This bill adds a new section to chapter 43.216 RCW that creates a temporary alternative path for licensed child care providers to meet staff qualification rules by documenting "experience-based competency" in the department's electronic workforce registry instead of holding an early childhood education initial, short, or state certificate. It is a new statutory provision that permits an alternative qualification method, requires the agency to recognize qualifying providers proactively, allows the agency to set more restrictive rules for providers serving the Early Childhood Education and Assistance Program (including excluding this alternative), and permits excluding experience-based competency from Early Achievers professional development point calculations. The bill also requires the department of children, youth, and families to convene a stakeholder group to identify strategies to improve qualification and verification processes, and to report to the legislature by December 1, 2026; the stakeholder-group authority expires July 1, 2028. To use the experience-based competency alternative (available at least through August 1, 2028), a provider must have documentation in the department's electronic workforce registry showing: active employment in a position that requires an early childhood education certificate; either continuous employment in a licensed center or family home since August 1, 2021, or a cumulative seven years of such employment; and completion of, and ongoing compliance with, required health and safety and child care or school-age care basics training. The department must proactively recognize providers who already met these criteria as of the effective date of the new section and must notify those providers without requiring an application. Important details are not present in the extracted text: the bill's effective date is not provided; Sec. 1 refers to "the department" without naming the agency; the document does not define "experience-based competency" or explain the registry verification procedures or the timeline for convening the stakeholder group.

If enacted, many long‑serving licensed child care workers who can show, in the state’s electronic workforce registry, continuous employment since August 1, 2021 (or seven cumulative years), the required health and safety trainings, and current work in a position that normally requires an early childhood education certificate will be able to use that documented experience instead of holding an initial, short, or state ECE certificate through at least August 1, 2028. The state agency must proactively identify and notify workers who already meet those criteria without requiring them to apply, which will likely lower upfront training and certification costs and reduce administrative steps for affected workers and their employers; however programs in the state’s ECEAP can still be held to stricter rules that may exclude this option, and experience‑based competency may not count toward Early Achievers professional development points. Licensed child care centers, family home providers, and the specific statewide organizations named for the stakeholder group are most affected: centers may gain more staffing flexibility and reduced credentialing costs, while ECEAP sites and agencies administering professional development may face new choices about whether to accept experience instead of certificates. The department of children, youth, and families must convene a stakeholder group to recommend longer‑term changes and report to the Legislature by December 1, 2026, with that stakeholder work expiring July 1, 2028. Important details are missing from the extracted text—specifically which agency is the implementing “department,” the bill’s effective date, and how “experience‑based competency” will be defined and verified—so actual day‑to‑day impacts and timelines remain somewhat uncertain.