Home » Gov. Beshear ceremonially signs laws for booster seats, child care

Gov. Beshear ceremonially signs laws for booster seats, child care

Booster seat law increases height and age requirements

LEXINGTON, Ky. (June 15, 2015) — Gov. Steve Beshear today ceremonially signed two laws, for booster seats and child care.

House Bill 315

The bill brings Kentucky’s booster seat law in line with 31 other states, including all seven neighboring states.

The previous law required children younger than 7 years old and between 40 and 50 inches in height to ride in booster seats. The enhanced bill increases the height requirement to 57 inches and the age requirement to 8 years old. Children younger than 8 but taller than 57 inches, will not have to ride in a booster seat.

House Bill 234

The bill expands and enhances Kentucky’s quality rating system for early care and education programs.

The five-star rating system, called Kentucky All STARS, is being piloted this year and assesses quality across different program types including, community-based child care, Head Start and school-based Pre-K. The new rating system will help families more easily identify quality facilities so that their children are more likely to arrive at school ready to learn and succeed.

Only 50 percent of students in all 173 school districts arrived kindergarten-ready, according to the 2014-15 Kentucky Kindergarten Readiness Screening of children entering kindergarten. That means nearly 24,500 students entered school less than fully prepared to do kindergarten-level work.