Delaware continues to launch strategies to further strengthen its educator workforce—from increased pay recommended in the next budget cycle—to a handful of new bills introduced in Legislative Hall this session.

Like the rest of the country, Delaware has fewer teachers in its pipeline than in generations past, punctuated by declines in educator preparation enrollment and retention challenges. However, in recent years, Delaware has embarked on a concerted effort to support new and future educators. Delaware legislators have passed bills establishing “Grow Your Own” programs, yearlong teaching residencies, and Registered Apprenticeships in teaching, and now state leaders looking to do even more—with a focus on starting earlier.

HB 332 establishes standards for the state high school K-12 Teacher Academy, with the goal to connect aspiring educators with their next career steps—including higher education, work-based learning, and courses that can advance their pathway to becoming an educator in Delaware.

These experiences would all build on the three pathway courses already required and be available to students in their fourth year. At that late stage in their pathways journey, many upperclassmen students have already burned through all available coursework and work-based opportunities.

The bill directs the Department of Education to support expansion of the Teacher Academy, provide standard curriculum, and ensure coursework is articulated to higher education institutions. The goal is to build intentional connections with Grow Your Own initiatives, apprenticeships and pre-apprenticeships, and yearlong teacher residencies—and to support students to secure scholarships to continue their education.

HB 331 establishes a career scholarship for Teacher Academy students to fill the $2,500 gap between the current career scholarship and other funding, including registered apprenticeship funding, which can cover two years of a students’ higher education. This would be in addition to SEED and Inspire scholarships, which cover tuition at public universities for qualifying students.

The goal of both bills is to attract and retain educators earlier—and to support them as they pursue education as a career in Delaware.

Several other bills related to the educator workforce are under consideration as well, including:

• SB 227, which would implement the recommendation of the Public Education Compensation Committee to allocate units for IT staff to Delaware districts and charters
• SB 187, which would award credit for degrees earned prior to becoming an educator, advancing educators on the salary schedule regardless of the subject area of their degree
• HS 2 for HB 252, which awards years on the salary schedule for educators who complete a teacher residency

These bills come during a budget cycle in which Gov. John Carney included the PECC recommendations to increase educator salaries in his proposed FY25  budget, which starts July 1. Delaware continues to advance its educator recruitment, compensation, and retention strategies—foundational pillars of any education system.

Although Delaware has some of the strongest licensing policies in terms of what types of child care are required to be licensed (almost no program is exempt) and what the requirements are for the workforce, several incidents of injury and even death of children have occurred in recent years. These include murder, smothering, physical abuse and unsafe sleep and feeding care, and falling into a septic tank.

Health and safety complaints to the Office of Child Care Licensing are up 30 percent over the last year, according to the Department of Education, which oversees Child Care Licensing. And, many Licensing Specialists positions sit vacant, so complaints cannot be investigated quickly.

Delaware is not unique in the health and safety risks to young children. As a state, we must address staffing and investment issues underlying these incidents. Infants are most likely to be harmed and are exposed to the least educated, lowest paid educators. These children are unable to speak, get away, or defend themselves.

Why is this happening?

As we’ve written in this space, Delaware and the nation can do more to support the child care workforce.

Child care has faced crisis level staffing shortages, which cause programs to:

• Close classrooms or close their business altogether, which decreases supply for families
• Hire any candidates who come to them without a competitive pool

The state benefits system does not include early educators. Stress and burnout from home and work can take their toll on anyone, let alone someone working with screaming infants and without access to trauma/mental health resources. Most make minimum wage and many qualify for public assistance.

There is no substitute pool for early educators, so when someone is out, administrators cover their classroom, which means there are limited administrators who can provide oversight into classrooms to ensure health and safety protocols are being followed.

Early educators are not required to earn a license before joining the profession. Each program who hires an educator must review independent background checks and verify qualifications.

What can be done?

Some work is underway, including moving to an electronic system of child care licensing and professional registry (the state has an RFP out for these services). Today in 2024, Delaware still uses paper licensing forms and records to maintain health and safety of young children. Advocates argue that accelerating this process would be extremely helpful.

State systems and program investments include:

1. Invest in early care and education at the true cost of quality. The state does not even invest at the level to cover basic operational costs for programs following minimum state standards, such as minimum wage—let alone quality. Programs cannot pay and retain their staff with this low level of investment. Investing more would create a larger pool of educators and allow programs to be more selective.
2. Create a substitute pool like this one in Washington that can be shared among providers.
3. Limit which adults can be alone with children, including removing the ability to leave interns (who have only three credits and 15 hours of training) alone with children above age one.
4. Better support licensing services and employees in Delaware, so they can monitor child care more often. A better-staffed, better-compensated state licensing department would allow for more follow-ups and more unannounced visits to centers. This would require a pay scale similar to the ones used by the Delaware Department of Education.

For early educators,

5. Require early educators to be professionally licensed by the state, where their data is maintained centrally and their license can be revoked upon inappropriate behavior.
6. Close loopholes in employment reporting requirements so an applicant’s employment history and records are available to future employers.
7. Provide access to the state health care benefit system—allow child care providers to access the state system by paying an administrative fee, like fire companies can now.

Our families deserve to have safe spaces for their children so they can work, and children—who cannot speak up for themselves—deserve our protection, attention, and investment.

As we have written about in the past, the rates at which Delaware funds child care remain too low for providers to support quality—let alone to cover basic costs required to operate, like paying staff, rising wages and costs, driven by minimum wage increases and inflation.

Delaware has long relied on a “market rate” study to set those rates. That study process has come under fire since it reflects what parents are able to pay in tuition. As a result, the state is moving toward utilizing a cost of care methodology—a study that examines what it actually costs to provide quality care.

What’s Underway and What Can We Expect

The Delaware Department of Health and Social Services is currently conducting both studies—and there are opportunities for child care programs to provide input in the coming weeks on “what it truly costs to provide quality child care—not just what families can afford.” Both studies are due later this spring.

Typically, the state has conducted a market rate study each year, and rates typically go up two to three percent per year or about nine to 10 percent every three years.

We anticipate the cost estimation to rise based on increases, including in:

• Minimum wage, which will have gone up 50 percent in January since 2020 (from $9.725 to $15/hour), causing other wages to increase. In an ideal system, child care workers would be paid on a target compensation scale on par with K-12 public educators).
• Hiring needs, because new hires don’t always show up when expected and turnover is significant.
• Behavioral challenges from children and increased developmental delays identified.
• Requirements to meet quality standards of the state, which are important for child development and still not yet high enough. One example is greater family service coordination to support wraparound care for families as well as qualification requirements for educators.

What’s Next

Based on the results of the studies, the policy- and budget-making process requires rate changes. For example, the budget epilogue last year indicated that Purchase of Care rates should be set at 100 percent of the 75^th percentile of the 2021 market rate—which would necessitate change to 2024 rates. And the Department of Education determined that state funded pre-K (ECAP) would be based on the 2021 cost of care rates for FY24, but FY25 remains to be determined.

1. Early care and education programs, participate in cost of care info sessions.
   1. Prenatal to Five Fiscal Strategies (P5FS) is seeking input on the cost of child care from early care and education providers, including child care centers and family child care homes, to help inform Delaware’s child care subsidy payment rates. Make your voice heard by participating in a Virtual Input Session.
2. Stay tuned for the release of the 2024 Market Rate Study and Cost of Care Estimation Model (both anticipated March/April). Sign up for the Delaware Early Childhood Council newsletter for updates and related events.
3. Advocate for Increased Rates during the FY25 Budget Development.
   1. Reach out to legislators through this platform or directly to tell them to increase investments.
      1. The Joint Finance Committee, which builds on the Governor’s Recommended Budget, meets again starting May 28.
   2. Save the date: Early Childhood Advocacy Day will be May 16 in Dover.

The Delaware Business Roundtable recently released its Delaware Investment Agenda, a series of priorities and recommendations focused on investing long-term to build Delaware’s economy—with a particular focus on collaboration across siloes and sectors. The 2016 Growth Agenda informed the creation of the Delaware Prosperity Partnership when Governor John Carney took office, and the aspiration is that the 2024 Investment Agenda informs the state’s priorities beyond a single four-year election cycle.

A major strategic recommendation found in the Investment Agenda is to “Support equitable investment in early childhood education to increase access.” It’s the only recommendation related to education before higher education and workforce development. The Agenda mentions two primary reasons to invest early:

1. Removing child care as barrier to employment. The report sees increasing availability and affordability of early childhood education as a key strategy to supporting workforce participation, noting its impact on retention and post-pandemic labor force participation.

2. Improving education outcomes by supporting children’s development during their most formative years. Looking long-term, the Agenda recommends investments for the future workforce of the state. Such investments would generate “substantial benefits for all, including better educational outcomes for historically disadvantaged students in the state….[which] is crucial to Delaware’s economic future.”

The report notes “a compelling need to invest in this space,” as six out of seven young children in Delaware are unable to access early childhood education, adding, “Delaware must implement strategies to stabilize and expand access to and affordability of early childhood education.” 

The recommendations are solid strategies for improving access and affordability for Delaware’s parents in the workforce. Those include:

• Expand Eligibility for State Funded Child Care: “Ensure wider access to early childhood education by expanding support to families earning over 200 percent of the federal poverty level (FPL). Currently Delaware provides support to families earning between 185 and 200 percent of FPL.”
  • Rodel and a coalition of partners have recommend going to at least 250 percent of the Federal Poverty Level. All of Delaware’s neighboring states set easier benchmarks for access.
• “Invest in the early childhood education workforce through apprenticeship models, professional development, support for obtaining professional credentials, and equitable compensation and benefits.”

The state has made investments in workforce development, including recent investments in the Early Childhood Innovation Center at Delaware State University. Delaware has a long way to go to invest in programs sufficiently so they can provide equitable compensation and benefits (as recommended in the state target compensation scale).

• Invest in high-quality programs. “Continue to support evidence-based curricula, screening, and assessments (STAR Quality rating) to ensure program quality across early childhood education programs. The Kingswood Early Learning Academy is an example of an early childhood education program that has improved outcomes with this approach.”
  • Although STARs is no longer underway, the state is funding quality through its pre-K Early Childhood Assistance Program (ECAP), which aligns with Head Start quality standards, and through quality improvement awards.

The report also recommends a public-private partnership like the Michigan Tri-Share Child Care program that splits the cost of childcare equally between an employer, the employee, and the state. (Another model to consider is the Wisconsin Partner Up model, which focuses on the true cost of child care.) The model is growing slowly and presents challenges associated with employer-sponsored care, which offers child care to those who are fortunate enough to be employed by a specific employer.

Rodel and partners have long advocated that Delaware should treat early childhood care and education like a public good, investing as a state—and country—as we do for children when they turn five in public schools, like most developed countries do. National experts and research highlight that these selective approaches can reinforce inequities and rather propose a focus on the more systemic approaches laid out in the above recommendations.

The Investment Agenda reinforces Delaware business support of greater investment, including the Delaware Business Roundtable Education Committee prioritizing the issue for over a decade. In 2022, The Federal Reserve of Philadelphia and the Delaware State Chamber of Commerce released “Child Care is Everyone’s Business,” expressing support for greater investment. Additional business support for early childhood has come from the Kent Sussex Leadership Alliance, New Castle County Chamber, and Bethany Fenwick Chamber.

While we have made progress, investing at a higher rate and stabilizing a fragile system, the next governor has an opportunity to make transformational change through transformational investments that truly provide a strong foundation for Delaware’s children—serving the majority in high-quality, publicly funded environments.