Hello all,
Over the last few years, my involvement in Childcare Advocacy work has increased, because I was tired of other people, politicians and advocacy groups making proposals and decisions that had a direct impact on how I was going to be able to operate our families business. My family has been in the childcare industry for over 40 years and I joined the business almost 15 years ago. I had spent 25+ years in the healthcare industry managing multiple clinic sites around the U,S> prior to joining our family business, so I had a lot to learn about how childcare businesses work. The challenge I encountered was that most people did not look at Early Childhood Education, Daycare Centers, Childcare Centers, Early Learning Centers, or other early learning programs as businesses. No one could agree on what the industry should be called and what type of labels were going to be used to describe who and what we were and are, but the word "business" was not one of those labels. For better or worse, anyone who is providing Early Childhood Education/Care services is operating a business, and as such it has to be treated as a business in order for it to survive and thrive in today's marketplace.
Business 101 tells you that you cannot have more money going out than is coming in and still plan to stay in business for very long. Mandating, Striving For, Hoping For, Wishing For quality care is all great and good if you have a way to pay for it. Unfortunately most families, on their own, cannot afford to pay us what we need to be paid in order to provide them with quality care. Childcare is expensive and quality childcare should be even more expensive! Now some would say, but wait, I provide "quality care" and I am not that expensive! And to that I would say: "Do you pay your staff a living wage; Do you offer your staff benefits; What do you pay yourself; When is the last time you had a vacation or any time off; How much personal debt are you carrying on your business; Do you have 6 months of financial reserves in the bank to get you through a crisis. Childcare providers typically sacrifice everything including themselves in order to try to provide quality care without charging the families "too much" for their services. It is a broken model that has not changed at all over the past 40 years.
Once I realized I needed a seat at the table when decisions were being proposed, discussed or finalized that were going to directly impact my "childcare business", I started to attend and participate in activities such as the NAEYC Policy Forums at a National level, and then participating in different State Advocacy projects related to Bills and other actions that were being crafted by our States Legislature. My mantra has always been, when you show me how your going to pay for your "initiative", you will get my support. If you present me with an "unfunded mandate", I'm going to fight you tooth and nail to make sure that your "mandate" or "initiative" does not pass or eventually gets rescinded. I'm all for advancements in Early Childhood Education and agree that people that work in this field need quality training and quality education. But quality costs money and the people providing quality, should get paid a quality wage. However, the politicians, the advocacy groups, the paid lobbyists and the Federal and State legislatures have not been able to make any significant end roads to solving the childcare crisis in America in the last 40 years. That is why it is important that they hear directly from us and that is why it is so important that if you are an owner, operator, director or ECE teacher, you try at least once, to attend one of the NAEYC Policy Forums in DC or get involved with a local Advocacy program in your state. Over the last 10 years I have attended the NAEYC Policy Forum in DC multiple times. It has been amazing to be in a room filled with hundreds of other individuals that are in our industry and to hear that we share some of the same struggles and have some of the same concerns about the future of ECE in America. At first, I was intimidated to ask a question in front of such a large group or to challenge the status quo! After-all I was not an expert in Early Childhood Education, but I was an expert in running successful businesses. From what I was hearing, none of the proposals for change, made any financial sense. No one could tell me who was going to pay for all of these new "quality care requirements".
There are many more of you, like me, that are experts in running your ECE business and understand that without adequate funding, you cannot continue to grow, improve or sustain your business. If you business closes, it will have a direct impact on the ability of America's workers, especially women, to remain in the workforce, that in turn will have a direct negative impact on other businesses. Your voices need to be heard at the NAEYC Policy Forum and up on the Hill in Washington. Politicians may not understand or care about early education, but they do understand business, profits, labor, infrastructure and the economy. We have to speak their language to get their attention and now is the time to do that. If you can find a way to attend the 2023 NAEYC Policy Forum, you can get more information about the Forum on the NAEYC website or you can check with our local State NAEYC affiliate. If you happen to operate an ECE program/business in Texas, the Texas Legislature will be meeting over the next 140 days and there are definitely some items on their agendas, that will make us or break us! Please also make some plans to come to Austin over the next 3 months to let your voices be heard there as well.
I look forward to hearing about everyone's adventures over the next few months.
Sincerely,
Tim Kaminski
------------------------------
Tim Kaminski
Director/Owner
Gingerbread Kids Academy
Richmond TX
------------------------------