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Connecting Hope is a production of the Mississippi Department of Human Services. Join us as we explore the people, policies, and programs that bridge the gap from hopelessness to hope for Mississippians, young and old.
The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed are the speaker’s own and do not represent the views, thoughts, and opinions of the Mississippi Department of Human Services. The material and information presented here is for general information purposes only. The "Mississippi Department of Human Services" name and all forms and abbreviations are the property of its owner and its use does not imply endorsement of or opposition to any specific organization, product, or service.
Welcome to episode 4 of Connecting Hope. My name is Mark Jones, chief communications officer for the Mississippi Department of Human Services. In today's episode, we will continue our conversation about childcare in Mississippi. In episode 3, doctor Chad Allgood and I discussed the funding mechanisms and programs provided by the Mississippi Department of Human Services Division of Early Childhood Care and Development. We discussed how recurring and one time funding funding sources have been utilized to support childcare providers, parents, and especially Mississippi's youngest in their work to prepare them for lifelong learning.
Mark Jones:MDHS is a proud partner in supporting the workforce of today, while preparing the workforce of tomorrow through affordable and quality childcare. In today's episode, we will be digging deeper into the importance of partnerships and collaboratives with the childcare industry to address the challenges faced by the industry. Today, we are joined by 3 providers who work daily on the front lines as childcare center owners and advocates for Mississippi's youngest. It's an honor to welcome Lecia Daniel from Funtime Preschool and Clinic, Debbie Ellis, advocate and owner of the Learning Tree, and Susie M. Brooks Child Care Center in Greenwood, Mississippi in the heart of the Delta, as well as Jennifer Calvert from Calvert's ABC Preschool and Nursery in Aberdeen, and a member of the state early childhood care and advisory, committee.
Mark Jones:So we're representing 3 large swaths of the state today. And it's great to welcome doctor Chad Allgood, who coordinates child care for MDHS across the state of Mississippi. So welcome. And let's start by sharing a little more from each of our guests, starting with you, Debbie, Tell us about your programs and your background and why child care was chosen as your career.
Debbie Ellis:Well, I, at a very early age, age 3, I was privileged, to be able to attend an exclusive, nursery school in Louisiana. It's one of my fondest, childhood memories, and I always knew that that was something that I would like to do. I'm from a long line of educators. Although my father was an engineer, my mother was self employed. They didn't want me to starve to death, but they did finally forward and support me as an educator.
Debbie Ellis:And I majored in elementary education with an emphasis in early childhood because I knew that this was something that I always, wanted to do. So I do have I do have that background, and I have and now I'm going to tell you how old I am. 38 years experience in child care. The Learning Tree opened January 6, 1986.
Mark Jones:And I started You're in an important area of the state too. You chose are you a native of Greenwood?
Debbie Ellis:No. I'm not a native, but I was raised here. I attended all from age 5. I started 1st grade at age 5, and I've all the way through high school in Greenwood. So I've lived here most of my life.
Mark Jones:It's an important area for us to focus, and talk about childcare today. The Delta
Debbie Ellis:Yes. Yes. Childcare is it provides a platform to to correct and and address so many of the eels that that we live with daily here in the Mississippi Delta.
Mark Jones:Thank you for joining us, and I look forward to hearing from your expertise and your knowledge and your background. Let's move over to Alicia and talk a little bit about childcare, because I'll be honest, growing up in Central Mississippi, I'm used to the Funtime name on something else, but I also know the reputation, that you have in Central Mississippi as an advocate and supporter of childcare. Alicia, welcome.
Lesia Daniel:Thank you, Mark. Yeah. My backstory is a little more unconventional than Debbie's because, growing up working in our small business Fun Times Skateland is kinda how we got started in, expanding and adding childcare to our programming when our parents were kinda getting ready to retire. I did teach public school for 10 years, and loved every minute of it, but I find even more satisfaction in what I'm doing now, with my primary focus being on birth to 5, and knowing the research behind the brain development that occurs, birth to 3, birth to 5, and the critical years. And and like Debbie said, we have so much opportunity to change the trajectory of children's lives because of the number of hours per day they spend with us.
Mark Jones:And being in the metro area, and we'll hit on this in a little bit, these issues that you may face as a provider are going to be different than what Debbie may face in the Delta as well as what Jennifer may experience up in Northeast Mississippi up in Aberdeen. So I'm I'm excited to kind of let people see that there are pieces in an urban area versus rural or, other components of the state that that may come into play as we support childcare. And so, Jennifer, I'll ask you. Why did you choose childcare? We all love children.
Mark Jones:Right? But it's a challenging industry.
Jennifer Calvert:Well, that's true. We all love children. But mine's a tow is a little different. Childcare chose me. When I I actually worked for a janitorial company that had the child care site, and I was the bookkeeper for both the janitorial and the child care.
Jennifer Calvert:So the janitorial the, child care part of it, they decided to sell and get out of it. So I inherited, kinda. So I took over. So child care found me, and I have loved every moment of it ever since I've been in. And I guess that was my call.
Jennifer Calvert:That's what God wanted for me was the child care and not the bookkeeping part of it because I suppose it's been an accountant, not a in the child care field. But I I love working with my children and and preparing them and giving them the quality, atmosphere, the nurturing environment, you know, that they need to get to the point where they need to be. Like I say, I just Let
Mark Jones:let's get into it. Jennifer, you saw a need. Lisia, you kind of averted in the middle of a career. And Debbie, you started from almost an early age yourself. Chad, jumping here.
Mark Jones:Y'all bring a depth of background. Chad talked about his background of getting into childcare almost by accident as well. And the beauty of here is there's 3 different perspectives. So we'll start with you, Jennifer. What in your are you seeing as the state of childcare in the state of Mississippi?
Mark Jones:And and we want to get to the the brass tacks. We want to get down to what are not only the issues facing it, but also where we where we are sitting today and where we need to go. So, Jennifer, we'll start with you.
Jennifer Calvert:Okay. It's I think it's good right now. I mean, I've been in it, like, over 33 years. We have good things that's been coming down the pipe, with from chat office and everything. And I feel like if we can just continue to go move forward, with the support from, you know, DHS and also with support from the state.
Jennifer Calvert:It's awesome with the funding that they have, you know, been able to give to these centers for incentives with the staff. Also, the incentives as far as, refreshing the classroom. All of that was, you know, was needed, and that it's it's been awesome. And I just hope that in some way and somehow that the state would take part or somehow another help continue some of this funding to keep us, I guess, from the standpoint, the staff ratio, the staff turnover so that we can can, you know, maintain our staff and and continue to move forward. Because the money that, you know, child care is is expensive, but you have to look in the area that you're in.
Jennifer Calvert:Sometime, you know, you just have to do the best you can do. But any little extra, that's been given, I am truly appreciate it. I I I thank Chad and his office and the state because this has really benefit my child care site.
Mark Jones:So I'm gonna, bring in Chad there. We heard Jennifer talk a little bit about, the staffing levels and even the the training component and quality support piece. You and I talked in the first episode about how that is federally mandated that quality support, but also what the division itself is doing to even take that to a higher level. What happens if we ignore, Chad? What happens if we ignore that quality support and and keeping, centers open with staff?
Dr. Chad Allgood:Again, when we have conversations about providing the best possible care and education for children, you have to have a conversation about, do we have skilled, knowledgeable teachers that can work with children? The the key of of providing high quality care and education for children, it rests with the relationships of the adults, the teachers, the directors, bus drivers, the cooks, everybody that works in an early childhood program, their interactions with children, that makes the difference between whether or not that child is getting high quality, early childhood education. And so we can't I think the the question is, can we afford not to invest in those people that are working with our children? And I think the clear answer to that is no. We cannot afford to not invest in in our teachers.
Dr. Chad Allgood:And, unfortunately, that's something that not just Mississippi, but our entire nation has not done a great job of, in years past. It is actually supporting these teachers, and that's exactly what they are. They are teachers. Some people call them caregivers. You know, some people call can call them whatever.
Dr. Chad Allgood:But at the end of the day, they are educators. They are caring for these children absolutely, but there is there is so much learning. If you if you go if you were to just go spend an hour in an early childhood classroom, regardless of what age group it was, you can be astounded at how much learning is happening and how fast it's learning. Our kiddos, their little brains are moving so quickly. They're they're learning new things every single day, and it's critical that we support those folks that are that are working every single day to educate those kids.
Mark Jones:So let's go to, Lisey and Debbie. Let's start with this topic, and then I'm gonna let y'all throw a few other issues you may be facing because it seems like looking at your body language and your head nods that no matter what part of the state you were you were in, a well trained workforce, you know, what happens when you don't have a childcare provider or a a teacher show up? Do you have to turn a child away for the day because there there are guidelines on how many children per per worker or it affects your operate your ability to provide a quality, educational experience to Mississippi's youngest children. So let's go deeper into this topic because I think a lot of people were not back to where we're just babysitting somebody. We're developing, as Chad said, minds, bodies, and hearts for receptive lifelong learning.
Mark Jones:So we'll start. Just raise your hand and start talking, whoever.
Lesia Daniel:Please. Please. I think one of the most critical pieces for us, is having the capacity to provide care at at all costs for our families to be able to go to work. So that's one very important component. The other very important component is the quality of the care that the children are receiving, And when we have staff who are not qualified or who don't come to work or they are sick or they have situations they have to deal with, we have to be very resourceful in how we manage that and how we navigate so that we stay in compliance with all the regulations that are on us from the health department, just operational standards.
Lesia Daniel:So Wednesday, we had a teacher who had bronchitis and could not come in to work, and so I could did not want to turn those children away and say, you can't come to school today. But what I had to do was move children around to other classrooms, which is not best practice for those children. But at the end of the day, we couldn't be out of ratio. So you have to decide where your priorities are and and what you can address with what you're given on any given day.
Mark Jones:So, Debbie, I'm gonna ask you to go a little bit deeper because in the Delta, MDHS through our childcare payment program serves low income working families, working parents. Debbie, you are in one of the most historically impoverished areas. How does the lack of availability of a trained or available workforce on any one given day have exponential impact upon low income families, specifically in your area?
Debbie Ellis:Oh, it it's it's tremendous. Failure to have a well trained, child care workforce is just tremendous with regard to impact. I would like to speak to what I see as the state of child care, not just in Mississippi today, but also across the nation. It is a failed industry. Child care does not work in the private sector model.
Debbie Ellis:What we have done over the years is, Lisia opened her, developed her program, from skating, to caring for those, parents when children were out of school to developing a wonderful, early learning program. Same with Jennifer. Jennifer's program was developed alongside, the janitorial service, and, she took that program. And I know she's participated in class and has a quality rating. She's done a beautiful job.
Debbie Ellis:When I opened my program, I did not serve low income children, and they could not come to my program because I was the most expensive in Greenwood, Mississippi. I was more expensive than the private school. The private school used to contact me each year to see if I had gone up on my rates in order to determine whether or not they could go up on their rates. This is just how the industry has worked, but we are extremely, extremely fractured as an industry. We have family child care homes.
Debbie Ellis:We have center based homes. We have licensed care. We have unlicensed care. We have, department of licensing, then we have the department of human services. We followed 2 sets of policies and regulations.
Debbie Ellis:Yeah. And I'll tell you what happened when the pandemic hit. You know, this is such a quiet industry, but we have all of a sudden realized when the pandemic hit, where is the infrastructure needed to care for these children while these necessary people report to work because the childcare facilities closed, many of them, many, many of them, more than to my liking, but many closed. The school systems closed. There there was no place for these children to go but for licensed programs that were operating.
Debbie Ellis:Unfortunately, Chad's program stepped in and set up emergency childcare programs in areas that that had had that need. But that's when people realize, gosh. We never realized how dependent we are on on travel. We can't go to work. We can't operate the hospital.
Debbie Ellis:We can't, operate the, the fast food services without our employees, and they can't come to work because their childcare programs and school systems are closed. And that's when we really, really realize how fractured we are. We've always known that the the the money's not there. We've always known that. You know, it's really a bipartisan issue.
Debbie Ellis:Yes. In 2018, President Donald Trump, through the work of his daughter Ivanka, doubled the amount of the Child Care Development Fund because he listened to advisers and the Wall Street Journal that talked about how crucial child care was to workforce development. He did that. He was the first to do that. Let me tell you something.
Debbie Ellis:When that pandemic hit, let me tell you who thrived. Not the exclusive affluent programs because those parents withdrew their children and they could not collect when the children were not present. The ones who thrived were the ones who had the support of the Child Care Development Fund through the Mississippi Department of Human Services. We were the ones that could hold strong because we had that federal and state support. So now we know what is needed to ensure that child care is a stable industry.
Debbie Ellis:We must have those financial supports.
Mark Jones:You you brought up the word fractured, and as an outsider coming into MDHS, I've had a 3 year learning curve, and doctor Allgood and his team have done a great job helping me slowly grasp that. And seeing that there's so many layers of of monitoring and governance within it, I used to think, oh, just just the health department handles the licensure part. I did not know that MDHS it took probably, what, 3 months, doctor Allgood, for me to learn the difference between the childcare development fund and MDHS quality supports and and and the Department of Health. And that's just a misnomer, and it's a lack of awareness even among policymakers, even among those who are sitting at the federal and state level. And that's why I'm glad we're here today to talk about that.
Mark Jones:And and, doctor Oggood, you mentioned in our previous episode a little bit about childcare strong, and and Debbie has mentioned that referenced that here. Without bringing everybody back to the table. The pandemic, while, was was a horrific experience for our country, but what it did is it did pull back and expose the fractures that have been maybe just been patched over time. And, so I'm gonna look at at y'all and and doctor Allgood, Debbie, Alicia, Jennifer, jump in. Where do we begin to to repair the continue to repair the fractures?
Mark Jones:And we've had unprecedented money. Go ahead.
Debbie Ellis:I I I would I would like to say, although, the those problems serving middle and, upper income families, suffered greatest initially during the pandemic, Department of Human Services, through Chad and under his leadership, made the Child Care Strong funding available to all programs. And let me tell you, Mark, it was life changing. Listen. We were struggling before the pandemic hit. We we we have this this country has built an invisible infrastructure that has been funded by private out of pocket funding with a 1% profit margin, which leaves you no wiggle room.
Debbie Ellis:And it's, what we've realized is we can't expect the market to carry the child care or stabilize the child care program. With the child care strong and in the manner in which Mississippi administrated that pro by the way, I have to say this. Mississippi was ranked 3rd throughout the country for its administration of Child Care Strong. And let me tell you, we feel it and we saw it and we benefited from that. But it was life changing, and it went to all programs.
Debbie Ellis:So when we're speaking about the state of child care, we're not just talking about those who serve low income children. Yep. We're talking about those who serve upper income families, those who serve middle income, those who serve low income. We're talking about all programs. We've got to bring the entire industry together, to coordinate services in order to have the greatest impact in Mississippi that we can have and the the greatest impact, in workforce development.
Debbie Ellis:Wouldn't it be great if everywhere we went, whether it were family child care home, a licensed center, a church program. Wouldn't it be great if they all offered the same, learning environment, warm, a learning environment and caring, environment that you would want to have for your children and grandchildren? If we can please the grandmothers, we'll be in good shape.
Mark Jones:So you brought up a good point. Lisa and Jennifer jump in here. 1 about a 1% operating margin, which means possibly one child you lose 1 child or the inability to serve a child in a day, you're starting to dip into your own pockets. Mhmm. That's not a strong business model that can be sustained over time.
Mark Jones:But if childcare ceases to exist in a community, especially one that is beginning, to try to come out of the reaches with population decline or one with significant population growth or economic development investment. If a center can't operate and you begin to lose capacity, you lose profitability with the same overhead. And I'm gonna start over here with Jennifer. You're in a part of the state that is seeing some stable, you know, 1 to 2% population growth every year and has a partially agrarian, but also industrial economy. So, what happens if to your profitability if a business closes or you just can't operate?
Jennifer Calvert:With being a financial buy, you know, you need that support to the point where, you know, they start dropping. You have to start laying out staff. And then when you you have to either it's kinda like with me, I try not to have my staff, the the the child teacher ratio at the top. But when you start losing, you're gonna have to push it up to that max. I get you know?
Jennifer Calvert:So when you can spread them out a little bit, it have but, yes, it would most definitely go into the profit part of it. When you have to kinda, like, back those children up and have a full classroom to that capacity. It hurts.
Mark Jones:And you bring that. You you've created a business model, that is not at that full ratio, and I and I noticed that Debbie and Alicia were nodding as well. But, again, that cuts into your your profitability. You still have a family and a house to to outfit and a family to feed, which proves to me you ladies are not in this to get rich.
Jennifer Calvert:No. No. And you don't want that full capacity to classroom well, okay. Let me rephrase that. I don't want that full capacity to classroom if I can make it work.
Jennifer Calvert:Because just like, we were saying earlier, if you have somebody out, you have to juggle those kids. You never know when somebody might call in that morning at 6 o'clock and say, hey. I'm not gonna make it. So I always try to leave a little wiggle room there or try to have a floater or a part time person or something that can cover that. And I always try to tell myself, hey.
Jennifer Calvert:You know, if I know you're gonna be off, that's fine. And when we know we can't, like, know how we have to juggle to make it work, so in case, Larson or somebody comes in. But when you have full capacity to the classroom, I don't see the full quality there. It's it's you know, mainly what you're trying to do is just make sure those kids are kept safe and do. But when you have a little bit wiggle room there, you have a little bit more quality there.
Jennifer Calvert:And that's what I try to do. But like I say, it get rough when it start dropping off when you start losing kid.
Debbie Ellis:But we
Mark Jones:just have
Jennifer Calvert:to work with it. And and then, also, you know, as a director, you have to wear many hats. You just never know. I might have to go in the classroom. I might have to go in the kitchen.
Jennifer Calvert:We just do what we have to do to make it make it to make it.
Mark Jones:Alicia, I see you nodding your head in affirmation. One of the things that we've also seen, you and I being from the same town, we've worked through the announcement of 25100 jobs coming to our city. And if I don't recall, you may have darkened my door to tell me I needed to get to the policymakers that were involved in that project saying, we've got to have some incentives for childcare providers to actually start centers and increase capacity or increase. At that point, it felt numb to me, but Jennifer just kind of opened up my eyes to make sure that they keep available capacity, but also have not hit the max ratio so that you can have that that higher quality. So from not only keeping a workforce going for today, when you announce large economic development projects or just to grow a small business, it it can impact you.
Lesia Daniel:Absolutely. I wanna touch back on the pandemic that we talked through a little earlier, and I think this is true for childcare. It doesn't matter what part of the state you're in, but we had so much funding support from the paycheck protection program to the supports that MDHS gave us to help keep us operational. But those funds had to be used to increase the pay to our staff because we were competing with them being able to stay at home and draw a check, and I needed to be able to compensate them for coming to work and risking exposure to COVID that we basically knew nothing about at the time. And so with all the funding that was pumped in the system during those years, we were able to stabilize our teacher pay rates to a much higher level than what we were pre COVID, which they very definitely deserve.
Lesia Daniel:And quite frankly, they deserve much, much more than what I'm able to pay them now. What we also learned with that is with the higher rates of pay, we were able to retain staff for longer periods of time, which gave us an opportunity to train them in best practices and what quality looks like, and we were able to develop those training modules to grow our staff along because we were keeping them for more than 3 months or 4 months, and then they're out the door to go work at McDonald's. The issue now, though, is that our tuition cannot support the pay rates that we had to pay during COVID, and I can't keep my staff if I cut their pay. So we have had to seek alternate streams of revenue for myself and my brother. We're the owners to be able to sustain and keep our business operational.
Lesia Daniel:So we we are doing this business because we love it, and we love our children, and we love our families, and we love the support that we're able to provide our community. But, again, I I think Debbie and Jennifer both have said none of us are doing this because we're making money. We're doing it because we recognize the importance of the role that we play in the lives of these children and families.
Dr. Chad Allgood:Mark, I wanna speak to the funding really quickly, because I think it's important for folks that don't, you know, dwell in this world to understand. So our regular funding, we provide, you know, certificates reimbursement. Those are not adequate to really provide for what our childcare providers need to cover their costs. When we got the relief money, so the Child Care Strong grant that Debbie, Alicia, and Jennifer have spoken to, the money that we got there was triple what we typically get for in a normal federal allocation year. And when we set the amount of money that our child care partners were going to receive with the Child Care Strong grant, we didn't use a tuition reimbursement model because we knew that that was not gonna be sufficient.
Dr. Chad Allgood:The purpose of those Child Care Strong grants was to sustain our child care partners during the pandemic. And so we used a cost of quality model to establish how much our providers would be getting, and we finally were able to see what happens if we fund our child care programs at a level that they need to meet their basic needs. Nobody got rich off the Child Care Strong Grants, but our child care providers were finally able to invest back in their buildings. You know, some of our child care providers, I mean, they're just doing the best they can with what they've got. And some of them they're in old homes that need things like just, you know, new plumbing or even new siding or, you know, new ceilings.
Dr. Chad Allgood:I mean, just basic, you know, just just basic physical facility things. And we we have seen just an uptick in what our child care partners have been able to do. But, again, it comes down to funding. But I think it's and it's not just child care folks, we're not just holding our hands out and say, hey. Give us the money.
Dr. Chad Allgood:We're saying, look. If you give us the funding, this is what we can do with it. Nobody here nobody here has any intentions of using money for other than what's gonna be best for the children that we're caring for and educating. And I think our child care providers, they're not greedy. They're just being realist realistic.
Dr. Chad Allgood:They're just saying, listen. For us to be able to care for our most precious resource, our children, which aren't the literal future of our state, of our nation, of our world, this is what we need. And they are being very realistic and, in my opinion, very conservative with what they're saying that they need to make that happen.
Mark Jones:So, essentially, we're seeing several not just one issue. It's it's kind of a myriad that that the fracture is there not only from how childcare is governed or the oversight of it, but also just the business model itself, was laid open, and it shows that if we're going to repair the fracture, the first thing we got to realize is that we can't go back. There there is no ability to go back. The workforce is still not meeting, in terms of pay. It's still not competitive.
Mark Jones:You mentioned Lizzie, if somebody could leave you and go to work at McDonald's. That that's a challenge because you have to spend all that time training and equipping and investing in in their lives before they even are able to invest in the life of a child and a family in your community. I'd I'd we'll bring this up from the previous podcast. Roughly 70%, Chad, I believe, of childcare providers in Mississippi, no matter who they serve, had to close during the pandemic for either temporary or full time. Had that money not been there and, been there in a quickly in a quickly distributed way, we may not have an industry today, but that highlights that if we don't continually the prioritization of this, we may not have an industry tomorrow.
Mark Jones:And I'll just leave that open for y'all to to go to go at.
Debbie Ellis:Well, we would have been wiped out, particularly those who don't serve low income children. Just completely wiped out. And now this money that has kept us afloat and actually stabilized us and allowed us to offer the services that the parents need and that the children need will be, well, it will be gone as of September 30th. And so we'll be going right back where we were. And we know we can't keep going right back.
Debbie Ellis:Do you remember when the days, when you used to be able to power all the children in the back of a station wagon and ride all over town singing to Elvis Presley with the windows down, whatever. We know we can't do that now because we know that seat belts save lives. We know we can't go back and act as though the quality incentives don't matter and act as though a fractured industry, will not harm us because it will harm us. And particularly in a low income area now this I have something I'd like to share with you from, the US Treasury. They recently, released a report.
Debbie Ellis:Well, it's actually 2021, but this is what their findings were. Available, affordable, and high quality child care provides benefits to children, their parents, and the economy at large. 1st, consider the benefits of child care for children. Research documents that children who attend high quality early learning, programs relative to, similar children who cannot attend such programs perform better on grade school test, stay in school longer, experience lower rates of depression, have better physical health, and have higher individual and household earnings as adults. Now knowing that, we need to begin to move forward.
Debbie Ellis:As you said, not go back. Move forward as this money expires through, the pandemic money expires. We need to have, our legislators consider stepping in and helping us where they can. The biggest help would be with wages. And not not for me, but for my employees.
Debbie Ellis:We cannot go back to, ignoring, childcare. We cannot act as though it's a partisan issue, parental issue. It is a workforce development issue.
Mark Jones:Lecy, Jennifer, would you like to add on, to that? I see some nods of affirmation.
Jennifer Calvert:Yes. I totally agree. You know, just like even with the staffing that the, teachers is getting now, that has been very helpful to them. Now it's basically come to an end. Any help that the state can give is for a salary, it is greatly needed.
Jennifer Calvert:Because most of them is getting paid that rally above a minimum wage at my site. You know, 10, $11 an hour.
Debbie Ellis:And it should be for all programs. And the way that we take this fractured industry and become 1, I think, will probably be at some point in time through licensing. That's the one thing that we all have in common, that we all, must cooperate with. And so, this should be available to all programs. Completely done.
Debbie Ellis:But it must be done. If it's not done, Mississippi is going to have a problem.
Dr. Chad Allgood:I think we've shown it and I think we've shown that it can be done. We developed infrastructure to make it happen. And one thing that policymakers say when we talk about investing in early childhood, they'll say, it's not it's not the state's job to subsidize private business. We're not talking about subsidizing private business. We're talking about investing in early childhood education.
Dr. Chad Allgood:I think I agree. I think wages, that's the first place that we need we need help there. But what policymakers have to understand is by providing that investment, you're not subsidizing the business. What you're doing is you're investing in an industry that supports today's workforce. And by helping our child care providers with the wage issue, you're keeping the cost of child care to a level that's affordable.
Dr. Chad Allgood:Because if our child care partners if they were to pay their teachers what they're worth, no parent could afford it. And if parents can't afford child care, they can't go to work. And so, again, you're not talking about subsidizing private businesses and putting money in child care owners' hands. You're talking about just simply giving them the financial resources that they need so that we can sustain child care so we can continue to provide that workforce support to all working families. You know, Debbie, you said everyone coming together, what's good for child care, it's good for workforce.
Dr. Chad Allgood:It's absolutely true. I couldn't say I mean, I don't think anybody could could say that better. If we invest in child care, everybody wins. It's a win for everybody across the board.
Debbie Ellis:We have And and, Chad, wages of month the wages money would not be coming into my business. It would be going into individual, caregivers working with the children on the ground every day.
Dr. Chad Allgood:Right.
Debbie Ellis:And the one thing the the direct incentive has shown that y'all can do that. You can reward our employees without going through us. All we do is verify employment. Excuse me, Lucy.
Lesia Daniel:No. I'm sorry, Debbie. I just wanted to share a story. We had a a family reach out to us, that was from Florida. The one of the parents had been offered a position at, Mississippi College here in Clinton, and she wanted to know that she could obtain quality childcare for her children before she would even entertain the idea of accepting that job.
Lesia Daniel:She didn't you know, she called us to see what we could do to get them in, and it was a process. And she didn't ask us at that point how much our grocery tax was or how much our car tax cost. She didn't ask us how much our tuition was. What she wanted was to know that she had access to a quality program for her children. And then when she was able to solidify that, she accepted the job, and now that family has relocated to Mississippi.
Lesia Daniel:And I share that story to say childcare is what feeds the workforce. And if we want workforce participation in Mississippi to increase, we have got to be able to provide affordable, accessible, quality care, and it's gotta be affordable for our middle class families. Yep. We we cannot charge enough tuition. We can't operate, and like doctor Allgood has said, we can't operate quality on relying solely on the funding that MDHS is able to provide.
Lesia Daniel:And we can't charge enough tuition for private pay families to keep the doors open, honestly.
Debbie Ellis:And we can't we can't support the program just on what, those who do pay private out of pocket who don't qualify as low income. They cannot pay Yeah. What we would need to have to stabilize childcare.
Mark Jones:So I'll give you an example. Four kids all went to some form of childcare. No more than 2 in childcare at a time. Because if we would have had they were perfectly spaced out. But if we would have had to put a third child in childcare, it was more advantageous for my wife who's a 1st grade teacher to stay out of the workforce, which means that's one less employed person, which means we would not have been able to afford our housing situation as it was.
Mark Jones:So it there's a there's a teetering edge that was created there. And I promise you the day that my a child would graduate out of childcare and go to kindergarten, we thought we were getting a pay raise in our house. And then another one, one of our cabooses would come along. And what it shows is this is not a national issue. It's not a state issue.
Mark Jones:It is a local economy issue of keeping families in the workforce and preparing children to stay in Mississippi as trained trained workforce. It's so it it's a long term, short term, but it really comes down to every community, not just the state policymakers and federal policymakers, but local policymakers being involved in the solution and being aware that there may be a problem in their community as well.
Debbie Ellis:And we have to build the talent pipeline. Those to to staff the programs, and we have to, produce the kinds of outcomes for our children to carry on in the next generation with workforce development and to fill those jobs that will be needed in Mississippi at that time.
Mark Jones:So we're coming up on about 40 minutes, and this discussion is pretty much state on the issues and challenges and opportunities facing us. We're gonna segue because we brought it up that we're creating the workforce of tomorrow. And I'm gonna go to a question about how important is collaboration and quality support in the childcare industry to k twelve success. Chad brought Chad and I talked about that in our first episode. But what you guys are doing, because the profit margins are so thin, but your operations are so critical to actually helping school districts and communities succeed.
Mark Jones:And we see that in levels that are go Debbie, as you brought up, this is not a a low poverty or an upper or it's a middle class. It's everybody involved and is affected by the the in unavailability or the availability of quality child care. And so I'll start over, with Chad, and then we'll move to Debbie, Alicia, and then Jennifer.
Dr. Chad Allgood:Again, you know, we research clearly shows, and I'm not talking about people just going and sitting and observing children in a class in a in an early childhood classroom. We're talking about brain science. We're talking about the mapping of brains. We're talking about, you know, looking at how brains develop. The first 5 years of of a child's life or of a human being's life are the most critical in terms of learning and setting them up for success.
Dr. Chad Allgood:And I'm not gonna say much more other than we cannot ignore how important those first few those first 5 years of a child's life are at setting up their trajectory as they move on into their kindergarten, 1st grade, 2nd grade, 3rd grade, middle school, high school, and then on into adulthood?
Mark Jones:I'll turn that back over to our experts. How how does your work impact your school districts?
Debbie Ellis:Well, I I I just want to to act. I just think of it this way. How many communities are connected by Interstate 55? Interstate 55 was built by federal dollars, maintained by state dollars. But if we did not have that interstate, how fractured would we be and how far could we travel?
Debbie Ellis:Well, we cannot continue to operate childcare without an interstate.
Mark Jones:It's a strong analogy. Let's see some more head head nod nodding with affirmation. Jennifer, jump in.
Jennifer Calvert:My support with the with the school district is, like, talking about, like, the k through 12, is being able to be partners with them and kinda, like, work on the level with the children because those children is feeding it to those peppy school. So I'm at a point where situation where the school district actually work with us. When we see something, we reach out to them. Would the child find and say, hey. Let's see what we can do or where we can start, you know, with this child here.
Jennifer Calvert:And especially with the 4 year olds, we work to the point where we need to start a tier level. We give them, you know, resources and data, what we have collected of the child. And they would say, okay. Well, let's start this process of where we can, you know, go or where we headed with this child. And, also, bringing the parent in, and the parent is knowing and we you know, out together and making a smooth transition into the public school.
Jennifer Calvert:So they've been very helpful on that end with us.
Mark Jones:Lisa?
Lesia Daniel:We we also work very closely with our public schools. Fortunately, where we're located, there's it's just one public school system that we feed into, and we do have very strong collaboration within the schools. We love to hire our public school teachers to work for us during the summer. That helps our pre k kiddos really get ready for kindergarten, and it also emotionally supports them in that transition because they're learning in an environment that they're already familiar with, another person that they can trust and that they can have a relationship with. And when they go to that big school, they already feel connected to some of the people that are there.
Lesia Daniel:During COVID, we worked very closely with the school to support the virtual learning. We basically had the iPads, and our teachers were helping the children do the lessons, virtually, for full day schools. So we've worked very closely with them. Pre COVID, we did a survey at the beginning of the school year, with all of the kindergarten teachers who had children that had come from our preschool program, and we were able to use the data that we collected in those surveys annually to adjust and adapt our program so that our children are as most prepared as possible to leave us and go into the public school setting and be successful.
Mark Jones:What I think cannot be missed here is that it's a community based problem that requires grassroots community, state, and federal, collaboration to solve a problem. We've identified it. We've we've seen that there are certain models that have been instituted in Mississippi by the division of early childhood care and development and other advocates. Let's not leave MDE out. They're a strong partner within the childcare space as well as, the state department of health and other other collaboratives.
Mark Jones:No one can do this alone. And, just the just by showing that 3 of you have joined us here today, it's critical to understand that we cannot isolate, childcare into a vacuum any longer. It's got to be brought out as an economic development, a workforce, and an and a a educational growth perspective. So I'm gonna leave y'all to say final words and anything that we left out to to highlight the need of an importance of childcare in Mississippi. And, again, emphasize what we need to do to go forward to make Mississippi what we know it can be and even better than it is right now.
Mark Jones:I'll start I'll start over here with with Jennifer and move to Alicia, Debbie, and then Chad to close us out.
Jennifer Calvert:Help support our staff with salaries. Any support that the state can give to, for our teachers so we can lessen the turnover and maintain quality staff. Once we get them trained, they go through all this training. They get all this behind them. And then when they find something that pays a little bit more, they're out the door.
Jennifer Calvert:But if we can just get some assistance from the state to help maintain staff, that would be awesome.
Mark Jones:Alicia, the floor is yours.
Lesia Daniel:Oh, exactly 100% agree with what miss Calvert just said. We've got to be able to pay our staff, but I think there are so many facets that are equally important. We've got to be able to maintain our facilities. We've got to be able to provide materials in classrooms that engage and grow children's minds, and using those materials 11 hours a day by multiple children, they have to be replenished, and they are very, very costly. So, I I mean, they're just we need some financial support to stabilize the industry as a whole so that we can focus on what we do best, which is growing children.
Mark Jones:Debbie?
Debbie Ellis:Well, I am happy to have been serving in child care during a time when, leadership at, the Department of Human Services is, the best it's ever been with regard to expertise and, support. I'm happy that I was in child care during the pandemic because the pandemic echoed what we've been saying all along. This is what we need in order to provide the right kind of care, for these children and to invest in the future. And so I'm just saying that although this money will be have been, it will be gone as of September 30th, We we need to pick up from there and continue to move forward. We know now.
Debbie Ellis:We know what the possibilities are with the right kind of support. We're not asking for our legislator to, to provide us with the same funding that Child Care Strong provided. Unless they want to, we certainly wouldn't turn it down. But we are asking that they consider, supporting wages through the Mississippi Lottery or, other programs in order to at least allow us to compete with, McDonald's when when hiring staff. Mississippi now has the lowest work participation rate in the nation.
Debbie Ellis:We can change that with the right supports and the right attitudes. We need to move forward.
Mark Jones:Doctor Allgood excited about that. I'm excited to hear the passion. And, doctor Allgood, 2 things that have been brought up is part of the incentive program and also resources, resource and referral. It's expensive to not only staff, but also outfit and keep maintain buildings, but also, having those experiential toys that that create that learning environment. So, Chad, if you don't mind closing that out and and probably touching on those things, but knowing we'll probably have to come back with another episode.
Dr. Chad Allgood:So we, you know, we say our working families are our clients, but our childcare providers are our partners.
Mark Jones:Yes.
Dr. Chad Allgood:We couldn't do what we do without folks like Debbie, Lecia, Jennifer, and all the other child care, you know, providers and their staff across the state. We do have things that we have done with our funding that support these programs, but it's not enough. And I think if I could just leave anyone who's watching this, I hope that we've listened to the stories of everyone here today to realize that we can't go back. Child care is critical. We can't go back to where we were, and we have to stop pointing fingers at other people to solve the problem.
Dr. Chad Allgood:This is a this is a situation this or the situation is this. Child care is something that impacts everybody because everyone is connected to a child in some way, And we have to stop pointing fingers at other people and say, well, this is your issue to solve. This is this is not my problem. Guess what? It is.
Dr. Chad Allgood:It's everyone's issue. It's everyone's problem. It's everyone's responsibility, in my opinion, to look toward the future. What do we need to do now to make sure that the future of this of this state, of this nation, of this planet is brighter? And we have to start with our children who are our future.
Dr. Chad Allgood:And I'm gonna quote the late doctor Louise Davis when she said, if not you, then who? If not us, then who?
Mark Jones:Powerful words to close us out. Powerful topic for this state to begin to consider in all seriousness. I thank you each for joining us today on Connecting Hope. And I hope our conversation does just that. It connects children, parents, providers, and our state to a future that is filled with hope.
Mark Jones:Again, thank you. And may God bless us in our service to our communities.