Special Edition Policy Round-Up: Early childhood and K-12 education policy changes in Ohio budget

Ohio FY 22-23 budget: A list of early childhood and K-12 education policy changes

Child care quality, funding, and eligibility

• Step Up to Quality: Efforts made by the Ohio Senate to remove Step Up to Quality requirements were ultimately unsuccessful in the legislation’s final form. The mandate for all publicly funded providers of child care to apply and receive entry into the star-rating system remains, but additional requirements that providers must move “up” the quality ladder were struck from law. That is, providers need one star in order to receive public child care subsidies, but do not have to achieve three stars by June 30, 2025, as was the case under previous law.
• Family income eligibility: Ohio has long had a relatively low eligibility threshold for families to qualify for publicly funded child care (PFCC), at 130% of the federal poverty line (FPL). Advocates had been calling for an increase to 200% of FPL, or any move in that direction to raise eligibility for families. The legislation lifted the ceiling to 142% of FPL, which can be calculated as an income of $37,630 for a family of four in 2021. For families whose children have special needs, eligibility was raised to 150% of FPL for initial eligibility, and 300% of FPL for continued eligibility. There is a sunset provision applied in this portion of the bill, with the expanded eligibility only applied through June 30, 2023.
• Eligibility period: The legislation stipulates that the eligibility period for PFCC be “at least 12 months,” and that caretaking parents who are no longer employed or participating in education or training receive PFCC for at least three months but no longer than four months – a slight extension beyond the current allowance for 13 weeks. According to the Department of Job and Families Services, this helps to align the PFCC eligibility window with other programs. This one-time extension and redetermination date will extend benefits for some families.
• Study committee: Specified members from the Ohio General Assembly must evaluate publicly funded child care and the SUTQ system, specifically as it relates to: the number of PFCC-receiving children and families; the number of programs participating in SUTQ and receiving PFCC; funding sources for SUTQ and PFCC, as well as the “long-term sustainability” of those sources; eligibility for PFCC; issues related to access to the program; the way that the Department of Job and Family Services establishes reimbursement payment rates for providers; the number of licensed child care providers; any administrative burdens resulting from achieving/maintaining the star rating; alternative criteria by which a program receiving PFCC but enrolling a “low census of children” could obtain a one-star rating. The committee must hold hearings and receive public and relevant agency testimony, and must release a final report of findings and possible recommendations by December 1, 2022. By the end of this current year (2021), the committee must evaluate and recommend criteria by which a program with “low census” enrollment could achieve a one-star rating through alternative means.
• Use of federal funds: Certain federal funds (in the amount of $50,000,000 for FY22) were earmarked to be used by the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services to help “stabilize and sustain” the state’s child care program as well as improve workforce recruitment and retention and improve family access to the program.

Child welfare

• Foster care “Bill of Rights”: The Ohio Department of Job and Family Services is required to adopt rules establishing a Foster Youth Bill of Rights and a Resource Family Bill of Rights, with a “resource caregiver” defined as a foster caregiver or kinship caregiver and a “resource family” as a foster home or the kinship caregiver family.
• Kinship Caregiver Program: $10,000,000 in each fiscal year from the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) block grant will go towards supporting kinship care. A variety of other changes were made related to kinship caregiving, placement, and kinship guardianship assistance payments.
• Criminal background checks: For those responsible for providing out-of-home child care, as well as members of a household for a host family under a host family agreement, certain crimes will be added to the Bureau of Criminal Identification and Investigation background check.

Early childhood (preschool) funding and requirements

• State funding for the early childhood program: Funding for “early childhood education” broadly speaking comes from a wide variety of state and federal sources. In state budget documents, mentions of the early childhood program specifically refer to the state’s Early Childhood Education grant for eligible four-year-olds in “high-need” areas of the state. These funds pay for a certain number of hours for eligible children and are often layered or combined with Head Start funds, federal funds, or even local funds. The FY22-23 budget appropriates $68.1 million for each year from the state’s General Revenue Fund (GRF), up slightly from FY20 ($64.2 million).
• Quality: Interestingly, eligibility for the state early childhood grant appears to maintain the existing requirement that programs reach the three-star Step Up to Quality requirement. The Senate attempted to remove this requirement, but it remained in the final legislation.
• Reporting and tracking requirements: The legislation does ask the two separate early childhood governing agencies, the Ohio Department of Education and the Department of Job and Family Services, to continue work to “align the application process, program eligibility, funding, attendance policies, and attendance tracking for early childhood programs in both agencies.” The Ohio Department of Education is also required to conduct an annual survey of early childhood providers to glean information about tuition or fees for families, the amount families are charged relative to their income levels, as well as the number of families/students charged. Finally, the Department must issue an annual report about its early childhood education programs.

Food and nutrition

• SNAP eligibility: An attempt made by the Ohio Senate to add new regulations – or “asset tests” – for recipients of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) was ultimately unsuccessful. A new requirement was passed for the Ohio Department of Job and Family Serivces to collect information on “suspicious electronic benefit transfer card transactions” and to give that data to each county department for their own analysis and investigation. On a related note, here is a good read on what the research shows regarding how frequently such fraud actually occurs.
• Name change: The budget passed language that essentially allows agency directors to refer to the program more broadly, calling it the Food Stamp Program, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or the Food Assistance Program in agency rules and documents, rather than amending language so as to call it SNAP, only.

Home visiting

• Age eligibility: The maximum age of a child whose family is eligible for the state’s Help Me Grow Program shifted from three to five years old. The appropriation amount for the program increased by $2 million (above estimated FY21 expenditures) in order to pay for the costs of expanded eligibility and new families being served.
• Reduced requirement: A requirement for home visit providers (operating within the Help Me Grow Program, WIC clinics, and Medicaid managed care organizations) to promote the use of technological resources providing information on having a healthy baby and healthy pregnancy was struck from law.
• New reporting requirement: The Director of Health must submit a report regarding the Help Me Grow program to specified Ohio legislative committee members. The report must include the number of Medicaid- and TANF-eligible families in the program as well as recommendations for using funds associated with Medicaid and TANF to provide services through Help Me Grow.
• Summit: The summit on home visiting programs facilitated by the Ohio Department of Health will be once every two years, rather than twice per year.

Kindergarten readiness and literacy

• KRA testing window: Currently, schools have between July 1 and November 1 of a given school year to administer the Kindergarten Readiness Assessment (KRA). The new law requires that it be completed by the 20th day of instruction of a school year.
• Governor’s Imagination Library: Funding for this book distribution program will be $8 million for each fiscal year. This is an increase of $5 million per year from last biennial budget, at the outset of the program.

K-12 education policy (including school funding)

• School funding: The long-debated Fair School Funding Plan will now become law, building on the work of Reps. Cupp and Patterson and several statewide working groups. The primary change is an overhaul of the formula by which funds are determined, such that uniform per-pupil “formula amount” (currently, $6,020) will be determined by an estimated statewide average per-pupil base cost ($7,202) with a variable per-pupil base cost computed for each school district based on: (1) teacher base cost, (2) student support base cost, (3) district leadership and accountability base cost, (4) building leadership and operations base cost, and (5) athletic co-curricular activities base cost. The overhaul will ensure that more dollars go to schools serving high-needs students. Consequently, overall state spending on K-12 education will increase by $226 million in FY22 and by another $141 million in FY23. Notably, the formula changes are only in effect through FY23, presumably to give the legislature time to determine how it will be funded in future fiscal years. The governor’s student wellness fund was wrapped into the formula and is no longer its own category of funds. Funds that were considered performance bonuses for graduation rates and third-grade reading guarantee passage rates were also removed, as were K-3 literacy funds. A variety of funding streams seems to be streamlined and subsumed within the new formula.

Also notable, the state’s choice programs (STEM schools, charter schools, and scholarship-receiving schools) will be funded directly by the state rather than through the problematic pass-through mechanism that “withdrew” funds after they were allocated to resident public school districts.

• Choice: Changes were made to the eligibility parameters for Ohio’s EdChoice scholarship program, and the current cap of 60,000 slots was lifted. The Legislative Service Commission estimates that payments for the program will increase by $43 billion in FY22 and $55.7 million in FY23. Regardless of one’s view on Ohio’s choice program, it’s worth noting that these amounts are quite small in contrast to what was calculated as the base cost for traditional school districts in a given year (FY23): $9.3 billion.

• College admissions assessments and graduation requirements: Parents will be permitted to opt their high school students out of the state requirement to take a national college admissions test. (Obviously, institutions of higher education can retain their own requirements.) Students may also demonstrate competency in alternative ways in order to meet the state’s high school graduation requirements.
• Academic distress commissions: For the 2021-2022 and 2022-2023 school years, the state superintendent may not create new academic distress commissions (ADCs) to oversee underperforming school districts. This provision has no effect on existing ADCs.
• Online learning and blended learning: Any school district – with the permission of the state superintendent – will be allowed to operate a school using an online learning model. While online learning occurred during the COVID-19 pandemic, the law makes its allowance official, and also establishes requirements that districts must provide students with a computer, internet access, comprehensive orientation, and must implement a time tracking system. Student-teacher ratios cannot be more than one teacher for every 125 students, and students must be allowed to earn credits or advance grade levels when they demonstrate mastery of knowledge.

Maternal and child health

• Maternal mortality awareness: The month of May will be officially designated as Maternal Mortality Awareness Month.
• Postpartum health coverage extension: Medicaid-eligible women will be eligible for postpartum health coverage for up to 12 months after pregnancy, rather than 60 days.
• Eligibility for medically handicapped children: Eligibility for the Program for Medically Handicapped Children is expanded from age 21 to 22 beginning on July 1, 2021 and from 22 to 23 beginning on July 1, 2022.
• Newborn screenings: New requirements are established related to newborn health screenings as well as new processes for the state to determine how and when to add new disorders to the screening list.
• Hearing impairment funds: $200,000 will be allocated to Mothers and Children Safety Net Services for FY22 and FY23 to allow families with hearing impaired children (under 21 years) to purchase hearing aids and hearing assistive technology. Eligibility will be for families with incomes at or below 400% of the federal poverty guidelines.
• Infant vitality: Funds will be earmarked ($5 million in FY22) for an Infant Vitality program to support programming by community and local faith-based service providers that invests in maternal health programs, provides services and support to pregnant mothers, and improves both maternal and infant health outcomes. A further $500,000 in FY22 is to be used, in consultation with the Department of Medicaid, to develop a universal needs assessment to identify and provide needed health and wraparound supports for vulnerable women. The remainder of the funds will be used to fund a multi-pronged population health approach to address infant mortality. These interventions can include activities related to safe sleep, community engagement, newborn screening, safe birth spacing, gestational diabetes, smoking cessation, breastfeeding, and other specified categories.
• Tobacco cessation: Funding is appropriated for the “Moms Quit for Two” grant program, in the amounts of $750,000 for FY22 and FY23. The funds will be used to award grants to private, nonprofit entities or government entities that demonstrate the ability to deliver evidence-based tobacco cessation interventions to Medicaid-eligible pregnant women and women living with children who reside in communities with high infant mortality. $250,000 will also be allocated in FY22 and FY23 to boards of health for the Baby and Me Tobacco Free Program.

Other/miscellaneous

• Juneteenth: Following the declaration of Juneteenth as a federal holiday, Ohio moved to designate it as an official state holiday as well.
• Equity in adoption: A reference in law to persons who may adopt a child was changed from “husband and wife” to a “legally married couple.”
• Parental leave: Certain state employees will be eligible for paid parental leave benefits and leave of absence, in the event that they deliver a stillborn child.