Many New Hampshire child care centers lack the resources necessary to provide dedicated staff for children with additional developmental and behavioral needs. Because of this, many centers have been forced to decrease the number of children they can accommodate in classrooms with high-needs children, exacerbating the overall child care availability crisis.
SB 596 would help child care centers better support high-need children and further address the state's child care availability crisis.
About the Bill
SB 596 aims to address this issue by providing additional funding to centers catering to high-needs children through the New Hampshire Scholarship Program. This extra funding would enable
child care centers to hire paraprofessionals and other support staff to adequately meet the needs of all children and safely maximize enrollment in their facilities.
In some situations, children are expelled from child care centers due to high needs, leaving their working parents without child care and disrupting the child's learning process. SB 596 would
also ensure child care centers are well-equipped to care for high-needs children and reduce the rate of expulsion.
Bill Status
The House defeated SB 596 by just one vote. However, recognizing the critical need for this legislation, the Senate amended HB 1202 to include the original language of SB 596.
On May 30, 2024, the House of Representatives requested a Committee of Conference to work through differences in the bill. The committee met and agreed on the final version of the bill, keeping the original language of SB 596 to better support child care centers in meeting the needs of all children. The bill passed the House and Senate chambers in a final vote on June 13, 2024 and advanced to the Governor's desk. On August 13, 2024, Governor Sununu signed HB 1202 into law, supporting additional resources for child care centers.
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