(a) The Commissioner of Early Childhood shall establish, within available appropriations, a program to (1) purchase directly or provide subsidies to parents to purchase child care services provided by any elementary or secondary school, nursery school, preschool, child care center, as described in section 19a-77, group child care home, as described in section 19a-77, family child care home, as described in section 19a-77, family resource center, Head Start program, or local or regional board of education, provided, if the commissioner purchases such services directly, he or she shall give preference to purchasing from providers of full-day and year-round programs; and (2) award grants to providers of school readiness programs, as defined in section 10-16p, to increase the hours of operation of their programs in order to provide child care for children attending such programs. The commissioner, for purposes of subdivision (1) of this subsection, may model the program on the program established pursuant to section 17b-749.

(b) No funds received by a provider pursuant to this section shall be used to supplant federal funding received for early childhood education on behalf of children in an early childhood education program.

(c) The commissioner shall: (1) Coordinate the development of a range of alternative programs to meet the needs of all children; (2) foster partnerships between school districts and private organizations; (3) provide information and assistance to parents in selecting an appropriate school readiness program; and (4) work to ensure, to the extent possible, that school readiness programs allow open enrollment for all children and allow families receiving benefits for such a program to choose a public or accredited private program.

(P.A. 95-226, S. 26, 30; P.A. 96-213, S. 2, 5; P.A. 97-259, S. 5, 41; P.A. 11-44, S. 97; P.A. 14-39, S. 33; P.A. 15-227, S. 25; P.A. 16-163, S. 34.)

History: P.A. 95-226 effective July 1, 1995; P.A. 96-213 added the definitions as Subsec. (a) and relettered existing Subsecs., transferring responsibility for the administration of the program from the State Board of Education to the Commissioner of Social Services, adding provision for the collaboration of other departments, changing the design of the program so that it was no longer a grant program for boards of education and requiring the program to be modeled after the program established pursuant to Sec. 17b-749, and adding duties of the council, effective July 1, 1996; P.A. 97-259 deleted former Subsecs. (a) and (d) re definitions and School Readiness Council and redesignated remaining subsecs., in new Subsec. (a) changed the program from a school readiness program modeled after the program established pursuant to Sec. 17b-749 to a program to provide for the purchase of child day care services and grants to providers of school readiness programs, in Subsec. (c) made the duties previously the responsibility of the School Readiness Council the responsibility of the Commissioners of Social Services and Education, and made technical changes, effective July 1, 1997; P.A. 11-44 amended Subsecs. (a) and (c) by deleting references to Commissioner of Social Services and further amended Subsec. (a) by replacing “shall” with “may” re modeling program on the program established pursuant to Sec. 17b-749, effective July 1, 2011; P.A. 14-39 replaced references to Commissioner of Education with references to Commissioner of Early Childhood and made a technical change, effective July 1, 2014; pursuant to P.A. 15-227, “child day care services”, “group day care home” and “family day care home” were changed editorially by the Revisors to “child care services”, group child care home” and “family child care home”, respectively, in Subsec. (a), effective July 1, 2015; P.A. 16-163 amended Subsec. (a) by replacing “day care center” with “child care center” and adding references to Sec. 19a-77, effective June 9, 2016.