Prospective hairdressers and cosmetologists applying for a Rhode Island hairdresser/cosmetician license may have it a little easier thanks to a bill signed into law by Gov. Gina M. Raimondo on July 5.
Under previous state law, those individuals were required to complete 1,500 continuous hours of study and practice under a licensed instructor in order to apply for a license through the R.I. Department of Health.
The new law lowered the number of required hours of instruction for a license from 1,500 to 1,200, or 80 percent of the previous requirement. This alteration, while supported by multiple senators who named schools as supporters of the bill, is not unanimously appreciated across the industry.
“There was no thought pattern behind it,” said Jackie Pace, executive director of the Empire Beauty School Warwick campus.
Senate President Dominick J. Ruggerio, D-Providence, introduced the bill in February with the support of Sens. Maryellen Goodwin, D-Providence; Hanna M. Gallo, D-Cranston; Ryan W. Pearson, D-Cumberland; and Marc A. Cote, D-Woonsocket.
Ruggerio explained the bill was lobbied for by hairdressing and cosmetology schools across the state that are concerned about losing prospective students to Massachusetts, including Toni & Guy Hairdressing Academy, with locations in Cranston as well as Braintree, Worcester and Hingham, Mass.
When asked for comment, Alyson Campbell, director of the Toni & Guy Hairdressing Academy in Cranston, said the company had no comment.
“Everything changes, technology changes,” said Ruggerio, and supporters “wanted to stay competitive” with Massachusetts.
The Bay State requires 1,000 hours of training from prospective hairdressers and barbers prior to applying for licensure. A spokesperson for the Massachusetts Board of Regulation of Cosmetology and Barbering said a statute has been on the books since 1935.
Rhode Island stacks up on the low end of required training hours for cosmetologists compared to the rest of New England, second only to Massachusetts. Connecticut, Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont all require prospective hairdressers and cosmetologists to complete a minimum of 1,500 instructional training hours prior to applying for a license.
‘It gets [students] through school faster and saves them money.’
DOMINICK J. RUGGERIO, R.I. Senate president
Schools in favor of the decreased hours felt the prior stipulation of 1,500 hours was “unnecessary,” said Ruggerio, and the reduction would attract more students. “It’s about efficiency, more than anything,” he added.
While the bill will not create an easier hiring path for salons or hairdressing and cosmetology companies, said Ruggerio, “it’s helpful to students to cram the same information into a shorter time. It gets them through school faster and saves them money.”
However, he said, the figure of 1,200 hours was agreed upon because those in favor of the decrease were wary of lowering the requirement to the 1,000 hours required by Massachusetts state law.
Michael K. Galvin, director and owner of the Aveda Institute Rhode Island in Cranston, thinks the reduction in required training hours negatively impacts a student’s education.
Galvin, who has been in the Rhode Island beauty business for 40 years and opened the Aveda location in 2012, said the bill cuts the school’s timeline from 12 to nine months but it still has to cover the same amount of material.
He agrees with Ruggerio the bill does not create an easier hiring path, but given the reduction, many students will enter jobs where they would “be lucky if they make minimum wage.”
For now, he explained, students who signed up for classes prior to the bill’s passing on July 5 will continue on the 1,500-hour curriculum until each school submits a revised curriculum for the 1,200-hour regulation to the state and it is approved.
“[The paperwork] breaks down every day, every class,” he said.
On top of the time it takes to design a new curriculum in a shorter timeline, Galvin estimated it would take the government three to six months to approve the new timeline.
Pace said the decrease in required training hours sets Rhode Island apart, negatively, from other states.
“When Rhode Island was 1,500 hours, we were reciprocal with many states,” which made it easier for licensed hairdressers moving to Rhode Island to apply for a transfer of work they already completed.
Pace isn’t sure why the bill didn’t amend the requirements to 1,000 hours, such as Massachusetts, but said “maybe [1,200] was an easier pill for people to swallow.”
Ruggerio in July said Galvin and Pace’s opposition was the first dissent to the bill he’d heard.
Saying the negative feedback “is not a credible issue at this point,” he added: “Those concerns were never expressed to us in any way, shape or form” and testimony given to the committees showed the “schools were all on board.”
