The Florida Catholic Conference continues to pledge its long-standing support for parental choice programs in which participation is voluntary and children are protected by ensuring high quality and accountability.

We are supportive of a VUPK program that strengthens rights of parents by allowing them to select a public, private or faith-based program that offers a language-enriched curriculum to prepare their children to read early in life.

In January 2003, the Florida Bishops pledged their support, urging a public-private partnership that would protect the best interest of all children, urging that all stakeholders would have a say in developing, implementing and ensuring accountability in the program. Since that time, this office, the Catholic School Superintendents and Catholic Charities Directors have been actively advocating essential elements for this program, and we have as a matter of course provided this input to legislators, the executive office of the governor and to the public. As it stands today, the law does not provide for representatives of private schools to have voting privileges on the Early Learning Councils that will set policy for this program; this is a significant concern to us. As major stakeholders in the program, private providers should have proportional representation on the councils.

As in matters of education and other issues that relate to the respect and dignity of human life, our advocacy in VUPK is to be a voice for those who may be marginalized or disenfranchised. We will continue our efforts to ensure that all children, especially those impoverished or disabled, will have the opportunity to obtain a high quality VUPK education in which they receive the necessary services at the program of their parents’ choice.

The Constitutional Amendment adopted by voters in 2002 provides an opportunity for all children to obtain the readiness skills necessary for them to learn to read on grade level and as such, reduce illiteracy, which is a precursor for low self esteem, dropping out of school, juvenile delinquency, drug use and adult crime.

We are especially pleased that the VUPK law enables children from the poorest of families to benefit from a full-day program when combining a VUPK scholarship with state readiness funding. It is our great hope that VUPK will provide an academic foundation for the poorest of children to read on grade level, graduate from high school, pursue postsecondary education, obtain employment opportunities to support their families, all of which lead to responsible citizenship.

We urge the governor and legislative leaders to pursue follow up legislation in the 2005 session to further amend the VUPK law. We understand that some aspects of this program need to be incremental, but there are other important provisions that should be enacted before the program launches in the fall. In particular, provisions are needed to assure that children with disabilities, developmental delays and language impairments, including Limited English Proficiency, are able to fully participate in the program.

We are also concerned that children from working poor families – those whose household income does not qualify for state readiness funding, yet do not have the financial wherewithal to supplement the UPK scholarship – will be adversely impacted. Because the cost to provide a full-day academic Pre-K program is substantially higher than the $2,500 that is proposed for a UPK scholarship, those with means may be able to obtain slots by paying additional amounts. This may have an unintended consequence of limiting options for children in working poor families. Making provisions for this vulnerable population, even if phased in, is a reasonable amendment.

The VUPK program will be greatly enhanced for those in most need by assuring a coordinated delivery system for children to receive the necessary services. Although the state is today primarily relying upon private-sector programs to implement VUPK, children parentally placed in nonpublic early childhood programs are not assured that they will receive special education services. Spelling out the law’s intent to assure these services in the least restrictive environment will provide hope and promise.

In the present construct of the law, parents who may prefer private-sector programs for their children, or who may be forced to select a nonpublic early childhood program because of lack of availability in the public sector, are not assured their children will receive services. Moreover, children who are evaluated and diagnosed with a disability upon enrolling in a private-sector program are not presently assured of special education services. This was our experience when we began participation in the Opportunity Scholarship program and we believe students eligible and deserving of these services in VUPK should have assurances spelled out in policy.

Because VUPK requires that students are academically ready for kindergarten as measured by a post-test assessment that will be the basis to evaluate early childhood providers, we have expressed our concern that some providers will be deterred from enrolling children who are developmentally below age 4, and/or are evaluated with a learning disability. Allowing an entry level assessment to determine where a child is academically upon beginning the program, will allow a measurement of how well the program has helped the child advance. We think a provision for this should be in the law.

Many Catholic programs enroll up to 25 students, which is the class limit per our accreditation standards in Pre-K 4. A second teacher is required when enrolling more than 20 students. Because so many of these programs are at capacity, and because registration for fall classes is already underway, it will be difficult for many of them to participate in VUPK without turning parents away. We appreciate the rationale for a 1 to 10 teacher-pupil ratio. However, the class size limit of 18 students per class would require a majority of our programs to reduce the number of students by seven and then hire a second teacher when enrolling an 11th student.

Catholic School Superintendents and principals are actively engaged in discussions to determine to what extent it will be feasible for our programs to participate in VUPK. Discussions are also underway with our Catholic Charities Directors to determine the level of participation for the programs under the sponsorship of Catholic Charities agencies.

Parents in our programs deserve our strongest efforts to find a way for as many as possible to take advantage of a VUPK scholarship. The integrity of our existing programs and maintenance of our student base are also deserving of our protection and we must continue to be a voice for the poor and disabled.