As an alum of Arlington Unitarian Cooperative Preschool and a parent co-oper over the course of six years at AUCP, I cannot express how much I value the experience I gained both as a parent as well as current PTA executive board member at our APS elementary school about how important the role of parent co-opers are in the preschool environment.  I gained a tremendous amount of knowledge by working with the children in the classroom and side by side with the wonderful preschool teachers at AUCP.  The hands-on training I received in the classroom through direct day to day experience as well as the education classes I participated in outside of the classroom taught me so much about working with children and have been a great benefit to me now as a parent in the APS elementary school system.  I gained so much respect for the value of being fully engaged in our children's education through my experiences at AUCP, and will be forever grateful for our years at the school.  I feel strongly that the training and education I received during my years at AUCP fully prepared me for the cooping responsibilities in the classroom, and I believe that the current requirements more than met my needs as far as being fully prepared to work as a co-oper in the classroom.

Parent cooperative preschools, which have existed for over 100 years, are placed in jeopardy in Virginia by the Proposed Amended Standards.  Current Standards for Licensed Child Day Centers recognize the critical role of parent volunteers in the parent cooperative preschool model by including for cooperative parents an exception requiring limited  training annually. This exception recognizes the unique role that parents hold in a cooperative preschool, as well as the intrinsic value of an early childhood education model premised on parent involvement.

The Proposed Amended Standards as drafted, however, undermine rather than support the cooperative preschool model by requiring cooperative parents to either:

(1) Complete the 36 training hours (16 orientation, 20 ongoing) required of professional staff, or 
(2) Remain in constant sight and sound supervision of a staff member.

These two alternatives fail to recognize that:

•Cooperative parents undergo the same background checks as staff;
•Cooperative parents assist professional staff in the classroom 1-2 days/month, for a total of 3-6 hours/month (thus required training hours could exceed the number of hours in class for the entire year);
•Cooperative parents serve a unique position in the classroom, where they remain under the guidance and supervision of professional staff but may at times not be in sight and sound supervision of staff.

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.

We respectfully urge you to implement the above changes to the proposed regulations in order to preserve the viability of traditional cooperative preschools.  Thank you for your consideration in these important matters.

Respectfully,

Dena Porter