I am the director of a very small parent-led cooperative preschool.  This means that while we have one paid, education and well-trained teacher in class at all times, there are three volunteer parents in the classroom as well serving as teacher aides through the day.  With 20 children in the classroom, this brings our ratio to 5:1.  The current regulations require these parents to have four hours of training annually.  The proposed change to the regs (22VAC40-185-245) requires that all parents “who are counted in staff ratios” (which now specifically includes parents in co-ops) have 20 hours of annual training, including CPR and first aid certification. This would require parents who are scheduled to work 20 days per school year, for 2.5 hours per class shift, for a total of 50 classroom hours, to have 20 hours of training.  This is an unreasonable expectation of preschool parents in terms of time and expense. 

To avoid having parents counted in the ratio (to keep them from having to meet the training requirement), we’d have to have to hire an additional staff person to be in the classroom every day, which would cause our tuition to rise to an untenable level.  

There are many successful cooperative preschools in Virginia.  The cooperative preschool model has many benefits including low tuition (because the parents serve as unpaid classroom aides) and genuine parental involvement in children’s early education (something virtually everyone acknowledges is important).  When parents are involved in their child’s education early on, they generally continue to be involved.  In my experience, many of the parent leaders at the elementary, middle, and high schools in our area started out in cooperative preschools. To not have cooperatives as an option for early childhood education would ultimately impact educational involvement and leadership in the entire community.

I respectfully request that VDSS remove the language “who are not considered staff” from section 22VAC40-185-245 describing the required training for cooperative preschool parents.