Surveillance Is Not Support: BCDI-Ohio’s Statement on HB 649

Dr. Jasmine Moses

Black Child Development Institute- Ohio

3/15/2026

House Children and Human Services Committee

Chair White, Vice Chair Salvo, Ranking Member Lett, and members of the House Children and Human Services Committee, thank you for the opportunity to provide testimony on Substitute House Bill 649.

My name is Dr. Jasmine Moses. I work closely with child care providers, families, and community partners across Ohio, and I am submitting testimony in opposition to House Bill 649.

I understand and respect the importance of accountability when public funds are involved, and child care providers should absolutely be responsible stewards of those resources. While there were significant changes made to the original version of the bill, policies aimed at addressing fraud must still be grounded in the reality of how child care programs actually operate and in the broader goal of supporting a stable early childhood system.

The substitute bill directs the Department of Children and Youth to establish rules for recording and verifying attendance, including the use of state-issued electronic tablets to record attendance and capture a photograph or video of the child at the time attendance is recorded for verification purposes.

This raises serious concerns about privacy and the safety of children. Early childhood programs should be places where children are safe, trusted, and protected. Introducing systems that normalize the capture of images or video of young children as part of routine administrative processes moves us into territory that many providers and families are not comfortable with. Even if these images are ultimately destroyed, the act of collecting and storing them introduces new risks and responsibilities for programs that are already operating with limited staff and resources.

There is also the broader question of whether this level of monitoring is necessary. The justification for these kinds of measures is often framed around fraud prevention, yet the number of serious fraud cases within publicly funded child care remains extremely small relative to the size of the system. The vast majority of child care providers are doing difficult work every day to care for children, support families, and keep their programs open in a challenging environment.

When policy is built around the assumption that providers are engaging in widespread misconduct, it risks undermining trust and adding layers of compliance that do little to strengthen the system.

There is also a concern about where this leads. Policies that introduce new surveillance and monitoring practices in early childhood settings can easily undermine their intent to mitigate risk and instead generate additional forms of harm. What begins as attendance verification can gradually expand into broader monitoring expectations that change the nature of these spaces. Child care programs should not be treated like enforcement environments.

Finally, many of the operational details in this bill would be determined later through rulemaking. That leaves providers with significant uncertainty about what implementation would actually look like and what new responsibilities they would be expected to manage.

Ohio’s child care system is already under strain. Providers are navigating staffing shortages, rising costs, and increasing demand for care. Policies that introduce new compliance systems should be approached carefully and developed in partnership with the providers who will be responsible for carrying them out. Also, we should trust our providers and the expertise they bring to early childhood education to carry out the important work that they do every day. 

For these reasons, I respectfully urge the committee to oppose HB 649 in all forms. 

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Dr. Jasmine Moses

Policy Manager