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Q&A
Potential impact of ACS voucher funding gap on DOE's early childhood education
0:42:04
·
98 sec
Council Member Justin Brannan raises concerns about the potential $1 billion funding gap for ACS vouchers and its impact on DOE's early childhood education system. Deputy Chancellor Simone Hawkins explains the relationship between ACS-overseen CCBG funded seats and DOE's extended day and year (EDY) seats.
- ACS oversees CCBG funded seats, including vouchers and EDY seats
- DOE has about 20,000 EDY seats, with current enrollment around 11,000
- DOE is working with ACS to help families find contracted care if voucher-funded care is unavailable
Justin Brannan
0:42:04
Okay.
0:42:05
We had ACS here yesterday and obviously spoke a lot about the vouchers.
0:42:13
ACS has obviously raised concerns around a potential $1,000,000,000 gap in funding to support the program.
0:42:20
What would the impact to the DOE's early childhood education system's capacity be if the potential funding gap for the ACS vouchers remains?
Simone Hawkins
0:42:33
Good Thank you Dan.
0:42:36
Good morning.
0:42:37
Just restating my name, Simone Hawkins, Deputy Chancellor Early Childhood Education.
Daniel Weisberg
0:42:41
Thank you.
Simone Hawkins
0:42:42
Of course.
0:42:43
And so, it's important to note that ACS is our oversight for CCBG funded seats which includes vouchers and what is also known as extended day and year seats, EDY.
0:42:53
And so, although those seats all come from the same funding stream, they do to your point fund different types of seats and slots, so vouchers versus contracted care which is under us.
0:43:05
And so, we work very closely with ACS in support of this population knowing that we are very thankful for the support of sustaining care for families who are re certifying, but also knowing that we need to support any new applicants and so we do have a significant number of EDY seats about 20,000.
0:43:24
They do go under enrolled, they're means tested seats And as of today about 11,000 of those 20,000 seats are enrolled.
0:43:31
They support toddlers threes and fours.
0:43:33
And so we are working with ACS to really help families route their way to contracted care in the case that they can't find a voucher funded any voucher funded care.