At a recent regular meeting evening meeting, Pagosa Springs Town Council considered a number of grants to support a struggling child care industry.
All of our local child care centers have waiting lists. I’m not sure if our half-dozen home-based daycare providers also have waiting lists, but I would assume so.
The grants were awarded by asking each Town Council member to specify a recommended amount and then averaging the different recommendations. The pool of money budgeted by teh Council this year, to support the child care industry, totaled $150,000.
The largest grant — $93,666 — was awarded to Wing Early Childhood Center, located near the Archuleta County airport in a remodeled restaurant building. Wings is hoping to build an additional building on their property to accommodate more children.
The Pagosa Community Initiative received $3,333. Pagosa Peak Open School got $20,000. Seeds of Learning was awarded $25,666. The recently-formed Early Childhood Council got $1,000.
Three home-based daycare businesses received $2,000 each.
I’d like to discuss the award given to Pagosa Peak Open School, because that’s the situation I’m most familiar with. Pagosa Peak was authorized by the Archuleta School District in 2017 to operate a public, tuition-free charter school for grades K-8. The Pagosa Peak board of director voted on March 6 to open a new preschool at its current location.
Disclosure: I currently serve on the Pagosa Peak Open School Board of Directors as the board secretary. This editorial reflects only my own opinions, and not necessarily the opinions of the Pagosa Peak Open School board as a whole.
Colorado’s new Universal Pre-Kindergarten program — “UPK” — and the new Colorado Department of Early Childhood — “CDEC” — have apparently been struggling a bit to meet expectations, although you might not get that impression from reading the press releases coming from the Office of the Governor.
“It’s incredible to see hundreds of school districts and preschools registering to be a part of Colorado’s effort to prepare our kids for the future,” said Colorado Department of Early Childhood’s Executive Director, Dr. Lisa Roy. “The enthusiasm is palpable with over 29,000 openings already available for kids in Universal Preschool Colorado. We expect the number to continue to grow…”
The half-day, state-funded UPK program is being marketed as a way to better prepare children for kindergarten… but in order for the number of taxpayer-subsidized ‘slots’ to grow, communities need to see additional schools, child care centers, and private child care homes stepping up to the plate.
Enrollment for the start of the program — next September — began on January 17, and the enrolled children will have all, or part, of their tuition paid by the state government.
Making sure families are assigned to the preschool of their choice is one of the challenges, as indicated by this two-and-a-half-minute video:
This landmark program is estimated to save Colorado parents an average of $6,000 a year, by subsidizing up to 15 hours per week of preschool tuition for children the year before they enter kindergarten… up to 30 hours per week for children with certain ‘qualifying factors’… and up to 10 hours per week for ‘qualifying’ 3-year-olds.
During the discussion at the March 6 Pagosa Peak Open School board meeting, some of the board members were eager to open a preschool program in August, 2023. Assuming that a qualified director can be found to organize the new program?
It appears there is sufficient demand in the community. Finding qualified employees, for practically any job in Pagosa Springs, has become increasingly challenging over the past few years. Even when an employee can be found, the employee often finds it impossible to lay their hands on housing — and in some cases, on child care.
The demands of starting a UPK program in a new facility are, however, daunting. In the end, the PPOS board voted to move ahead with starting a preschool program, but most likely starting the program in the fall of 2024.
At the March 6 board meeting, two staff members of the recently-formed Early Childhood Council of Archuleta County — Executive Director Laura Mijares and Quality Improvement Navigator Michelle Carpenter — were on hand to help clarify those demands.
Laura Mijares is the former Assistant Superintendent with the Archuleta School District. Michelle Carpenter is currently serving on the PPOS board of directors.
We understood that not everything can be made clear, when a brand new state-funded program is essentially building the plane while they’re flying it.
The website for the Early Childhood Council (ECCAC) gives this summary of its mission:
Our mission is to foster and sustain a comprehensive, high-quality, and accessible early childhood system that supports families and the community in order to prepare children for academic and personal success in life.
The ECCAC is hosting a community meeting to discuss the future of early childcare and education in Archuleta County, on Tuesday, April 18, from 6:00 to 8:00pm at the Pagosa Springs High School Auditorium. Open to anyone.
Speaking as an interested grandparent of two girls now attending Pagosa Peak Open School, and as a member of the PPOS board of directors, I naturally have ideas about how a new preschool program might best “prepare children for academic and personal success in life.”
Speaking as the editor of the Pagosa Daily Post, and as a political activist, I am also concerned about other things besides “academic and personal success.”
As the “No Small Matter” poster above suggests, “Their Now is Our Future”.
Is the future simply “academics and personal success”?
What about a sense of community? What about a sense of justice? What about honesty, empathy, courage, kindness? How does an educational system raise the best possible citizens?
Do we want our school systems — as they raise our future citizens — to hold up academic skills as the key to personal success?
Or is there actually more to life than math, and reading, and a future job working for a corporation?