Childcare providers and families with young children in the greater Akron area will soon get more support from the city and other community partners, according to city officials. The new Unified Early Learning System will focus on supporting childcare providers, according to city officials and builds toward Mayor Shammas Malik's goal of universal preschool.
Malik ran on creating a path to universal preschool in the city, stating that the earlier a child starts to learn, the better their educational outcomes are.
"Akron really is the largest of our big cities without an initiative like this," he said.
The nearly $1 million project is funded through more than a dozen public and private partners, including the city of Akron, the GAR Foundation and the Akron Community Foundation, Akron’s Education and Health Strategist Richelle Wardell said, with the goal of every child starting kindergarten ready to learn.
Unlike other programs across the state that only target older children, this program is focused on ages birth through 5, Malik said.
"This is about building a future where quality is consistent across our community, where providers are supported and not struggling, where families have real choices and every child enters school ready to learn," Malik said.
The project will provide eight childcare providers in the greater Akron area with business development, help with recruitment and training, access to a designated pool of substitute teachers, professional development and assistance navigating behavioral health and development services, according to city officials.
"We find ourselves bogged down a lot with the paperwork," Jo White, owner of Circle of Life Child Enrichment Center, said. "The paperwork, retaining staff, enrollment and supporting our families' increasingly challenging needs day to day."
White is one of the childcare providers participating in the program, which will allow her to focus more on her students and their education, she said.
The project aims to increase enrollment in childcare, improve the quality of childcare and streamline effective referrals for additional resources for children and families, according to city officials.
"We're going to have behavioral health coaching onsite with the providers so that we can help the teachers manage classrooms," Wardell said, "and also work with the teachers to manage secondary trauma."
The program will also help childcare centers retain staff, she said. Turnover among U.S. childcare workers is about 65% higher than the average occupation, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland. Low wages and challenging working conditions make retention hard, according to the city.
"We'll also have a shared service for recruitment, training and placement of educators so that we can try to get teachers in empty classrooms that we have in our community right now," Wardell said.
White is most excited about the wraparound services the program provides that will help match families with the resources they need, she said.
"It is really hard as I'm telling a parent, 'Hey, where's the homework?' And they're thinking, 'Where's the food?,'" she said.
Support in the early childcare years is critical to setting kids up for success, Joe Luckring, regional president of the Akron region for PNC Bank, said. PNC is one of the funders for the project.
"We're falling behind in this battle on early childhood education," he said. "Right now, as it stands today, less than 50% of our kids are proving to be kindergarten ready."
The economic impact of a failing childcare system is great. Ohio loses an estimated $3.9 billion annually due to childcare challenges that keep parents out of the workforce, according to the Ohio Chamber of Commerce.
This is just phase one of the project, which will last 12 months and is starting this fall, according to city officials. The city hopes to expand the project but is looking for a permanent funding source to do so, Malik said.
The city is tracking progress through enrollment numbers, workforce turnover, quality indicators for providers and connections for families to needed services, according to city officials.
