance Program to provide grants to individuals seeking an associate degree or certification in early childhood education who agree to work in the field in Pennsylvania for at least two years.
• Create a similar pilot program as Bill 1 to provide salary supplements for child care professionals working in private child care centers. With the ultimate goal of addressing salary parity across all sectors of child care, the intention of this pilot program is to increase overall workers’ pay, not decrease the employers’ payroll costs.

Similar programs and requirements have been successful in supporting teachers and working families in other states like North Carolina and Florida. Our children’s teachers are earning as little as $28,000 when the national median is $36,350.

I hope you will join me in supporting these initiatives to ensure quality education for children, and access to childcare for working parents, in all areas of our Commonwealth.

Statutes/Laws affected:
Printer's No. 0800: P.L.30, No.14