March 22, 2021

Dear School Readiness Partner:

The Office of Early Learning (OEL) has an important update to share with you regarding new functionality in the statewide Provider Portal coming later this month.

Pending Family Acceptance (PFA)

The requirement that parents must sign and present the payment certificate is an existing requirement.

When a new School Readiness enrollment is created for an eligible child, families must accept the terms and conditions, establish their consent for developmental screening and/or child assessment, and sign the payment certificate. Too often, families are not completing these steps and the child’s enrollment remains in the PFA status.

In February, OEL initiated an automated email notification to families that is sent every five days until these steps are completed and the enrollment status changes from “Pending Family Acceptance” to “Enrolled.”

At the end of March, new enrollments in the PFA status will not be visible on provider attendance rosters. This means that families must complete all of the enrollment steps before attendance for affected children can be submitted and reimbursed.

There are a few exceptions:

New enrollments for at-risk children (BG1) or at-risk children in relative care (BG3R) billing groups with the PFA  status will populate on attendance rosters,

Existing enrollments with the PFA status that have already been submitted for attendance in previous months will continue to populate on attendance rosters.

It is important to know, providers will be able to process attendance and be paid for these enrollments, but not until the payment certificate is signed by the family. It is important to monitor SR enrollments and encourage families with enrollments in the PFA status to log in to their statewide Family Portal account and complete the necessary enrollment steps by clicking the “Sign” button for the payment certificate.

For additional guidance on how families complete the enrollment process, please view the video below or contact our Provider Services team for assistance.