Understanding E2SHB 1648: A Critical Step for Child Care Providers

E2SHB 1648 is an important bill that addresses key challenges in meeting child care workforce education requirements while maintaining high standards of care. This bill incentivizes existing staff to stay in the field while assisting recruitment efforts by removing barriers.

The Problems This Bill Addresses:

🔹 Risk of Diminishing Quality by Losing Experienced Child Care Staff: By allowing work experience equivalency for all child care positions, not just teachers, this bill acknowledges the value of experience while preventing the loss of skilled, dedicated professionals who have years of hands-on experience. Without this exemption, experienced providers could be forced out of the field, reducing the quality of care and deepening the workforce crisis.

🔹 Limited Availability of ECE Programs and Courses: Early Childhood Education (ECE) programs are few, and class offerings are limited. Staff report being unable to enroll because courses are full, forcing them to wait an entire year for another opportunity.

🔹 High Cost of Tuition: Child care staff are among the lowest-paid workers in the state, making tuition a significant financial barrier. Without scholarship funding and with limited affordable options, many providers struggle to complete the required coursework.

🔹 Lack of Access to Early Achievers Scholarship Funds: Not all colleges offer Early Achievers scholarships, and currently, there is a waitlist because the scholarship funds are not widely available to all students. This leaves many providers without the financial support they need to pursue the required education.

🔹 Rigid Timelines That Make Education Even More Inaccessible: Extending (or eliminating) the arbitrary education deadline removes barriers caused by availability issues. If required courses aren’t offered or are full, providers should not be penalized with an unrealistic deadline.

What the Bill Does:

✅ Extends the education requirement deadline from August 1, 2026, to August 1, 2030. Originally, providers had requested a 10-year extension (until August 1, 2035) then negotiated that down to a 7-year extension (until August 1, 2032) which was amended down to 5-years. Even still, this bill provides a compromise that grants additional time while still ensuring progress toward education goals. This is crucial because it gives current child care providers—many of whom are already stretched thin—the flexibility to meet requirements without disrupting their ability to provide care.

Additionally, most professionals pursuing an undergraduate degree are not required to complete it within a rigid state-imposed timeline—so why is child care being treated differently? If Washington values child care as a critical public good, it should support providers rather than burden them with arbitrary deadlines that create barriers to staying in the field. This extension helps alleviate that pressure while still upholding quality standards.

✅ Reduces the work experience requirement from 7 years to 5 years. The original request from child care providers was for 3 years of consecutive experience or 5 years cumulative, but this adjustment still lowers the barrier for experienced child care providers to meet qualification requirements. This is important because it acknowledges the expertise gained through years of hands-on work and makes it more feasible for long-serving providers to continue in the field.

✅ Expands work experience equivalency exemptions to apply to all child care positions, not just teachers. Additionally, it removes the requirement that providers complete STARS and other mandated training courses in order to maintain this exemption. It does not eliminate the requirement for continuing STARS hours, it simply removes that as a continual requirement to keep the exemption providing more flexibility if a person has to leave the field for personal reasons. They can return without the pressure of losing their exemption. This is important because it recognizes the value of hands-on experience and helps keep qualified, experienced professionals in the field without unnecessary barriers.

What the Bill Does NOT Do:

🚫 It does not eliminate education requirements. Providers who do not meet the cumulative experience exemption are still expected to meet education standards over time. This gives advocates, providers and lawmakers space to deliberate the need for an arbitrary education requirement deadline.

🚫 It does not eliminate STARS or annual training requirements. Ongoing professional development remains essential to ensuring quality care, and is still required for all child care providers. The Bill simply recognizes that most providers experienced a lapse in training availability due to the pandemic. Today, that means they would lose their exemption. E2SHB 1648 allows providers to retain the work experience equivalence exemption without tying the exemption to ongoing STARS trainings. If a provider does not continue taking STARS trainings, that is a licensing violation and can be addressed by the individual’s licensor.

🚫 It does not address the community-based pathway to meet education requirements. The original request from providers was to redesign the community-based pathway (PACE) to align with the former Building Bridges program that was hugely successful but unfortunately unfunded. While a community-based pathway was considered (HB 1649), the associated fiscal note was potentially prohibitive in the current budget scenario and may have impacted the passage of E2SHB 1648. This means providers will still need to rely on existing education pathways to meet requirements.

This bill represents a balanced approach to addressing workforce shortages while upholding quality standards in early childhood education. By easing the timeline, reducing work experience barriers, and acknowledging the expertise of experienced providers, it helps stabilize the child care workforce at a time when access to care is more critical than ever.