This commentary was written by Julie Dumas on behalf of the board of directors of Burlington Children’s Space, and by Tiffany Corbett, executive director of Frog & Toad Child Care & Learning Center.
We are saddened to hear of the closure of the early education program at the Sara Holbrook Community Center. We feel for the families who no longer have a school to attend and the dedicated and committed teachers who made each day safe, fun and supportive for those families.
We understand acutely the financial and staffing challenges faced by the leadership team and board. We agree with the feeling that this may be the “tip of the iceberg” for the broken early education system in Burlington and all of Vermont.
While a bill to fund early childhood education is moving through the Vermont Legislature, we hope that it is not too little, too late to save the early education opportunities in Vermont.
Sara Holbrook Community Center serves families who are racially diverse and from lower socioeconomic backgrounds in Vermont’s largest city. Its closing and the loss of these early education slots for families who qualify only reinforces the challenges and biases that exist in the communities the center serves.
Specifically, lack of access to early education puts already at-risk children even further behind educationally when they enter the public school system in kindergarten. The closure of this program will create challenges for caregivers and women, in particular, who are most likely to leave the workforce when they do not have child care.
In addition, losing these early education slots for the many BIPOC students creates a further racial inequity in our community, as these families may have a hard time finding available slots.
Members of the board of directors at Burlington Children’s Space and the Frog & Toad Child Care and Learning Center are acutely aware of the challenges faced by early education programs. Our teachers know how to educate and nurture children, but the financial support by the state of Vermont for Birth to 5 education is insufficient.
We and all other high-quality early childhood programs struggle to hire and retain skilled staff, as we cannot pay them what they deserve, and as such they leave the profession or head into public preK education. If the people of Vermont want to ensure that parents are gainfully employed, then we must increase the subsidy level to parents in order to make their employment pay off, as well as provide staff the wages they need to enter and remain in the early childhood field.
The closure of the Sara Holbrook Community Center Early Education Program has direct negative effects on the families it no longer can serve. If we in the Burlington and Vermont community allow the closure of early education centers to continue, then we are fostering an environment that negatively influences the social determinants of health for a generation of our most vulnerable children.
The boards and leaders at the early education centers in Vermont are working hard to bridge the gap between what families can afford, compensating our professional teachers what they deserve, and the true cost of care as we anxiously wait for help from the state.
As an immediate step right now, we encourage the Vermont Legislature and Gov. Scott to act quickly in a way that takes care of all of Vermont’s youngest children.
