My children all attended cooperative preschool. The proposed changes would have a dramatic negative impact on cooperative schools. These changes are unduly burdensome both to the cooperative parents who seek meaningful engagement in their children's educations and to the small cooperative preschools that rely on parent engagement to survive.

To preserve the parent cooperative preschool in Virginia, the Proposed Amended Standards should be revised to allow cooperative preschool parents to work in the classroom without sight and sound supervision of a staff member provided that the parent:

(1) Satisfactorily completes the same background checks required of professional staff; and
(2) Completes a total of 4 hours of orientation and ongoing training annually.