The childcare crisis is real in Centre County.
High-quality childcare is good for children.
What's good for children is good for working parents.
What's good for working parents is good for businesses.
What's good for businesses is good for communities.
What's good for communities is good for schools.
What's good for schools is good for children.
Childcare programs in our communities have closed, cut classrooms, and are hiring unqualified staff just to try to keep offering care.
We can’t wait for the government to fix it. Early childhood leaders, parents, and advocates have been writing letters to editors and visiting legislators for years.
Early childhood leaders can’t fix it themselves - they operated on shoestring budgets and unacceptably low pay even before the pandemic.
Parents can’t fix it; costs are already higher than many can afford so they stay out of the workforce even if they want to work.
While other businesses with a higher profit margin have been able to increase pay, early childhood programs are scraping the bottom of their financial barrels and coming up short to be able to hire and retain experienced, qualified staff or train inexperienced, unqualified staff.
Our local early childhood programs are not getting the financial support that is necessary to operate outstanding programs for the children and families of this community.
