Chris Riback: Michelle, thanks so much for joining us. Welcome to the studio.

Michelle Connavino: Thanks so much for having me.

Chris Riback: What is PRE4CLE? Why was it needed? What’s the inspiration?

Michelle Connavino: So PRE4CLE is Cleveland’s plan to expand high quality preschool access across the city of Cleveland, Ohio. It started in 2014 as part of the Cleveland Public Schools Transformation Plan. So in that plan, the mayor of the city of Cleveland along with the CEO of the school district identified ways to improve student achievement in the city of Cleveland. One of those ways was through expanding access to high quality early learning. And so PRE4CLE was born out of that plan to focus especially on those three and four year olds, making sure that there’s more access available to all three and four year olds throughout the city of Cleveland. And we’ve been working ever since then toward that goal.

Chris Riback: Talk to me about the coordination. I assume that you are having to coordinate across different levels of government. Private, public, nonprofit, you’re bringing a lot of different folks together. How does that happen, particularly in a period when it’s tough to get folks to agree on very much these days?

Michelle Connavino: Yes. We’ve been incredibly fortunate. From the start of PRE4CLE, it really was a community-wide initiative that brought together people from the city of Cleveland, the county, the school district.

Chris Riback: Labor as well, no?

Michelle Connavino: Yes, labor. Our Teachers Union was part of it. Philanthropy. My gosh.

Chris Riback: [crosstalk] Really all of Cleveland, sounds like.

Michelle Connavino: Yes. Head Start. It really was. It was pretty remarkable. And that has really allowed us to, one, create an early childhood system through PRE4CLE and a lot of our partners, especially our Child Care Resource and Referral Agency and our schools that… So it created a plan that is not dependent on any one leader. So it’s a little less…

Chris Riback: Takes the politics out of it, perhaps.

Michelle Connavino: Yes. Absolutely. And I think the second thing that it did is that by bringing all of those partners together, we ensured that we weren’t duplicating things that other organizations were already doing well. So our Resource and Referral Agency, which is called Starting-Point in Cuyahoga County, which is where Cleveland is, they’re really good at the technical assistance and support for providers, for preschool providers and childcare providers that ensure that they reach those high quality standards in our state QRIS system. So they already have that. So we didn’t need to put that in place. We can just support them to do that, and then bring those providers in to be part of PRE4CLE. So it’s been just outstanding in a lot of ways.

Chris Riback: What are Cleveland Early Learning Spaces?

Michelle Connavino: Yes. So Cleveland Early Learning Spaces is a new program that we’re starting right now, actually. And-

Chris Riback: Breaking news on Early Learning Nation Studio.

Michelle Connavino: [crosstalk] Breaking news. Absolutely. We’re having our launch in just a few weeks. But we, actually pre-pandemic even, in 2018, 2019, started looking really deeply at what preschool providers need in their facilities. And that actually was born out of ongoing data that we look at twice a year, neighborhood by neighborhood in the city of Cleveland. What is the need for preschool? How many children live in each neighborhood? How many high quality preschool seats are available? How many lower quality seats are available that we could raise to quality? How many kids are enrolled in those seats? And we identified a few neighborhoods that actually needed new seats. And so this all started because we thought maybe we need to build some new preschools.

And then we thought, well, some of these community-based preschools that are already in place because of the way that financing works in childcare have not had the dollars to put toward maintenance and renovations that they really need. And so we were able to start a project where we received a grant from The George Gund Foundation and also from Gordon Gund himself to start this project. And so we’re giving providers $100,000 in a grant to do renovations. On top of that, we are working with IFF out of Chicago to provide an owner’s rep, to actually shepherd the construction project through to the end and work with the contractors, and then also professional development to help grow the capacity for this ongoing over the long-term.

Chris Riback: And as I understand, I mean, you’re talking about environmental health and safety, organization and layout, interior finishes and design, and gross motor and outdoor play space. I mean, you’re talking about reinventing these spaces outdoor to in, from top to bottom.

Michelle Connavino: Absolutely. And so some of these sites, when we did our initial assessment, we found some lead paint in some sites. We found some asbestos in some sites. We found sites that… A lot of sites need new roofs. So it’s some of all of that, but it’s also about when you’re in an early childhood classroom. Is there natural light? Are the colors conducive to learning and making sure that kids’ brains are processing what they need to and aren’t being distracted by clutter or whatever? So it’s a little bit of everything, really.

Chris Riback: And what has been the take up of PRE4CLE? And how successful has it been or where have the challenges been?

Michelle Connavino: PRE4CLE, we started in 2014. In our first five years, enrollment in high quality preschool in the city of Cleveland increased by 72%. So it’s pretty significant. And then COVID hit. So I mean, we could talk about the challenges of COVID forever.

Chris Riback: Yes.

Michelle Connavino: But I think our biggest challenge that we’re seeing, and I’m sure that you’re probably hearing this over and over today, is the early childhood workforce. And at this point, what we are seeing is that there are classrooms in Cleveland that are sitting unused and sitting empty because we don’t have teachers to fill those. And we don’t have teachers because the wages are not high enough and people have the opportunity to move into other professions right now. Early childhood teachers are also working with little kids every day who aren’t vaccinated, who may not follow masking as well as older kids do.

So they’re in a high exposure field. And then also, it’s just been incredibly hard on these providers. And they’ve had to open and close and whatever, figure out all sorts of challenges through COVID that we’ve all been figuring out, all while taking care of and teaching our youngest kids. And I think just all of those things on top of each other have really led to a huge shortage that was already coming prior to COVID, and it just exacerbated it and sped it up. And we got to figure out how to pay early childhood teachers what they’re worth for the work that they do and for their professionalism.

Chris Riback: A lot of challenges, a lot of opportunities too, with a lot of work being done by and with PRE4CLE. Michelle, thank you.

Michelle Connavino: Thank you.

Chris Riback: Thank you for joining us.

Chris Riback: Councilmember Dew, thank you so much for coming to the studio.

Pippin Dew: Thank you for having me.

Chris Riback: I look forward to-

Pippin Dew: I’m excited to be here.

Chris Riback: Yes, I was excited to have you here. Tell us about Vallejo Solano County, and what’s the state of early childhood learning in your community?

Pippin Dew: Yes, Vallejo is one of the most diverse cities in the country, actually. Our demographics are 25%, pretty equally split among Caucasian, Latinx, African American and Asian Pacific Islander.

Chris Riback: Wow.

Pippin Dew: One of the great things about our community is that we celebrate and embrace all of our ethnicities and diversity. And so, it’s really exciting from that standpoint. Solano County is one of the nine San Francisco Bay Area counties. However, we are the poorest, least invested-in county. The city of Vallejo is also the poorest city in the county. We’re 107,000 people strong.

Chris Riback: Wow.

Pippin Dew: But in comparison to San Francisco, we’re small but mighty, but we’re always fighting for those funding dollars.

Chris Riback: Yes, for sure. Well, that’s why they have you in the job.

Pippin Dew: Yes.

Chris Riback: What is First 5 Solano?

Pippin Dew: First 5 Solano is a commission by the county agency that supports early learning, zero to five children and their families, providing programs and services for them in that regard.

Chris Riback: How does it work with the Vallejo City Council?

Pippin Dew: It hasn’t had a long history of partnership, but over the last several years, First 5 Solano did some research, and based on the information they had available, they decided to open the first ever First 5 Center in Vallejo and then recently came forward with an Early Learning Center proposal that-

Chris Riback: The Beverly Hills Elementary School?

Pippin Dew: Yes.

Chris Riback: Yes.

Pippin Dew: Yes. And so, that was really exciting for me to hear about. I had supported the First 5 Center and lobbied with my council and got council support for center. And now, I’m going to be moving forward to also ask for support on this project as well.

Chris Riback: What’s the vision for it? And why is it needed specifically?

Pippin Dew: Yes. Beverly Hills Elementary School is in a census track that 95% of the elementary school children qualified for the free or subsidized lunch program prior to the pandemic. It was shut down during the pandemic, so it is now an unused resource. And so, the vision is to reopen it as an early learning center that would support our children; 300 children and their families, from zero to five, and provide these early education, robust, comprehensive curriculum from zero to transitional kindergarten and preschool Montessori; the whole gamut of opportunities. So, really looking at supporting, not just those children, but their families as well.

Chris Riback: As I’m listening to you, I’m hearing the need for that school. And at the same time, you talked about the socioeconomic situation of your city. And what I can only assume is a full range of challenges.

Pippin Dew: Yes.

Chris Riback: Health, education, environment, infrastructure. How do you balance, how do you coordinate, and how do you prioritize so that focus can stay on early childhood learning?

Pippin Dew: Yes. Vallejo is, as I mentioned, really celebrating our ethnicities and our diversities. But we’re also well known for our high crime, our high poverty, and our poorly-rated schools. And so, when we are looking at how to solve all of these problems, we also have less than half of our children go to preschool. Less than a quarter of our children have access to licensed childcare services. And so, we know that by investing in this early education space, that that is going to have incredible returns long term. It will set our children up for success in the future in education, as well as their families being able to focus on the workforce development that they need to be able to lift themselves up in their own daily lives and become the most productive people that they can be as well.

Chris Riback: And any guidance, tips, experience for other people in your roles in other communities?

Pippin Dew: Absolutely. Never give up, and be like water. Always look for ways around those obstacles, whatever they might be. There’s ways to overcome those challenges. You just have to be determined and keep focused on the end vision of successful, thriving families and neighborhoods.

Chris Riback: I like that, be like water. You’re right, it always finds a way.

Pippin Dew: Yes.

Chris Riback: Yes. Councilmember Dew, do thank you so much for joining us.

Pippin Dew: Yes. Thank you so much for having me.

Chris Riback: Council member Fournier, thank you for coming to our ELN studio.

April Fournier: Absolutely. Thank you for having me.

Chris Riback: What is the state of early childhood learning in Portland Maine today? Maybe give me both pre COVID and what’s happened since COVID.

April Fournier: Sure. I think pre COVID, just like a lot of places around the country, there’s just not enough spaces. And so we have so many parents that need childcare to work to make their household work, so that they have money coming in. Plus we also know the benefits of children being around each other socially, emotionally and being able to build their communication skills, learning how to create a community. When you don’t have all those spaces, you have children that really start to fall behind, especially as they enter public school. So I think before COVID we definitely had a shortage, but there were lots of small like family run childcares or in home childcares as well as lots of different centers.

I think what we’ve seen post COVID is a significant decrease in those programs. Whether the parents that would come and work in them couldn’t go back to the workforce because, they themselves couldn’t find childcare. Or we know that also early childcare workers are some of the lowest paid in the country. And so you’re coming out of COVID, you’re like, my bills are behind. I need to pay my mortgage. I need to pay my car and the job that I’m doing isn’t cutting it anymore, because I’m so behind.

And so you have a lot of people that have also left the workforce to go find something else that’s paying more. I think for Portland, we’re very much feeling that. What I hear on the council from a lot of families is, we need more spots. We need more childcare, or these children are just going to sit at home and then all of a sudden, they show up one day in kindergarten and they don’t know how to interact. They don’t know how to engage. And then I think you start to see, more that child’s a behavior problem, more that child is going to be tagged.

Chris Riback: It all connects.

April Fournier: Yes, absolutely.

Chris Riback: It all connects.

April Fournier: It’s critical.

Chris Riback: So you seem to be an extremely busy person. One role is council member. Can we talk about another of your roles?

April Fournier: Sure. Yes, absolutely.

Chris Riback: You currently are in a grant funded position that provides barrier free support to families within a pediatric practice setting.

April Fournier: Yes.

Chris Riback: What is the program? What are you doing it? And what do you see there?

April Fournier: Yes, so I’m an early childhood support specialist within the outpatient pediatric clinic. We see typically families who either require free care, or low cost healthcare, or Medicaid. So we have very few families that are private pay insurance. So these are often families that are living in poverty or within Portland, we have a lot of Asili families that have just newly arrived in the states.

My role is to help provide that connection. So pediatricians can spend 15 to 30 minutes often with a family and they’re really focused on the medical component. Then they have to go off to their next patient. But that doesn’t mean that they’ve been able to address some of those social determinants of health. Like, do you have safe and secure housing? Do you have enough food to feed your family on a regular basis?

Chris Riback: So does the family start with the pediatrician and then transition to you?

April Fournier: Yes. Yes.

Chris Riback: So it’s almost two separate, though, connected conversations?

April Fournier: Absolutely. I often will come in after the visit. So the pediatrician does their visit and then we have a quick little conference, before I go in and talk to the family. And so that could be, Hey, so mom mentioned that she’s working with this domestic violence agency to get some counseling because, her and dad were separated. Or this mom mentioned that she’s really struggling to get diapers on a regular basis. The baby has a diaper rash because, she’s trying to use diapers for longer periods of time because of that insecurity.

By having that quick little conference, I know what I’m walking into. I’m not asking the same questions. So the parents are like, I just told the doctor all this information. So one, it’s honoring that time for the family, but also jumping into the conversation that is most important for them.

Chris Riback: And you can really cover a wide range of risk factors.

April Fournier: Absolutely.

Chris Riback: I understand you collect data off of these conversations as well. What do the data show? What have you seen?

April Fournier: So the things that we’re looking at is, as we’re having these conversations are they identifying a housing need, or a social services need, or diaper insecurity, food insecurity? It’s a brand new mom who’s 19 years old and is trying to figure out, I don’t know how to bathe my baby. I don’t know how to do sleep routines or I’m not sleeping. So it’s really taking this holistic look at how do we help this family be successful, so that as this child develops, as this family develops, they have the best possible outcome. So I’m taking data, asking questions and then we’re able to pull that from our medical record system to see, we met this family when the baby was three days old.

Now the baby’s four months old, what progress has this family made with this intervention? And it’s amazing what we’re seeing, we’re just seeing really, really great results. They’re not diaper insecure or they’ve been able to connect to community resources that help them with housing or getting connected to wick, or even just getting health insurance. So they’re not getting these bills from the hospital that create anxiety and fear and I don’t know how to pay this. So it’s really helping connect all of the things for the family to help them be successful.

Chris Riback: In learning about your story, I realized as well, this is personal for you.

April Fournier: Absolutely.

Chris Riback: I mean you underwent quite a career change. Inspired, I believe, by your son.

April Fournier: Yes. Absolutely. I was on a trajectory with an insurance company, or in the financial services industry to be project manager or operational development.

Chris Riback: Or CEO of a multinational bank? Yes. Something.

April Fournier: One day. And so my youngest son, I had twins. So I actually have four children, but the youngest are twins. We noticed around age two, they weren’t exactly developing the same. They had some language development, but he was starting to do things like lining things up or he would get really frustrated and hit himself, or bang his head off the ground. And it was just like, I have no idea what’s happening with this kiddo. It just doesn’t make sense. And so the pediatrician did some screenings for autism and said, well, let’s go ahead and do some evaluation. Because he’s really kind of hitting all these different flags. And so after going through that evaluation, he was diagnosed with autism and it was like, I have no idea what to do.

Thankfully Maine has a program called Child Development Services that comes in to do early intervention. So it’s really around teaching parents, how do you work on your routines so that you’re able to bring language out or create social connections within the scope of your everyday life? Not every parent can take time off to do all of this development. So how can you do it within what you’re already doing?

And so in watching his transformation, his language development, he started to come back to us. And be like, Hey, I’m checking back into my family and I’m learning these things and we’re seeing less aggressions or less self-harm. Like, why wouldn’t you want to do something that’s going to do that for children. And just what it did for our family was incredible. So rather than going to graduate school for project management or financial services, I went to graduate school for early childhood special education.

Chris Riback: A different kind of education.

April Fournier: Absolutely. Yes.

Chris Riback: One both in school and in the classroom, but also in real life.

April Fournier: Absolutely. Absolutely. So then in doing different roles, I worked doing in-home services for families who have a child with autism. How do you connect them to community? How do you plan a grocery trip, knowing that you’re going to have tantrums, or knowing that you’re going to have behaviors that happen? How do you help families meet their goals?

I taught in a special education classroom and I worked connecting families in to that transition to kindergarten. And how do you work with public schools on implementing special education services? And then worked in head start. So lots of different facets to figure out, how do we most help these families within our community?

Chris Riback: Council member, what does it mean to you to be an indigenous Diné woman on the city council? What level of responsibility does that make you feel?

April Fournier: I’m honored to hold that space. There are so many people that came before me to make it possible. Not necessarily in Portland specifically, but on a national level back in my homelands. Being able to see Deb Holland, secretary Holland as part of the cabinet, it’s just incredible. And so by claiming these spaces and creating spaces for indigenous officials to walk into, it just allows us to have the next generations come along with us. So my children are seeing me run for city council, or they’re seeing me take advocacy space, or they’re seeing me take pictures in Washington, in our capital doing this work.

And so I think, when you’re a minority or when you’re part of a marginalized group, it’s hard to walk through some doors. And so if you see someone who looks like you, who has the same type of life experience, has a similar identity, it’s so much easier and comfortable to walk through that door and take that space as well. I’m again, incredibly honored to be in this space. I take my responsibility, very, very seriously and I am just so excited to do it.

Chris Riback: I’m sure that you do, I’m sure that you are. Your children see you, your community sees you.

April Fournier: Yes.

Chris Riback: Thank you.

April Fournier: Of course, thank you.

Chris Riback: Thank you for the work you do and for coming to the studio.

April Fournier: Awesome. Thank you for having me.

Chris Riback: Ramie, thank you for coming to our ELN studio.

Ramie Mack: Thank you for having me.

Chris Riback: It’s great to see you.

Ramie Mack: Thank you.

Chris Riback: We appreciate it. Ramie, tell me about yourself. What year are you in high school? What are your interests?

Ramie Mack: OK. Hi, my name is Ramie Mack. I’m from Fayetteville, North Carolina. I’m 17 years old. I’m a junior at Seventy-First High School, and I just love my community and just bettering it.

Chris Riback: Why are you here today?

Ramie Mack: I’m actually here with my youth council, the Fayetteville-Cumberland Youth Council. We come to the National League of Cities Congressional City Conference every single year, and I’m just so happy to be here because we weren’t here the last two years. We were virtual, so I’m just here with my youth council. I’m also on the YEF board, that’s the Youth, Education and Families board that NLC has. I’m one of the youth representatives. So yes, I’m just so excited to be here.

Chris Riback: What are your goals with that board? What do you enjoy about it? What do you hope that they focus on?

Ramie Mack: I just love how they allow us to give the youth perspective. I think perspectives are really big. Once you have different people from different backgrounds, different ethnicities, you have different perspectives, and that just gives people a different outlook on situations or topics that we discuss. I love how NLC always includes the youth. I’m very big on just having a youth mind in the room, it just changes the whole trajectory of the thing. So I just love how they allow us to give our opinion. Some people might not agree with my opinion, but you’re giving me the opportunity to share it. So it’s always an honor to just be in rooms like that with mayors and council members, so it’s really amazing.

Chris Riback: I bet it is. What would your youth perspective be? If you were talking to a mayor or a city council member right now, what would you tell them about youth education? What should be changed? What could be made better? What’s your view?

Ramie Mack: A lot of times, they hear us but they don’t listen. You hear what we’re saying, but are you comprehending what I’m saying? And I just really think they should just sit down and listen to us because they say they care about the youth, but what are the action steps that you are taking to benefit us? So I think they should just do a better job with school board. Do you have a youth representative in the room when you’re talking about stuff that have to do with us? Are you accommodating to how we’re feeling?

A lot of people don’t realize what teenagers go through. We’re going through a lot. We just, we had to do school on a computer for two years and you expect us to function like everything’s okay. Sometimes we’re not okay, and that’s okay. Sometimes it’s okay not to be okay, and it’s okay for us to express that we’re not okay. And if they would just listen, I think a lot of things would change if they would just listen to the youth perspective.

Chris Riback: In your community, does education occur only in the classroom, or does education occur even outside the classroom, in after school programs, churches, whatever it is?

Ramie Mack: Learning happens 24/7. Everywhere you go, you’re learning something. We’re always learning something, we’re always… You telling me something about yourself, I just learned something about you. You’re always learning. It’s not just in the classroom, it’s outside the classroom. It’s in a school board, it’s in a courtroom, it’s in a jail cell, it’s… Everywhere, you’re learning something. So it’s not just in the classroom.

Chris Riback: What’s next for you?

Ramie Mack: I don’t know what holds next for me. I’m just a really, I’m just a person who just… I just go with it. I know I have big things ahead of me, but I’m a type of person who plans it, but I also don’t plan it at the same time because you never know how life goes. I am about to head to college in a few years, I graduate in 2023. So my plan is to go to Winston-Salem State University, and that’s in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, and just… I know I’m going to do big things. I know after I graduate high school, me bettering my community, it’s not just going to stop here when I graduate. So I’m just excited, just for what the future holds for me.

Chris Riback: I’m excited for you just listening to that, and look forward to seeing all the things that you do.

Ramie Mack: Thank you.

Chris Riback: Ramie, thank you. Thank you for joining us today.

Ramie Mack: Thank you for having me.

Chris Riback: Ann, thanks so much for coming to the studio. It’s great to have you here.

Ann Vadakkan: Thank you for having me.

Chris Riback: So tell me about you. What year are you in school and what are some of your interests?

Ann Vadakkan: So I’m currently a sophomore at Neil High School. I do a lot of dance outside of school, Indian classical dance. I’ve been doing it for around 13 years. That’s been a huge part of my life. I also do a lot of art, like painting, drawing, anything like that. I’m also a big baker, so pretty much all over the place, but it’s been a lot of fun.

Chris Riback: Well, excellent. We would all love to take advantage of the baking, so feel free to bring samples by the studio at any time.

Ann Vadakkan: Of course.

Chris Riback: Tell me about the policy and government and youth advocacy work that you do. What motivates you?

Ann Vadakkan: So I’m currently part of the Austin Youth Council, and I was recently appointed to be on the YEF Council, but as a part of the Austin Youth Council, it really advocates for youth empowerment, just getting a bunch of different people, a bunch of diverse cultures, races, pretty much anything that falls along those lines just to come together and be civically engaged. This includes volunteering or talking to council members about issues that we face as youth, which is a huge part of the Austin Youth Council. So as a part of the YEF Council, we plan these conferences and workshops for the youth delegates, which is a really amazing opportunity and I’m super excited to be working on it.

Chris Riback: What are some of the issues when you talk to in Austin and to the council there, what are some of the issues that are on youth’s minds that you help inform them about?

Ann Vadakkan: So I definitely think mental health is one of the biggest issues that the youth face, especially. All over the nation, not just in Austin. So ways to address that that we’ve done is having campaigns on social media, through Instagram and posting about social media awareness, advocating for just to get rid of the stigma that surrounds mental illness in all of our public high schools. That’s been a huge part. Homelessness, that’s also been a huge growing issue in Austin, specifically.

Chris Riback: It’s a big Austin issue, yes.

Ann Vadakkan: Yes, for sure. And ways that we’ve tried to address that is creating care packages and trying to implement care packages for the homeless population, because we have different committees and different committees focus on different ideas. So the homelessness committee specifically focuses creating care packages.

Chris Riback: Youth mental health, youth mental wellness. Do you see the challenges with your peers, with your friends? What are kids going through?

Ann Vadakkan: For sure. There’s a study one in every three students in high school has basically some sort of mental health issue. This goes along with a lot lack of motivation that I’ve seen in my peers, for sure. Students that were once super motivated to get up every day, do the work, be top of their class is no longer like that. They’ve just sort of fallen behind due to the pandemic and just the lack of socialization that came with that. I definitely think that a lot of my classmates do suffer from mental illnesses and that should be addressed.

Chris Riback: It’s got to be hard to see.

Ann Vadakkan: Yes, for sure. Just seeing the downfall and the gradual decline of my peers, just being really studious top of the class to all of a sudden not wanting to do any assignments at all is heartbreaking.

Chris Riback: So both in Austin and with the YEF, Youth Education and Families Council, you work with a lot of adults.

Ann Vadakkan: Yes.

Chris Riback: What do the adults not understand?

Ann Vadakkan: I think that something that the adults should understand is the fact that we do have a voice and that is pretty generic, but there’s a lot of people who just kind of overlook what the youth have to say. Just as a part of this conference, we were speaking to some of the other youth delegates from across the nation and they were addressing how there weren’t as many youth delegate workshops as they would’ve liked, which is kind of counterintuitive to the message that the NLC is trying to send, which was just a huge, just shocker. So I think that’s definitely one.

Chris Riback: Do you connect, we’re talking about education, you are raising a whole series of issues, including mental health. Do you see the connections between youth education, maybe even younger childhood education, if you can think back to elementary school or even before, and ensuring mental health wellness with teenagers?

Ann Vadakkan: I think that the education system has definitely began to start implementing different programs, especially in high school to address these issues. But definitely in elementary and middle school, I did not see as many. I didn’t even know that like mental and this was something that a lot of people were dealing with just because that wasn’t addressed at all. And I know that there are students who have faced trauma in elementary and middle school, but it’s just not addressed at all. I was just in a session with the mayor’s education task force and they were addressing how they’ve implemented more counselors into school, into high schools. And I’ve seen that in my high school as well, but definitely in the younger ages, like elementary and middle school, I don’t see that as often.

Chris Riback: And what’s next for you?

Ann Vadakkan: So I’m planning to going into business just really broad, but maybe specializing in marketing. I love interacting with people. I think that’s something that I would excel in. I definitely want to stay civically engaged in some way. Maybe having a position at the NLC, just being exposed to the NLC in general was an incredible experience. Seeing all the leaders just coming together and seeing how they interact with people too. That’s just been an inspiring experience. And I definitely think I want to pursue something either in the government side of things or the business side of things.

Chris Riback: Yes. We look forward to either way, maybe both and.

Ann Vadakkan: Yes, that’s for sure.

Chris Riback: But we look forward to it. Ann, thank you for stopping by the studio.

Ann Vadakkan: Yes. Thank you so much for having me.

Chris Riback: Rebecca, so great to see you. Thank you for coming to the studio.

Rebecca Gale: Thanks for having me, Chris.

Chris Riback: So you co-authored one of the most provocative and fresh and well-reasoned pieces that I have read in a while.

Rebecca Gale: Thank you.

Chris Riback: I love this. You argued that every news outlet should have a child care beat. Why?

Rebecca Gale: Because childcare is complicated, and it’s not something somebody can necessarily understand very quickly. The economics are complicated. The way people use it is complicated. Something called the delivery system, which is the way childcare gets from the executive branch funding to actually someone watching your child, that’s also complicated. Because people have such myriad needs with childcare, there’s not a one size fits all approach. You’re seeing reporters, well-meaning reporters, looking for a silver bullet solution. There really isn’t one.

Beat reporting allows you to develop an expertise and really dive into it and really understand what makes a system work, where supports are needed, how to improve an existing system, and what maybe needs a bigger overhaul. That’s how we were arguing for it. We saw with the pandemic, there was I think 90% increase in the number of childcare stories. You have a lot of reporters who, maybe they have children, maybe they don’t, maybe they had children 20 years ago in childcare. It’s very different now. So are the family dynamics in terms of who works and what hours they work. You’re seeing people approach this topic and trying to write these intelligent stories on it. It’s hard to do. It’s not saying a good reporter can’t do it, but by having a dedicated beat, they’ll be able to get into the nuances much better.

Chris Riback: And make those connections.

Rebecca Gale: Exactly.

Chris Riback: So much reporting is how do you connect the seemingly disparate items that actually together make what is important.

Rebecca Gale: Exactly right. Then you also get the sources. You get to talk to experts, you develop an expertise, and you develop relationships within the field. So when you have to write a story on something small, that’s changing, something small may be changing, but it may have a much bigger impact. That’s when you need a beat reporter to sort of figure that out.

Chris Riback: What a powerful line you had. Complexity and urgency don’t pair well. It’s unrealistic to expect a reporter new to covering child care to churn out a nuanced story on a tight deadline. It’s totally the point.

Rebecca Gale: Completely agree. For a long time, I covered a lot of work and family issues, and one of them was paid family leave. When I started covering child care for better life lab as a reporting fellow, I found the stories were taking me a lot longer to write. I was wondering, why am I taking so long to turn this story around? It was because it’s much more complicated to understand. There’s not one way to deliver child care. There’s not one major type of needs for child care. Sure, people need someone to watch their kids. But child care looks different for infants, for toddlers, and for older children, as well as the time of day you need it is also very different. I think really delving into those issues took a lot of time. Once you’re there, it’s great, and you can really explore, and there’s a lot of great stories, including ones that Early Learning Nation has run on their site about child care. But it does take that expertise to really get there.

Chris Riback: It feels to me like something is really missing by not having that storytelling. You could talk about not having sufficient child care centers. That’d be bad, not having programs or funding. That’d be bad, not having child care people who can do the job, that’d be bad. But not having the reporting, not having the storytelling, you’re missing one of the … Another thing that really stood out to me from what you wrote was about the range of standards, the incredible range of, or lack of standards. You highlighted too in Massachusetts, a state like Massachusetts, anyone watching a single non-relative child in their own home requires a child care license. Whereas in South Dakota, a child care giver can watch up to 12 children without requiring a license. How is it possible that there’s such a wide range?

Rebecca Gale: Well, there’s huge disparities because so many of these laws are made at the state level, and they’re tied to things like subsidies and funding and licensing. Because you have the state level doing it, they have different needs, and they also have different levels of oversight and different levels of even going through the licensing process. My understanding is to get the licensing in Massachusetts, it’s a pretty high lift and there’s even companies coming in to help with this process because it’s so much.

In South Dakota, 12 kids is a lot. You may never need a license. I don’t want to speak for the state, but it’s worth exploring that the state doesn’t dedicate those resources to oversight and licensing, and there’s advantages and disadvantages to both sides of it. Again, this gets back into what beat reporting does, really understanding the licensing of where you live, why it matters, how it differs is a big deal, not only from a policy debate, but also for the people who want to go through the licensing process. How do they even know where to begin? Navigating these government sites isn’t for everyone. And to expect someone to go in and be able to jump through these hoops, to provide a valuable, necessary service for their community, that’s a big ask. We need to be careful when we ask people to do these things what we actually need them to do and how they’re going to be able to do it.

Chris Riback: Relatedly, another analogy that you gave is that there’s no school district for early childhood centers. That makes a big difference. There’s no coordinating entity.

Rebecca Gale: There’s no human resources department. There’s no benefits team. There’s very few of these infrastructures in place. What happens is these jobs of running a daycare, they’re high burnout jobs with very low margins and the economics don’t add up. People don’t question the economics of public schools in the same way. We understand that the kids are getting an education and that parents and students aren’t expected to pay market value for it.

But for child care, the expectation’s not there, and there’s a lot of history as to why we don’t treat child care as a public good and why there’s not a social value assigned to it. I think some of that goes back to the way families in our country have developed. Some of it goes back to the fact that child care has come in waves in terms of being able to support it. The military has an excellent child care system set up, but the rest of the country really doesn’t. As we’re seeing some places, like Vermont is notable for trying to really tackle child care as a public good, as more of these things happen, I think the conversation will move forward. But we really do need those reporters to keep the story going too.

Chris Riback: Aside from my reaction that it was a brilliant argument, brilliantly made, what’s been the reaction to your calling for child care being a beat in our journalistic offices?

Rebecca Gale: What’s interesting is we got a lot of great reaction online, and there were someone who called out a number of publications that do order report on child care, which I think are excellent. I think they are providing a great service. I think the publication that covers one topic or a handful of topics that are connected makes a lot of sense. At the same time, what we’re really calling for is for this to be part of daily news the way that the economics is covered.

Chris Riback: The police beat, economics beat, health beat-

Rebecca Gale: I think the pandemic for all the things it shifted in this country, it did change a conversation about child care, where employers, it mattered to them, where economics, it took a much bigger role. We want people to get back to work and get back to the office. There needs to be a safe, reliable place they can send their kids. It was good in that child care came up in its level of importance, but when it’s really important, that’s when we’ll start seeing even more news stories from outlets that don’t traditionally cover it as a beat.

Chris Riback:  And to the extent that you feel comfortable revealing your next scoop and secret, what’s next for you on reporting?

Rebecca Gale: I’m working on a story about a push to make unpaid labor something that matters more in the economy. It’s a bit of a scoop, so I don’t have all details yet to reveal, but there is definitely a force of people out there who are high powered, who are into the economics of things, who have a lot of entrepreneurial background who think that unpaid labor, the care work, the care economy needs to be valued more. There are some ways they’re trying to make that happen. I will keep you posted.

Chris Riback: We will stay tuned. Rebecca, thank you for coming to the studio.

Rebecca Gale: Thank you, Chris, so much.

Chris Riback: Hello, Austin. Hello.

Cathy McHorse: Good Morning.

Lawrence Lyman: Good Morning.

Donna Sundstrom: Good Morning.

Sylnovia Holt-Rabb: Good Morning.

Chris Riback: Welcome to the Early Learning Nation Studio. Great to have you.

Cathy McHorse: Thank you.

Lawrence Lyman: Thank you.

Donna Sundstrom: Thank you.

Sylnovia Holt-Rabb: Thank you.

Chris Riback: Cathy, what is the state of early childhood learning and early childhood care in Austin? Describe it for me, if you would pre COVID and post COVID.

Cathy McHorse: Sure. Compared to other communities in Texas, the Austin-Travis County community was really better positioned as far as having access to high quality early care and education and pre-K, because of the work of our community wide coalition for the past decade. But that’s important to look at in the context of the state of Texas, out of all 50 states, we have the least coordinated, efficient and integrated system for early childhood education across the country. So we were well poised, but the pandemic really did devastate the whole sector. Fortunately, our community gave early COVID relief funding, and so our child care centers have fared better than some of the other communities around the state.

Chris Riback: So what is the Austin Travis coalition, and what is the Success by Six Plan?

Cathy McHorse: We have a community wide coalition that includes our partners at Austin city, Austin and Travis county. It includes all of the stakeholders that provide support for families from birth to five. And we came together back in 2011 to create a strategic plan. And we’re now in the third version of our strategic plan, trying to improve school readiness overall.

Chris Riback: And Lawrence, how did that coalition come together? You represent Travis county, that’s correct?

Lawrence Lyman: Yes.

Chris Riback: How did the coalition come together?

Lawrence Lyman: So this goes back many, many years to a prior century to be honest. We had a long history of more or less informal collaboration among the city, the county, and others in the community to try to do what we could to improve quality, expand capacity. But I don’t know, Kathy can correct me probably 20 years ago or more.

Chris Riback: Wow.

Lawrence Lyman: The United Way really stepped up and grabbed ahold and said, we’re going to become the backbone to make this happen and really broaden the coalition, formalize the coalition. Really got us a point, so it was less a matter of point by point. What makes sense right now and really got us to, this is a plan that as a community we can run with. And so all of us, whether we’re public, private, or just generally interested, can identify this is where I can fit and move forward the whole of the community to address those broader goals.

Chris Riback: And Donna, why did it make sense for Austin to coordinate with Travis County? Why does it matter to extend beyond just Austin itself?

Donna Sundstrom: I think it’s really important as a community that we’re all aligned with a strategic plan and we’re all going in the same direction with one voice and not having separate performance goals or separate goals from the city side versus the county. So that way our partners they’re seeking the community’s goals, not the city’s specific goals, not the county’s, but we’re all aligned in one direction.

Chris Riback: And Sylnovia, efforts like this, they’re nice to do. They’re good to do. I mean, who doesn’t want to help children? Who doesn’t want to help families? Is there an economic argument for it?

Sylnovia Holt-Rabb: Yes. We feel that once you start early with a child, you’re building on the front end, so that on the back end, you have success in terms of further education certificate, a wellbeing life, a quality of life. And so this is not our first entrance into assisting with child care. We have done it previously through our workforce development contracts. We built that in to our contracts around workforce development.

Chris Riback: Donna, what does 38 babies mean to you?

Donna Sundstrom: So in Austin-Travis county, we average about 38 babies being born each and every day. And those babies are born into a lot of different circumstances. Some are healthy, some are not, some have financial resources and means, some do not, some have a really good support system and some do not. And so it’s really important to ensure that each of those babies is able to thrive and reach their full potential. And that’s what Success by Six, we really want to try to ensure throughout the community.

Chris Riback: And that potential. Cathy is not a one day journey. It’s a 2000 day journey. What is the 2000 Day Journey?

Cathy McHorse: So that’s the time between, the day a child is born and when they enter kindergarten. And so we hope to surround that child with resources and make sure their family and the child have experiences that support them to reach their optimal developmental potential before they even enter kindergarten.

Chris Riback: And I understand that you were able to direct some of the American Rescue Plan Act money, some 11 million dollars. What did you do with that? How did it help this program?

Cathy McHorse: So we really, we were fortunate, as I said that the city and county had already invested some COVID relief funding for our child care sector. So we were able to be strategic, look at our data, and think about where could we invest to make our infrastructure stronger and our systems better in the long run, so that when we do get at limited resources into this sector, we can maximize them. So it includes everything from supporting our mixed delivery pre-K partnership program, expanding support for the child care workforce through premium pay, strengthening the child care sector through Shared Services Alliance, family-based child care, because we know infants and toddlers are there, and even expanding pre-K access throughout public schools.

Chris Riback: And Sylnovia, what’s next?

Sylnovia Holt-Rabb: So what’s next within our group is that we, in economic development, will continue to support early childhood through a future RFP that we have coming out, but we work collaboratively and we’re excited about the future. We’re poised and ready for new funds if the feds want to send us some. So-

Chris Riback: As one of the people responsible for economic development, I am sure you are ready for new funds.

Sylnovia Holt-RABB: Yes.

Chris Riback: Thank you all for joining us in the ELN studio today.

Lawrence Lyman: Thank you.

Sylnovia Holt-Rabb: Thank you.

Donna Sundstrom: Thank you.

Cathy McHorse: Thank you.

Chris Riback: Dr. Blaine, thank you so much for joining us in the studio.

Dr. Robert Blaine: You’re welcome. Thank you for having me.

Chris Riback: It’s terrific to see you, but I’ve got to say it was terrific throughout this conference to see these spectacular youth representatives for the YEF the Institute for Youth Education and Families. How do you get such terrific young people?

Dr. Robert Blaine: Well, we have youth councils around the country. And so many of the cities actually have actually brought in youth as a part of their governance process. And so these youth actually meet the youth councils from individual cities come together here at our national conferences. And one of the things that’s really exciting to me is that we then have a set of those youth who actually have seats on our YEF Council. So we have four incredible young people. They’re from all over the country. They are incredibly right and articulate. And what we’re so excited about is having the authentic voice of youth at the table. And we’re actually building in a new process that will actually staff the youth that are sitting on the YEF Council. So they will have all the same resources that for example, a mayor sitting on the council would have. So really excited about the authentic engagement of youth and making sure that youth voices are built into all the processes that the institute runs.

Chris Riback: And do they leave you feeling cooler or a greater realization of just how out of it you are?

Dr. Robert Blaine: Well, it’s interesting. Much of my career was in the academic field. So before coming to the Institute for Youth Education and Families, I was a provost at a small college, and then I was a dean at a university. And so I used to say that young people keep me young, which is a wonderful thing.

Chris Riback: It seems to be working. You look terrific.

Dr. Robert Blaine: Well, we try. But what’s really exciting about it is that they have new ideas and new ways of thinking. And one of the things that I used to say is that this generation of students has access to resources and information that no other generation ever has. And so their brains have literally developed differently than any other generation. And I think it’s just a marvel to see. I’m intrigued by them all the time. And I think our futures will be well served with that.

Chris Riback: I think so too, they’ve been outstanding. I can only assume that you’ll be just as good as they are in the conversation, but I’ve got to tell you there’s a high bar.

Dr. Robert Blaine: I’ll work hard.

Chris Riback: What have the last two years been like for early childhood learning?

Dr. Robert Blaine: It’s been difficult. It’s been difficult for families and it’s been difficult for the children themselves. One of the challenges that we see, especially in vulnerable communities is that access to high quality childcare is really fundamental. And we understand the importance of these early years in a child’s life and what it means in order to be able to have the right support that you need for the development that you need. And so for many children, especially vulnerable children that simply hasn’t been there. And so we know that we’re going to have to do a lot of work to catch up. We know that one of the things that’s exciting is that we know that the brain is plastic. We know that we can catch up, but we have to be very intentional in that work. And so I’m excited about how we’re going to build that intentionality and make sure that we’re serving those children and those families the best.

Chris Riback: So tell me about that intentionality and the building and your plan and your vision. What is your vision in the role that you have?

Dr. Robert Blaine: When we look at the institute writ large, we’ve been talking a lot about essentially three different levels that the institute works on. So we have the programmatic level where we’re thinking about individual programs that are actually focused on outcomes in communities, but deeper than that, we’re we look at the systemic level when we’re working with the city, how are we actually changing the system and thinking about what the impacts of these systemic level changes are. But we’re trying to dig even deeper now to look at how do we measure the population level impacts? And this is what we were talking about earlier, what it means to work with these children directly and how we’re increasing outcomes and building more opportunity for more children and families across the country. So I’m incredibly excited about where we are, how we’re positioned right now as an institute. It’s a tragedy that a worldwide pandemic had to push us to that point. But I think that we’re in the right space at the right time. And hopefully, we can do the right things,

Chris Riback: Literally, how do you work with cities or municipalities? Do you, at the program level, do you help them at the deepest level with actual measurements? How do you work with them?

Dr. Robert Blaine: All three. So generally the way that we work at the programmatic level, we’re actually designing the program with the cities. So we’re thinking about… Exactly. We’re sitting down with them, it’s really our technical assistance. And it’s a design process of really thinking about what are the outcomes that we’re trying to produce with this partner, but then how are we actually giving them the support that they need in order to be able to institute the kinds of changes that they want. At the systems level, it’s really, we handed over to the city. They have the plan now. And so now, it’s about us supporting their execution.

What do we need in order to be able to change the strategy, to be able to change the teams, to be able to organize ourselves? What does that look like? And then at the population level, one of the things that we’re doing is a lot of data organizing so that we really want to understand what’s our current state, how are we measuring? What change looks like? How are we measuring that over time? And how are we building our programs so that we can follow the long tail of the data. So often you’re funded for a certain period, but we want to be able to measure the data much longer than that, because we want to see what the long term effects.

Chris Riback: You want the impact all the way down the long tail.

Dr. Robert Blaine: Exactly. We’re really at all three phases. And what I’m excited about now is that we’ve actually built that into our structure. And I think that we’re going to really see the impact of that work in communities across the country.

Chris Riback: You’ve got this incredible vantage point. You get this both vertically, from top to bottom, but also horizontally coast to coast. What do you see out there?

Dr. Robert Blaine: What I see is a lot of inequity. I see some communities that are really thriving and I see some communities that are really struggling. And one of the things that we see a lot is that inside of a community itself, you can disaggregate data, census track by census track. And you can see those that are thriving and that those are that are struggling in the same community.

Chris Riback: It just shows up there? The numbers don’t lie?

Dr. Robert Blaine: They don’t lie. And so for us, it’s a matter on focusing in on those inequities, using the data to drive us towards how we’re going to invest and invest in communities that need it the most.

Chris Riback: So I don’t mean this to be a trick question. And I know you love all of your children equally. Are there any programs that you see that are working, that if you could, you would lift them out of place A and put them into B, C, and D?

Dr. Robert Blaine: I think that when we start to talk about early learning specifically, one of the things that really excites me is this cohort model where we’re bringing together cities around a specific intervention, and it doesn’t matter what the intervention is. But the ability of cities to listen and learn from each other to be able to bounce ideas off of each other, and to really think about, I have this problem here in my community, but communities A, B and C are all have the same issues. What do we have in common? What can we learn from them? How can we partner with them? And it’s almost like an ecosystem of partners. And so bringing together the right partners at the right times in order to be able to serve communities, to be able to listen and learn from each other, and then to be able to have that technical expertise to say, “Okay, this is what execution looks like.” It’s incredibly exciting.

Chris Riback: It sounds like it would be. It also sounds to be able to do that, to bring together different locations and ideas, and almost have them harmonize in such a way, it would seem that one would want the skills of a conductor. You don’t happen to know anyone who has that skill set?

Dr. Robert Blaine: I might know a little bit about that.

Chris Riback: How does that played into how you look at what you do?

Dr. Robert Blaine: So it’s interesting. So for the first part of my career, I was a professional musician and I actually conducted orchestras in different parts of the world. And one thing about being a conductor is that you have a sonic picture of what you’re trying to portray to an audience in your head. And your job is to be able to make space for the artists to be able to achieve that sonic picture. And so it’s really about how do you both translate that picture that you have in your head, but support the musicians so that they have the space in order to be able to achieve it. And then if something’s not exactly right, to be able to organize meld blend in a way that achieves the outcome. So it’s very similar to running an organization. I think it’s maybe a slightly unusual training, but it serves me well. So I enjoy it.

Chris Riback: Well, these are slightly unusual times. It’s good to have a conductor provost, Dean and leader of cities and organizations. Dr. Blaine, thank you so much for joining us in the studio.

Dr. Robert Blaine: Thank you so much for having me.

Chris Riback: Avinash, thanks so much for coming to the studio. Looking forward to talking with you.

Avinash Verma: Of course. I look forward to the conversation as well.

Chris Riback: So tell me about yourself. What year are you in high school? What are your interests?

Avinash Verma: All right. So my name is Avinash Verma, and I live in Austin, Texas. And I’m currently a senior, so looking forward to graduating in about a few months. A few of my interests, I really like to watch movies. I’m a big-

Chris Riback: Big movie buff.

Avinash Verma: … avid fan of movies. Yes, movie buff. And a few of my interests are, of course, policies, local politics. I really like to be involved in my community. That’s something I really try to build into my life and make an effort to be more involved in my community.

Chris Riback: Excellent.

Avinash Verma: And overall, I also really love to cook. I love to cook in my free times, try out new recipes.

Chris Riback: Well, if the policy, government, changing the world thing doesn’t work out for you, you can always do a meal and a movie.

Avinash Verma: Oh, of course. Yes. A meal and a movie totally works.

Chris Riback: That sounds like [inaudible]. There are a lot of policies out there.

Avinash Verma: Yes.

Chris Riback: Education, environment, health, criminal justice, infrastructure. What are you motivated on?

Avinash Verma: Something that I’m really passionate about is youth engagement. There are not a lot of policies that exist when it comes to involving youth in policies, in politics, in local government, in state government, in federal government. There are not a lot of initiatives that are set in stone steps taken towards involving youth more and more into politics. A lot of youth, a lot of people that I speak to, my friends, my colleagues, they think politics as a taboo. That’s something that, in their mind, is like, “Oh, the system is broken. I don’t want to be involved in it. It’s too complicated for me to understand.”

So I think making efforts towards getting that notion out of people is really important. And youth engagement, more information, more experience out there will really help our community grow stronger together and also focus more on policies and politics, which actually will change the world. And another topic that I’m also really passionate about is, of course, infrastructure. So just infrastructure when it comes to roads, when it comes to schools, when it comes to the resources we have at schools, the resources we have as a community is also really important for me, because I truly believe that having a lot of resources and the opportunities are out there. And really looking for the resources that will connect you to the opportunities is really important to me.

Chris Riback: Now, you sit on NLC’s Council on Youth, Education, and Families.

Avinash Verma: That’s correct.

Chris Riback: What are you focused on there? What’s the work like there?

Avinash Verma: There are four youth that are appointed on the Youth, Education, and Families Council here at NLC every term. And I have served two terms on it. I was reelected last year to be a part of the council again. So our work is mainly to amplify youth voice at NLC. So we have about 165 youth delegates at the conference at CCC right now. We technically cannot have all of them be part of NLC board and represent our voices, so the four of us represent their voices on the issues that we want the YEF board to prioritize and issues that are important to us. The YEF council is really a great opportunity for all of us to amplify our voices.

And since the name of the council is Youth, Education, and Families, really having the youth perspective on issues and what we want on the changes that we want to see is really important to NLC, and I think that’s great. So just being a part of it for two years, so our work is basically providing data, providing statistics on the issues that we discuss here through NLC conferences for the youth delegates, what issues we think are important, what projects that youth councils from all across the country are working on, and what change we want to see. So really bringing that voice out to NLC, and then NLC will take our word forward and create policies, work on it further. So that’s really kind of my role at YEF.

Chris Riback: So as you amplify your voice, as you try to push your words forward, you’re in those meetings with adults.

Avinash Verma: Correct.

Chris Riback: What are the adults missing? What do they not understand?

Avinash Verma: Adults are really missing the connect, right? So the connect that we have with our community is totally different than what the adults have. What we face in our day-to-day lives is very different than what the adults face. We have to take a school bus to go to school. We have to interact with our teachers. We have to interact with our resources that we have. What is the technology like? Do we have access to laptops? Do we have access to broadband connection? It’s all that connect that we have with our community is totally different than the connect that adults have in their day-to-day lives. So I think really bringing that perspective to the council on what is important to us is what really matters.

Chris Riback: What is the Real World Learning Movement?

Avinash Verma: Real world learning. So the Real World Learning Movement is to really incorporate real world learning into schools. So we did a workshop, a part of the Youth Delegation program [inaudible] city summit, which was focused on real world learning. And we partnered with the Kauffman Founders Foundation that is based off in Kansas. So the Real World Learning Initiative is basically to integrate real world learning part of school curriculums, part of school district curriculums. So for a few hours of the school, let’s say they’re part of the youth engagement track. So the youth engagement track, you’ll take few classes on youth engagement your first year, freshman year maybe. And your sophomore, junior year you actually go out in the real world to work in civic engagement. So the Kauffman Foundation has this whole system set up in Olathe, Kansas, where we really took inspiration from. So their school district has the Real World Learning platform integrated into their school district.

So they have different tracks, such as youth engagement, engineering, STEM, civic leadership. So all these tracks really help students to get their career path decided as well as move forward with it and gain real world experience at the same time. So for example, the civic leadership track will work at the city office the three hours that they’re supposed to be at school. So they’re getting their real world learning experience. We have a similar system at my school back in Austin, Texas. It is not a district-wide thing, but our automotive program has really implemented the Real World Learning program.

So I have been part of the program for four years. And for the first three years, we are in the classroom, in the shop that we have on school, working on cars, learning all the ins and out, and really diagnosis as well as repair. And then my senior year, which currently I go out to Austin INFINITI dealership and work at their maintenance facility. So just having that experience, to me, the real world learning, that’s the whole essence of it, that me going and working out in an automotive industry and learning how they do things differently than what I learned back in school, how they do work orders, how they work on cars, what are the different techniques that they use that I didn’t learn about, that just gets me ready for the industry. So it’s really the essence of real world learning and getting that experience.

Chris Riback: That’s a key part of education, isn’t it?

Avinash Verma: Of course, and that is what is missing in our community, right? I meet so many people who are like, “Oh, I still haven’t decided my career path. I still don’t know what I want to do.” And really these programs will really help them narrow down or dislike a career path that they were thinking about. Right? So this will really help youth and young adults to really understand the career that they’re going into and gain the real world experience.

Chris Riback: Rockets or airplanes?

Avinash Verma: Airplanes.

Chris Riback: Airplanes.

Avinash Verma: Airplanes, for sure.

Chris Riback: I was reading your background. I saw a little bit of NASA, but I also saw Austin Airport.

Avinash Verma: Oh, yes.

Chris Riback: Airplanes over rockets. Okay.

Avinash Verma: I’m also a big av geek. I like to look at planes. What are the different airlines out there? Do a lot of research on that as well. But yes, I have worked with NASA also on… So the best part is I did not work on rockets when I was in NASA. I worked on airplanes while I was in NASA.

Chris Riback: Oh. So that’s why-

Avinash Verma: I was part of their aviation department internship.

Chris Riback: I see. Okay. Well, that’s the part that I missed. And lastly, what’s next for you?

Avinash Verma: So when I joined Austin Youth Council four years ago as a freshman, really policies and municipal leadership and politics was not in my mind at all. I was just looking for an opportunity to be part of my community more, to be more engaged. And I joined this program, and I ended up really liking it. So I really do see a future in politics and in policy making. But currently, my focus is to get a bachelor’s in mechanical engineering. So I have always had that passion for cars in mind. So even my mom tells me till today, “Oh, he had his path set when he was five years old. He always wanted to do something in the automotive industry.” So that’s why I chose my high school to go to, and I’m part of the automotive program over there. So I want a bachelor’s in mechanical engineering and specialize in automotive design, get a masters, work in the field a little bit, but eventually maybe make my transition into policies and politics and bring that engineering background in mind.

Chris Riback: And at that point, that’s when you become Secretary of Transportation.

Avinash Verma: Oh, we just saw the Secretary of Transportation, Pete Buttigieg, a few hours ago. Sure. I did not think about that.

Chris Riback: OK. Well, we’ll let him know. Leave the resume and we’ll let him know.

Avinash Verma: Sounds good.

Chris Riback: Avinash, thank you so much. Thank you for stopping by the studio.

Avinash Verma: Of course. No problem.

Chris Riback: Ron, great to see you. Thank you for joining us at the studio.

Ron Fairchild: Thanks for having me, Chris.

Chris Riback: So, what is the Smarter Learning Group? Who do you work with, and what do you do?

Ron Fairchild: Yes, so the Smarter Learning Group is our consulting practice. We started about 11 years ago. We work with foundations, nonprofits, school districts across the country, all trying to expand educational opportunities for low-income kids and families.

Chris Riback: COVID helped really shine a light on the myriad gaps that exist. I mean, yes, childhood learning, but all also there are issues in access to health care, safe employment, child care, and more. How do you help communities think about prioritizing early childhood learning when there’s so much else going on?

Ron Fairchild: There is a lot going on. I’ve dedicated my career to educational equity. I’ve been a teacher. I’ve worked in the nonprofit field. Prior to starting a consulting practice, I founded the National Summer Learning Association. So, my whole career has been about really expanding opportunities for kids and families who haven’t had them. What I have learned over the years is that local communities really have the power and the ideas and the innovation that it takes to close opportunity gaps and to really expand learning opportunities for young people.

I think what it takes is some kind of organizing framework. We’ve done a lot of work with The Campaign for Grade-Level Reading over the last 10 years. What we’ve learned from local communities, if you have a milestone that really matters, that’s consequential in the lives of young people, you can really rally and mobilize an entire community around a metric and around data to improve something like grade-level reading proficiency, when it tends to be an issue that really can galvanize a lot of public support that otherwise might not exist.

Chris Riback: So, give me an example of that. Maybe a community, if you can name it, great, but if you can’t, just give me the example, of how you help them think about really navigate through all of those challenges. It feels to me, as an outsider, that it’s this combination of navigating a bunch of different challenges and then finding a way to connect the opportunities and the outcomes. But give me an example of something that you guys have done.

Ron Fairchild: Well, I think the starting point is really critical. So, one of the things that we did very early on with The Campaign for Grade-Level Reading-

Chris Riback: Yes.

Ron Fairchild: … I’m going to say, this really is a strategy about disrupting generational poverty, which is a way to bring people together to say, “If you really want to disrupt generational poverty, one of the earliest and best measures we have is whether or not kids are reading proficiently by the end of third grade.”

And what we know is far too many kids are missing that milestone. Far too many kids are not hitting the mark on that. And what we can do, I think, when we agree on a milestone like that, as a community, you can bring a lot of partners to the table and really say, “Hey, wait a minute. The birthright promise of this country is the notion that where you started should not determine where you end up.”

And what we know is for far too many kids and families, without hitting that milestone, they’re not going to succeed. And, so, that has been a formula that has helped mobilize and energize communities to take action. And I don’t think anything motivates people to take action more than knowing that when they actually do take action, that that adds up to real progress. It can make a real difference in the lives of kids and families.

And we know that if you want to move something like third-grade reading, makes no sense to start in third grade. You’ve got to start prenatal, all the way to third grade. And so many of our challenges, so many of our problems, feel so big and intractable-

Chris Riback: Yes. Yep.

Ron Fairchild: … and so fractious, that I think sometimes what we need is a framework, something we can agree on, a set of data that we can all look at and say, “You know, we really have a problem here. We’ve got to do something. Who do we need to bring to the table to really make progress, to do something about that?”

Chris Riback:  So, what’s your guidance for local officials, maybe it’s school boards, but maybe it’s mayors or city councils, who say to you, “I would love to do that, but have you been to one of my school board meetings lately? I can’t get parents to agree on anything.”

What tips do you have? How do you get them to come together, at a time when it feels like getting communities together on even the simplest issues can be challenging?

Ron Fairchild: Yes. I think what we need is common sense consensus. And I think the key to that, often, is leading by listening, by really hearing what people have to say, understanding what the underlying concerns are. I have yet to meet a parent or a community leader who thinks helping kids learn to read is a bad idea.

So, I think things like that, hard to get folks to argue with the idea that kids should be engaged in productive, constructive learning activities-

Chris Riback: Yes.

Ron Fairchild:  … in every setting or every context, summer or after-school learning. These are all things throughout my career that I’ve really dedicated my life to, really, because I’ve seen, not just the power and the impact of those programs and opportunities, but the ability to really galvanize people around things that really most folks agree with. I mean, I look for an 80-20 kinds of issues, where you get [crosstalk] 80% of people agree that this is a good idea, then surely, starting with the kids and families that need those opportunities the most, makes good sense.

Chris Riback: Do any of the parents, I don’t know if you end up engaging with the parents, do any of the parents talk to you about, “I was skeptical that I could find something that I agreed with, with this school board, with this city council, but this program really helped me understand what the opportunities can be.”

Do you get any of the feedback from the parents, or is that not where your feedback comes from? Do you hear more from the public officials?

Ron Fairchild: Well, I think talking to parents is absolutely critical and essential, both parents that are struggling and that are encountering challenges and barriers, but also the parents who’ve succeeded, perhaps even succeeded against the odds. I think we need to take the time to understand their journeys, what it took for them and their kids to succeed. I think that’s absolutely critical and important.

And one of the major problems sometimes, I think, for many public officials and folks who do work like we do, is we get too far away from community and get too far away from the real needs that parents and families have. And I don’t think anything has reinforced that more than the experience we’ve been through over the last two years with COVID.

Chris Riback: And what’s your outlook? I mean, you get to talk with officials all over the country, see programs all over the country. What’s your outlook for us?

Ron Fairchild: I’m energized, and I’m excited, and I’m hopeful about what I see as an opportunity to recover in ways that are a lot better than where we were prior to COVID. I don’t think-

Chris Riback: You see that energy?

Ron Fairchild: I see that. I see that energy. I mean, it’s hard not to feel that when you’re with more than 2000 elected leaders in an event like this.

Chris Riback: Yes.

Ron Fairchild: And to really start to see the creativity and the resources, really, to back that up. I think we’re at an unprecedented opportunity. I know that word is used all the time now, but I really don’t think that is … that’s overstating it.

I mean, we are in a situation now, where I don’t hear too often from folks that say, “Oh, we don’t have the money to do that anymore.” They do. And it’s just how the resources get deployed and prioritized. And the communities that have really spent the last 10, 15 years building infrastructure around child care, around early learning, they’re so much better poised to take advantage of this opportunity and to meet the moment than places that haven’t.

Chris Riback: Well, it’s excellent to hear. We will take your energy, and we will try to help spread it. Ron, thank you for joining us in the studio.

Ron Fairchild: Thank you. It’s great to be with you.

Chris Riback: Brigid, thanks for coming by the studio.

Brigid Schulte: Oh, it’s so good to be here.

Chris Riback: Let’s start this conversation by going back about five years, the care report and the care index…

Brigid Schulte: Yes.

Chris Riback: … what were they? What did you find?

Brigid Schulte: So you’ve got to think, a couple of years ago, there really wasn’t a whole lot of conversation in the national media, in the national consciousness about an early care and education or childcare system, everything was very atomized. People felt like, “I’m out here, I’m on my own,” they had their own internal struggles with childcare for parents trying to afford it and there really wasn’t much of an understanding why it was so expensive. I mean, I’m a reporter and so I would hear things like, “I’m sure that the owner of my childcare center, they must own a private jet because they charge so much.” And I was just like that can’t possibly be right. So there was a lot of misunderstanding, a lot of confusion out there, there wasn’t a sense that there was a system. And so that’s what we really sought to do.

There had been a number of reports that talked about the cost of childcare and comparing it in different states, but what we wanted to do was really bring forward the idea that the childcare in this country should be a system and we wanted to try to paint as clear a picture of what that system looked like as we could.

And so we looked at sort of the three pillars that you would need for a high-quality, universal, early care and education system. We looked at cost, quality, and availability, and then we worked with Care.com, they were our partners on this, so we were able to use their proprietary cost data. And in that way, we were also able to capture not just childcare centers, but also family homes and also nannies and in-home care because we do have a variety of different kinds of care as you know…

Chris Riback: Right. [crosstalk].

Brigid Schulte: … and in our sort of patchwork system.

And then we came up with metrics. It’s certainly not perfect because one of the big findings is we don’t have a lot of really great data. So with that caveat, based on what we knew, we came up with metrics to measure those cost, quality, and availability in all 50 states, and then we wanted to rank them. But honestly, with such little data, we ended up coming up with another framework, which is we grouped them into quartiles so you could say, “These are the best states, these are sort of the second-best, these are not doing so great.” And what we found, I think the big takeaway, is we were really able to paint this large picture and show that nobody’s doing it well, not one single state did cost, quality, and availability well.

And so what I think our real value add was that we were able to show that the system A.) it’s not a system, it’s a patchwork, it’s broken, it’s not working well for anyone, and that really, when we think about it, we need to begin thinking about early care and education the same way we do about K through 12 education, that this is a public good that the private market isn’t and can’t solve on its own. And the reason why it’s so expensive, it’s not because childcare providers have private jets, it’s because it takes a lot of people to do well so that the labor costs are high. And so when we say we don’t subsidize early care and learning in this country, we do, but we subsidize it on the backs of early care and learning educators and childcare workers…

Chris Riback: Through their wages.

Brigid Schulte: … through their wages. They earn poverty wages.

Chris Riback: Or lack of wages.

Brigid Schulte: Exactly. And so I think that was the other big, big thing that we were able to do is just really put it out there in a very comprehensive way using data and story, video storytelling, narrative storytelling…

Chris Riback: All the tools.

Brigid Schulte: … all the tools, and really begin to help people see it’s not working, it’s not working for anyone, you’re not alone, and we need to work together to make it work better.

Chris Riback: So you pulled together this data, you told the story, you showed the stories, what was the reaction?

Brigid Schulte: Well, initially it was amazing, it just got picked up, a lot of press wrote about it.

Chris Riback: I remember.

Brigid Schulte: It really had a resounding impact at the time, which is great. What have we learned over time though?

Chris Riback: Yes, that was my next question.

Brigid Schulte: So how have we acted upon it? I would argue we really haven’t and I think that’s the next challenge. And I think through COVID, if you didn’t know it was a broken system before, you do now, and there’s a growing chorus of voices from business leaders, policymakers, certainly within the early care and education system that are all saying it can’t, this is unsustainable. And everybody’s hurting from it, from children and families, but also businesses.

Chris Riback: Yes. Yes.

Brigid Schulte: It’s incredibly disruptive, and so we need to solve this together.

Chris Riback: So I don’t mean this as naively as it sounds, what’s the problem? I mean, you are describing something that we all recognize, I think we all care about, I think everyone wants children to do better. I mean, I really do believe that. It’s super naive, but where are the barriers? What are the obstacles?

Brigid Schulte: Yes, it’s not super naive. Listen, if it were we’d know the answer and we’d be, we’d be able to move across the finish line to really get…

Chris Riback: Yes.

Brigid Schulte: … what we need. What it really is, again, comes down to mindset, really understanding that 0 to 5, we need to think about it like K to 12. And so what I always say…

Chris Riback: Do people kind of write it off? Is that what you find?

Brigid Schulte: Yes. They think about it as like, “Oh, it’s just babysitting,” or we get into a lot of the gender roles like, “Well, moms should be home,” or people will at least say, “A parent should be home,” without recognizing that the majority of children in this country are being raised in families where all available parents work. So Mom at home didn’t really work in the 1950s, that was not the sort of the family [crosstalk].

Chris Riback: Well, I’ve seen sitcoms that showed that it worked very well.

Brigid Schulte: Yes. Well, those are sitcoms, right? It’s fiction. So even in the 50s, for families of color, that was never the case. And there was really only two decades after the second world war that enabled sort of the family wage. But that was really only two decades out of our entire history. Women and mothers have always worked, whether it was back in the middle ages and they brewed beer or [inaudible] self to help their families.

Chris Riback: Yes. Yes.

Brigid Schulte: But mothers have always worked and we’ve never expected them to do as much on their own as we do right now. But if I could finish that point about thinking about it at like K to 12… So we have decided as a society that education is a public good and that we can’t expect parents to foot the bill for an entire public education system. And so we invest as a country about $12,000 or more per student, K through 12, per year. We don’t expect families to pay $12,000 per student per year, 0 to 5, we do. And so that’s the difference. It takes more people, it’s really expensive, it’s more expensive in some cases than K to 12, and you’re asking parents to pay for that cost. Parents foot the bill…

Chris Riback: Yes.

Brigid Schulte: … of more than 60% of the system, that’s what people don’t really understand, businesses pay between like 1 and 4%, depending upon which study you look at, and they are ones that benefit from it. Government pays about 40% through the subsidies for the very poor and that only covers 1 in 6 eligible children so it’s not working. And when you look at what needs to happen, we need an awful lot more public investment, thinking about it like it’s a public good like public education. When you compare the United States with our OECD peers or other peer competitive countries, we are at the bottom in terms of what we invest in early care and education and that’s what needs to change.

Chris Riback: You know the old line, of course, “Never waste a good crisis.”

Brigid Schulte: Right.

Chris Riback: Is COVID-19 potentially the crisis that we won’t waste?

Brigid Schulte: I really hope that’s true. I really do. I got to tell you though, when you look at the early days of the pandemic…

Chris Riback: Yes.

Brigid Schulte: … Delta Airlines, one company got more in an early stage bailout money than the entire early care and education system did. Now there were other investments, and that’s a really good thing, it’s a start, but you know what then began to happen, you started to see it very early on, businesses would say, “Everybody back in the office…”

Chris Riback: Yes.

Brigid Schulte: “… we’re going to get back to normal,” so to speak. And this is when schools were still closed, childcare centers were closed and who knows if they were going to reopen again. We’ve lost so many childcare facilities, we’ve lost so many early care educators. There’s really no understanding among the business community that wants to kind of spit spot, get back to 2019.

Chris Riback: Yes.

Brigid Schulte: So that’s concerning. And then when we look at permanent solutions or long-term solutions, where is the debate about how we’re going to continue to invest and where and how in our care system? So yes, there were some really exciting proposals in the Biden Care Infrastructure, but that’s been stalled.

Chris Riback: Yes.

Brigid Schulte: Will there be smaller parts broken up and passed on their own? I know that’s where the conversation is now, but it remains to be seen if that happens. So I’m cautiously optimistic, but we’re not there yet.

Chris Riback: We’re not there yet. To close, to the extent that you can tell us, what are you working on next on this?

Brigid Schulte: Well, so I’m working an awful lot. What we do at the Better Life Lab, we work on pushing public policy forward and pushing workplace practice forward and really pushing the cultural conversation, the narrative, to really understand that what we’re talking about is work-family justice, it’s really about equity, and we really need to include everyone in these conversations. So I would say we’re pushing forward on all of those levers.

Chris Riback: Thank you for your pushing, thank you for stopping by the studio.

Brigid Schulte: Well, thank you so much for having me, and thank you for having these conversations, this is how we make change.

Chris Riback: Tonja, thank you for coming to the studio. It’s great to see you again.

Dr. Tonja Rucker: Thanks for having me, Chris.

Chris Riback: How is the conference going?

Dr. Tonja Rucker: Oh, it’s going great. We’re excited. This is the first time in over two years that we’re in-person, we get to see our members and it’s been fabulous.

Chris Riback: What are you hearing and what have you been seeing as you’ve been preparing for the conference? What’s the state of early childhood learning in many of our cities and local communities?

Dr. Tonja Rucker: Sure. I’m hearing from our member cities that there’s just a need to reconnect and get back together. It’s been a challenging two years, and elected officials have been faced with numerous challenges on the physical infrastructure, as well as human infrastructure. So now with the passage of so much federal legislation and investment in cities, this is a great opportunity for them to get together and kind of compare notes.

Many have submitted plans of recovery plans, and now is the time to really execute and implement. So, this is a conference that’s designed to bring members together to do that kind of peer-to-peer learning and to share ideas, and to share their challenges and strategize as the ways to overcome those challenges.

So I’m hearing optimism, as well as it’s a hard time. I mean, every day families are faced with new challenges, and as elected officials at the local level, you have to be present and you have to be responsive and meet the needs of your residents and your constituents. So it’s much challenging time, but it’s also an opportunity to really meet those needs like never before.

Chris Riback: What are you hearing from them about the ability to prioritize? So hard. I mean, you know all of the challenges that our cities face, I know some of them. Health, environment, education, jobs, higher learning.

Dr. Tonja Rucker: Yes.

Chris Riback: The list goes on, infrastructure. How do they think about prioritizing early learning?

Dr. Tonja Rucker: Yes. Well, I think what we’ve been doing, Chris, is we’ve been working with our member cities not to see early childhood as something separate over in the corner, but that those human infrastructure needs, whether it’s roads or bridges or housing, whatever the issue may be, there is a direct connection to early learning. So I think when we are able to make the case using data, using science about the importance of the early years, how that kind of lays the foundation for everything else.

So if the youngest residents are healthy and doing well, then the rest of things kind of fall into place and families get to be able to meet their needs, meet the challenges of the day. It’s important for us to help our elected officials have the resources in place so that families can meet those needs, so that they can maximize their potential and be successful. So, we’re working hard to make sure that there is an integration and alignment with those bigger city issues and early learning, because there is a direct connection.

Chris Riback: Have you heard anything about what was lost and how that translates into opportunities?

Dr. Tonja Rucker: Yes, I think the in-person connection and the loss of feeling connected. I think when folks were asked to isolate and to stay in, we had to redo how we think about showing up every day, and those-

Chris Riback: Every day and everything, yes.

Dr. Tonja Rucker: Every day at every level. Even the youngest residents, our little ones, not being able to socialize, it’s such an important part of life. Whether you’re five years old, three-year-old or an adult, and those social connections and those human contact points were just such a loss for folks. So now as we safely emerge, our leaders were very much prioritizing safety and the wellbeing of their residents. So as we’re kind of coming out of this, I think the opportunity exists to kind of reconnect and address some of those social-emotional challenges that came from the isolation.

So I do think there’s an opportunity for elected officials to connect across their city landscape with residents to reengage and to listen, because I think life has changed for so many, and so we want to make sure that our members are in a listening mode and that they take that information and go back and design programs and policies that are responsive and that are meeting the lived experiences of their residents. So, I think it’s an opportunity to really do that and restructure how city government works for the benefit of all their residents.

Chris Riback: When you talk about that structure and the connectedness, you mentioned how early learning is connected to safety, is connected to infrastructure. What are you hearing from the business communities? They have a lot of challenges as well. What is their role in this and what are you hearing from them?

Dr. Tonja Rucker: Oh, I think the business community plays a tremendous role in this kind of recovery. If we’re going to have an equitable recovery, I think the role that they can play to join their elected officials and the bully pulpit to really elevate for those folks that may be a little not quite certain and see those direct connections. The business community having that added voice to government could really kind of solidify the messaging, and using that bully pulpit in a way that brings everybody on board.

I think many elected officials want strong economic development and growth for their cities, and so being able to partner with their business leaders, along with parents and along with community-based organizations, anchoring a collective vision for their cities is very important, and business leaders play an important role in that.

Chris Riback: Tonja, what’s next for The National League of Cities?

Dr. Tonja Rucker: What’s next? I think for The National League of Cities, I think the next level is to make sure that we help cities think about equitable recovery in an authentic way. We want to make sure that all children in all communities, and that means big cities, medium size, small cities, towns and villages, how do we provide the resources and the tools necessary to meet folks where they are who live in very different spaces and different lived experiences?

So I think if The National League of Cities and the institute where I work, where we are directly responsible to help our members think about the human infrastructure, I think if NLC can help bridge the human and the physical infrastructure across those different geographic regions, I think we can really make a difference in the lives of kids and families. So I think if we can bridge that human and physical infrastructure, we can make a difference for kids and families and for folks who live on the coastal cities, as well as mid- America, south, north, east, and west.

Chris Riback: All cities.

Dr. Tonja Rucker: Yes.

Chris Riback: Everyone needs a bridge, don’t we?

Dr. Tonja Rucker: Yes. Yes, they do. Yes, they do.

Chris Riback: Tonja, thank you. Thank you for coming to the studio, thank you for putting on such a wonderful event.

Dr. Tonja Rucker: Thank you. We’re so excited to be back in-person again. It’s going to be a great year for cities, Chris. Thank you.

Chris Riback: Darrius. Thanks so much for joining us in the studio. It’s great to see you.

Darrius Knight: Thank you for having me. It’s great to see you, too.

Chris Riback: What year are you in school and what are your interests?

Darrius Knight: I’m in the 11th grade right now and my interests are in law.

Chris Riback: Law.

Darrius Knight: Law and government. Yes, sir.

Chris Riback: Law and government. What do you want to change with the law? What impact do you want to make in government?

Darrius Knight: I definitely say one thing I want to change is our nation’s criminal justice system. I see quite a few flaws with it, especially when you look at our prison system. Our prison system, it’s not the best in the world and it doesn’t do what I believe it needs to be doing.

Chris Riback: We’re at a conference that is focused on education in part. Do you see the ways in which education, youth education connects with some of the questions that you raise around our criminal justice system?

Darrius Knight: Absolutely.

Chris Riback: What do you see?

Darrius Knight: We often ask ourselves, how can we as youth, prepare ourselves for the future, prepare ourselves and also prepare our current leaders for the issues that we will have to face in the future. That, in my opinion, is an issue that we will have to face in the future, our prison system. Taking on how we will deal with issues in the future, that is something that will greatly give.

Chris Riback: You serve on a few different councils and groups. You’re pretty involved in a lot of different stuff, aren’t you?

Darrius Knight: Yes, sir.

Chris Riback: In these councils and groups, there are adults that you work with.

Darrius Knight: There are.

Chris Riback: What do they not know? What do they not know about what the youth of America is thinking and doing?

Darrius Knight: I would say they don’t really understand exactly what our goal is. They struggle to see exactly what we’re trying to lay the foundation as, as to what they want the foundation to be. It’s completely different and I think they don’t see that, and that’s where issues come into play. When youth want to do one thing, the adults want to do one thing and it’s lack of communication.

Chris Riback: How do you close that gap? How do you communicate or try to communicate in a way to bring, I first want to start with the adults? I’m going to ask you about your peers, about other kids as well, but first, how do you communicate to bring adults along to your vision?

Darrius Knight: Often it’s usually through just strong wording, just emphasizing exactly what it is that we want. I’ll talk to my peers, because I am the leader on my youth council, so I gather that information, take it to the adults, say this is what we want. This is what they want. How can we bring that in between to what you want, we want? Make it merge.

Chris Riback: What about those peers? The other kids, the other youths who are on the council, how do you communicate with them? How do you get ideas coordinated so that you can bring them forward?

Darrius Knight: I act a very certain way when I’m very lively and trying to get things done, but when I’m serious, they get that. They understand, okay, this is the time he wants to actually get down on to get the business. Again, strong wording. I emphasize my voice a lot.

Chris Riback: Good for you. In reading about you, learning about you, I came across that you also are very passionate about the COVID 19 vaccine and the importance of bringing along the black community, the African American community…

Darrius Knight: Yes, sir.

Chris Riback:  …to understanding. What motivated you on that and what are you trying to do to help people understand what you want them to understand?

Darrius Knight: I would definitely say my motivation is just hearing at school, how people are saying, “I’m not getting the vaccine because of this. I’m not getting the vaccine because of that.”

Chris Riback: Kids or adults?

Darrius Knight: Kids, and some adults as well, but mostly my peers are saying they’re not getting the vaccine and I wanted to understand why they weren’t getting the vaccine, so that’s what I did. I got the information as to why they weren’t getting the vaccine, had a conversation with other youth, along with NLC’s CEO, Clarence Anthony, as to how to break these stigmas and what is the truth?

Chris Riback: Yes. You had a conversation, a video conversation with the CEO of NLC, didn’t you?

Darrius Knight: Yes, sir.

Chris Riback: Yes, on the topic. Darrius, what’s next for you?

Darrius Knight: What is next for me? That is still uncertain right now.

Chris Riback: I don’t mean today or tomorrow. We can go out a few years.

Darrius Knight: I do see myself in the future becoming a defense attorney. That is the short term goal. My long term goal is, shooting for the stars, is to end up as a United States Supreme Court Justice.

Chris Riback: That would be outstanding. You’re sitting not too far from there right now.

Darrius Knight: Yes.

Chris Riback: Maybe we go walk over there afterwards. Let them know that you’ll be coming in…

Darrius Knight: Yes, sir.

Chris Riback: ...30 years.

Darrius Knight: Yes, that would probably be nice.

Chris Riback: Okay. We’ll let them know. I think you’ll get there.

Darrius Knight: Yes, sir. I hope so.

Chris Riback: I look forward to it. Darrius, thank you. Thank you for sharing your story and for coming to the studio to visit us.

Darrius Knight: Yes, sir.

Chris Riback: Mayor Johnson, thank you so much for coming to the studio.

Mayor Van Johnson: Thank you. Glad to be here.

Chris Riback: What is the state of early childhood learning in Savannah, Georgia?

Mayor Van Johnson: Well, I think like everything else, it’s critical. COVID has thrown a monkey wrench, even in the good plans. The fact is, that we have kids that are two years old now who’ve really never known life without being in a COVID environment. You have some kids that are in the most developmental stages of their lives, particularly those that are in the four to six year old range, that just basically have lost two years of socialization, two years of early learning by certified credential professionals. That time is just gone. And so now, we’re trying to play catch up to get young people back to where they need to be.

Chris Riback: You don’t need me to tell you the pandemic was difficult for all of us. It was very difficult for parents, employment, health, infrastructure, maybe their parents caring for their families. How do you talk with parents about staying focused on early learning when they’ve got so much else going on in their lives?

Mayor Van Johnson: Well, it was. I mean, the fact of the matter is, I think that parents gained a new appreciation for teachers.

Chris Riback: Yes.

Mayor Van Johnson: Because they became the teachers. I mean, your loving your own is fine during the summers and they’re fine when they go to sleep at night, but the fact now you’re the teacher and now you’re in charge of making sure this young person learns and your young person is a different person, and so you start seeing some of the things that the teachers saw. So I think they gained a new appreciation for that.

Chris Riback: It’s so true. We all walked a mile in our teacher’s shoes, didn’t we?

Mayor Van Johnson: And I think teachers were very happy about that, but I think it gave a better appreciation for that. So for us, I think it’s necessary for us now to take that knowledge, take what we’ve learned and then to be able to ramp up the learning. It has to be accelerated now, because we’re not getting that time back. How do we make sure young people learn their ABCs? How do we make sure that they’re pre-K and kindergarten ready? How do we make sure that they’re able to go into school willing to succeed? Otherwise, we end up with essentially overage kids in younger grades, and that’s not good for anyone. So I think it has to be a community-wide approach.

I think that the lessons learned in school have to be over-emphasized at home, also the community and religious institutions and community centers, to make sure that young people learn the number of words they’re supposed to learn, making sure we’re reading to them, making sure we’re exposing them, making sure we’re encouraging them, because they’ve lost that as well. And so my word to parents is that, it’s a lifetime investment. It’s not a sprint, it’s a marathon. It’s a four quarter game. And although we’ve lost some time, we can make up some of that time by just emphasizing the basics, making sure our young people have what they need.

Chris Riback: What an important concept. First of all, the idea we are not getting that time back.

Mayor Van Johnson: No.

Chris Riback: But with focus, with effort, you can still make up that ground and you can still make the impact.

Mayor Van Johnson: Well, it has to be not only focus and effort, but it’s also engaging from professionals. There are people who know how this goes and they know about the developmental process of children. They know how young people learn. So, we need to be able to get that data, get that information, get those techniques, get those tactics, standardize them, make them wildly available so that parents can help to share those things at home. Now I’m hoping that we do that better as a nation to make sure we catch up. If we don’t, we’ll be further behind in the world economy, as it relates to education.

Chris Riback: Now, I understand that you, like many other mayors in many other cities, have a keen focus on public safety and on reducing violence. What’s the bridge across that total healing and the work that needs to be done to make Savannah or any city, a safe place to be.

Mayor Van Johnson: Well, I mean, I think I fully realize that our criminals of tomorrow are in Pampers today. And it’s sad to say that, but if you think of about it, we have here opportunities, or they can become consequences. And so in Savannah, what we want to be able to do is to look at the opportunity and create the opportunity. We know that if young people don’t learn by the third grade, because that’s a very transitional stage, that’s where they go from learning to read, to then reading to learn. And if they’re not able to get it by third grade in Savannah, our challenge has been that those young people, once you fall behind, it’s hard to catch up. And, there’s been some talk that they build, they project prison cells by the number of people that are flunking in third grade, because they know if you’re flunking in third grade, it’s hard for you to catch up.

And so, what do we do to make sure that we pass a third grade test? How do we make sure that young people know what they’re supposed to know? And it is public safety. It’s a public investment, which is why we call it public education, we call it public safety, because public education is not just the teacher’s responsibility and public safety is not just the police responsibility. We have to put the public back in education and safety and to me they’re connected.

Chris Riback: What about the young people in Savannah? How do they react? I assume you get plenty of opportunity to engage with them.

Mayor Van Johnson: My favorite thing to do.

Chris Riback: I bet it is. I bet it is. What do they talk with you about?

Mayor Van Johnson: Being scared and I understand it. And the fact is, this is one of the few times in my life, in over 30 years of working with young people, where I could not relate to something they were telling me. I could not imagine going my senior year in high school leaving in March and never coming back again. I could not see going through my 11th grade year, my 10th grade year, or my ninth grade year, at home. I mean, I know Zoom drives me crazy as an adult, so could you imagine that you just lose that interactive experience, that socialization experience? We know young people go to school because of their friends. I mean, they learn later on, but they go there because of their friends.

So just to become increasingly isolated, we know that issues of mental health have ramped up. We know the issues of suicide have ramped up, because young people did not have that outlet. And so admittedly, I just felt really at a loss, other than just to listen, because understanding what they go through, it never happened to me and so, you just be reassuring. You validate what they feel. And when you hear certain code words, you take that, let’s get them the help that they need. Let’s become that village around that young person.

Chris Riback: You must have learned about yourself. What an interesting concept. You were, for one of the first times, put in a situation where you just couldn’t relate. What did you have inside you to figure out what to do?

Mayor Van Johnson: I think initially it was like, what the hell is going on here? That was my first thing. And the second thing was, I didn’t sign up for this. I just became mayor January the 1st, 2020. I served 16 years on council and January 1st, 2020, I became mayor. And I mean, it was going really well January and February. And March, I came to DC for the National League of Cities. And later on that week, we shut down on St. Patrick’s Day, which is the second largest in the country and has been going on for over 200 years. And I’m sitting here and I’m like, well, somebody show me the big mayor’s book to see, because there has to be something in the big Mayor’s book.

Chris Riback: Yes.

Mayor Van Johnson: And I see-

Chris Riback: Where’s the 1-800 number?

Mayor Van Johnson: I see hurricanes. I see evacuations. I see famine. I don’t see worldwide pandemic. And so for me, it was an issue of faith and really figuring what my north star was. And when I figured it out, then to stick to it, and that was going to be a couple of things. First of all, we were going to keep the faith that we were going to get through it. We believed that we were going to get through it. I had to wake up every day and say, regardless of what I hear, I’m going to make it through this and I have a responsibility to make sure my city gets through it. We’re going to get through it by following the science. We’re not going to politicize it. We’re not going to popularize it. We’re not going with people’s preferences or where people are on it. Whatever the science says, we’re going to follow it. So it said that we shut our city down for a while, we did that.

It said that we would go with masks, we were the first city in Georgia to go to masks, even after our governor said that we shouldn’t. But we did it because it was the right thing to do. When the vaccines came online in December, again, we were pushing for those vaccines and vaccination. When we got better, we got rid of the masks. When it got worse, we put the masks on again. And when we were able to do large scale activities, then we rolled back into that. So for me, it’s always been about the science. I think that health is not red or blue. I don’t think it’s black or white. It’s about the science. And so whatever I can do to keep my folks healthy, I was willing to do that.

Chris Riback: Well, none of us, particularly mayors, get to choose the times in which we do what we do. I’m sure you are looking forward to the next stage and helping bring Savannah forward.

Mayor Van Johnson: I’m looking forward to this week. Our St. Patrick’s Day parade is on for the first time in two years, so we’re excited. I finally get a chance to do mayoral things and be in a parade and waving to people and kiss babies and drink green beer, finally.

Chris Riback: Finally.

Mayor Van Johnson: But we still have this pandemic out there and we still have to keep our eyes on it. We still have to exercise smart behaviors and so we plan to continue doing that.

Chris Riback: Well, you didn’t explicitly say it, but yes, I would be glad to attend the parade. I’ll be there this week. Thank you so much.

Mayor Van Johnson: Thursday, be there. We got you.

Chris Riback: I look forward to it. Thank you for coming to the studio, Mayor.

Mayor Van Johnson: Thank you so much.

Chris Riback: Councilmember Coonrod, thank you so much for visiting us at the studio.

Demetrus Coonrod: Absolutely. Thank you for the invitation.

Chris Riback: It’s great to have you. How is it that you’re sitting here today? What was your journey like? Straight path for you?

Demetrus Coonrod: Oh, I took a route, had experienced some challenges on the way to becoming a council person. I experienced a little time in prison and then now I advocated for the things that are the most important in my community. And so, I ran for office.

Chris Riback: Life is not always a straight path, is it?

Demetrus Coonrod: At all, no. It’s not always a straight path and it’s okay, because you can come back around and end up on a straight path.

Chris Riback: Did you always know that?

Demetrus Coonrod: I didn’t. I learned the hard way.

Chris Riback: What inspired you? What motivated you to run for office?

Demetrus Coonrod: Well, I had a grandmother that was always telling me that I was capable of accomplishing and becoming whatever I desire to become. And part of that education started early, just hearing it repeatedly, over and over and over. And I had to believe it in myself and I’m a firm believer. And if you want to be the one who want to impact change, then you just have to do it. You have to go for it. So, that just motivated me even more to do it because of the challenges that I had done experience.

Chris Riback: And that was told to you, even as a child?

Demetrus Coonrod: Right. Absolutely.

Chris Riback: Early childhood learning has a purpose, doesn’t it?

Demetrus Coonrod: It does.

Chris Riback: What’s the purpose? Why does it matter?

Demetrus Coonrod: Oh, early learning, it matters, even from when you are embryo, just developing because that important is that relationship that you’re building from the inside to out, is very important because kids need to understand at an early age, they’re learning and they’re developing even when they can’t formulate words. What they’re seeing and watching and hearing, the things that you do and you say to them and having to pick that up at an early age, that’s where it begins to move us forward. Right? And when you instill those morals and values and education matters, they’re going to continue that.

Chris Riback: What is the state of early childhood learning in Chattanooga?

Demetrus Coonrod: Now, we’re pushing it because it’s very important, right? We have a mayor that’s on boards who expand the early learning education, the seats to give people the opportunity who don’t have access, who can’t afford it. And making sure that we are training the right individuals to be the teachers, because that first point of contact outside of being a parent is the teachers that’s going to instill in them too, that educational values that we need for them to thrive.

Chris Riback: Speaking of the parents and caregivers, we all have gone through COVID, it affected everyone. How do you talk with parents? How do you encourage parents who have so many challenges, so many stresses, so many responsibilities? How do you say to them, “Yes and please make sure you focus on early childhood learning”?

Demetrus Coonrod: Right. So, what we would say is that we know that we’re in a pandemic, but when we look at all the pandemics that we’ve had previously or the challenges and crisis that we go through in life, education has to be a priority, it has to be a priority. And just make sure that you’re taking whatever measures that are comfortable for you and your family, so you can make that happen. Right. And then also just pushing parents to play an aggressive role in your child’s education opportunity. That’s attending a PTA meetings, emailing and conference calling the teacher. So, you can stay in the know of how you can still help your kid, because the teachers are only going to be able to do so much, but as a parent, you got to hone that in with your kids. So, that spending valuable time as well is very important.

Chris Riback: And how do you encourage your colleagues, other members of the city council, a mayor, other local, or even state leaders to move them and help them realize these parents need help, these caregivers need help? Here are the tangible things we need to do. How do you bring them along?

Demetrus Coonrod: Well, it’s just illustrating it in a way, because a lot of us didn’t come from the same background and don’t experience the same challenges. So, you got to paint that picture so they can see it, right? Like everybody from a two-parent household or they don’t have the experience of having that stay-at-home parent to where they can be engaged. We have a lot of latchkey kids and that’s a different experience for some, but you have to continue to push and let them know and show them in a painted way that this is the life for a lot of people and particularly the black and brown community. This is what we experience and not having that parental figure in that home, because they’re constantly working several jobs, or the father is removed from the home. It gives it a different conversation.

Chris Riback: I know councilmember, as well, that you are deeply involved in criminal justice reform. How does that connect for you with early learning?

Demetrus Coonrod: Oh, the connection is that, we know what the data says, that if you’re not reading at the third grade, that they’re already filling beds, preparing bed space for people to go to prison. So, we want to interject to change that. Now, we want our kids to be able to read on grade level. We want them to be able to have access to the different opportunities that’s going to make them successful, so they won’t fall into that pathway of going to prison, or making sure that they have the wraparound services that they need, not just for the kid, but for the whole entire family, because we just don’t know or understand a lot of times the challenges. And as a parent, when you are afraid to say, “Hey, I need help.” That’s a bigger picture in itself, but we got to be able to address whatever core issues, or root issues that’s affecting that entire family that’s going to trickle down to that kid.

Chris Riback: None of us likes to brag about ourselves. Do you see yourself as a role model?

Demetrus Coonrod: Absolutely. I consider myself a role model to many people, because I broke that barrier, that chain of what people would think, as a black woman growing up in poverty and having to experience both of my parents addicted to drugs. That was a different struggle, but I prioritized my education no matter which path that I was on. And it’s always been a value to me and to my life. And I want others to see that, no matter what path that you’ve taken, prioritized that because that’s going to give you… You’re going to be able to compete with other folks, right? They’re going to listen to you. They’re going to see you. They’re going to believe in you and champion you. And we have to make sure that we’re doing that for the younger people that’s coming after us.

Chris Riback: Thank you for sharing your story.

Demetrus Coonrod: Absolutely.

Chris Riback: Thank you for visiting us at the Early Learning Nation Studio.

Demetrus Coonrod: Yeah, absolutely. Thank you.

Chris Riback: Hi, welcome to the studio. Thank you for coming.

Victoria Farrar-Myers: Thank you for having me.

Chris Riback: So my first question is, should I be calling you Council Member Farrar-Myers, Mayor Pro Tem Farrar-Myers, or do you prefer Doc FM?

Victoria Farrar-Myers: Well, my students would say Doc FM, right?

Chris Riback: I’ve heard that.

Victoria Farrar-Myers: Yes. You could just say Victoria is fine.

Chris Riback: Okay. We’ll go with Victoria. But I got to say I was really looking forward to Doc FM, but I’ll stick with-

Victoria Farrar-Myers: Well, if you’d like that, that’s fine.

Chris Riback: I’ll stick with Victoria.

Victoria Farrar-Myers: I’ve answered to that for 25 years. It’s good.

Chris Riback: Describe Arlington for me, if you would. What’s the community like, and what are the biggest challenges sitting between Dallas and Fort Worth?

Victoria Farrar-Myers: Well, certainly. Arlington is 99 square miles. It’s got 393,000 people, which to any other place would seem like a large city.

Chris Riback: It’s a large city.

Victoria Farrar-Myers: It’s smack dab between, we’re the 48th largest city, but smack dab between Dallas and Fort Worth, obviously get a little overlooked, but Arlington certainly has in the last six years I’ve been in council, we’ve done so much in terms of adding a lot to our entertainment center. But certainly we have a large University of Texas at Arlington is now an R1. We have a feeder school, Tarrant County College, that’s feeding a lot of our student population. We’re seeing a lot of growth.

Chris Riback: What’s the state of early childhood learning in Arlington?

Victoria Farrar-Myers: We’re trying to catch up, frankly. The fact that we’re just adding pre-K now is a little disconcerting, really what we’re working on though with the city, and some of the other initiatives is zero to three, because as you know, all the brain synapses you’ll ever develop is in that area of time. We want to really get our students a good head start by getting in there.

Chris Riback: Tell me what you’re doing zero to three. Then I want to ask you about how are you getting it done. But first, what are you doing?

Victoria Farrar-Myers: Sure. Well, one of the things we’re doing is converting some of our old childcare centers and particular school centers to be for zero to three. More infant centers, which has been innovative in the way we’re using our old resources to tackle this particular problem.

Chris Riback: Smart.

Victoria Farrar-Myers: So that’s one of the things that we’ve been doing. How we got it done, we have an Arlington Tomorrow Foundation, which years ago, some brilliant council members prior to me, decided to take all our gas well money and invest it into a Tomorrow Foundation. And through that, we’ve been able to give some strategic funding to these areas.

Chris Riback: In some ways you touched on this, but beyond your public service role, you have a PhD in political science.

Victoria Farrar-Myers: I do.

Chris Riback: I believe it is. You taught at UT Arlington for a number of years. You’re now in the city council among other roles. What should the relationship be between government and local capabilities and early childhood learning? What’s the role for local government?

Victoria Farrar-Myers: Well, you think about local governments are interested in workforce development. They’re also interested in how to make sure you have a well-educated, for economic development purposes, right, a well-educated workforce. How do you do that? You’ve got to do that, and you can’t just start at the college level. You’ve got to start earlier working with your ISDs, and you have to start really, if you really want to make an impact in the earliest, so that zero to three.

It’s really, as we put, I think a lot of people call it cradle to career. I think that’s a perspective we really are trying to take in Arlington to try to figure out, how do we allow that pipeline to be so smooth so that our students don’t just attend our university and leave our city, but become part of that very healthy, vibrant workforce that will attract businesses, that will attract a vibrant community and who better to want a city to move to. All of us are trying to compete with each other, whether it’s economic development or whether it’s residency. We really want to make sure that we have that dynamic environment for our kids, for our parents of today and for our kids of tomorrow.

Chris Riback: How has the business community reacted to your efforts?

Victoria Farrar-Myers: Very well actually. Our Chamber of Commerce has been extremely innovative in terms of educational outreach. We’ve had a lot of good entrepreneurship programs. We’ve started a consortium of entrepreneurship programs. We’ve also been working in providing apprenticeships as well as providing ongoing initiatives at the lower level, so not just high school, but really reaching down in the sixth, seventh and eighth, that middle years where you tend to lose the learners. Then also most recently, T3, which the Rainwater Foundation started. It’s Tarrant County two and through. Arlington, Texas is in Tarrant County. We’re starting to see some innovative programs where parents are starting to be involved as well. We’re one of the most diverse cities in the nation. We’re really trying to get to parents as well to show parents that this is a way for you to better a lot of first generational students. This is why it’s higher ed, maybe not [inaudible], but maybe it’s career formation. We’re seeing a lot of innovations.

Chris Riback: How are you getting through to them and with them? I think that’s something that a lot of communities want to do, may have some challenges with. Particularly now coming out of COVID, all parents have so many challenges, health, environment, education. How do you get through to them to inspire them that put more energy here?

Victoria Farrar-Myers: I think you made a great point. Prior to COVID, I was working on workforce and childcare and early learning, and they seem to be, I don’t want to say pedestrian issues, but they seemed like perennial issues that everyone just said, “Oh, cities have those issues.” Now post COVID, they’ve become red hot and red centered. Full-on center. A lot of people are looking at it going, “Oh, wait a minute. We really got to go back to the basics.” One of the things I think is we’ve got to establish a trust and also a conversation at the early levels. What I mean by that is not just assume or presume that we know what parents need or what schools need, but also really open up conversations and dialogue. One of the things I will say that pandemic has done for us is open up opportunities for innovations like no other because people are looking for different ways to do things.

The old way just doesn’t work. Going back to the old way is just going to create old issues. Why not take what could be a really negative piece of our history, and you and I both know there’s going to be reverberations for education is going to be for decades to come. How do we not lose these generations?

But then how do we also make sure that we prepare for the next generation? It’s learning. It’s teacher support. It’s innovative ways the business environment can be involved with it. I think it creates more ownership though because businesses are like, well, we’re not getting workforce ready students. Well, help us figure that out with you and help us, okay, by the way, when you’re doing that, help us create an internship program or an externship program or apprenticeship. Then there’s a real buy-in. Then I think one of the things that a lot of parents say to me is, “You’ve made it real now for me. I can see the reality of the future.” It’s not just a thing that we talk about or something that’s going to be expensive, but we understand why the investment needs to be there.

Chris Riback: What a super point. I agree with you. People are more open-minded now to new ideas. We know that after what we’ve gone through, we need new ways to try just about everything. What’s next?

Victoria Farrar-Myers: A lot of work. It’s figuring out what are the most, I think, I’m a problem solver in something, looking at early wins. What kinds of things can we adjust really quickly to get people feeling like, okay, we can do this. Then looking at the longer term picture and try that cradle to grave seems a little bit, or the cradle to career. It just seems so daunting. How can we look at those pieces? Zero to three, how do we focus there? What are the main needs? K through 12 and the seamless transition to post-secondary degrees, what are the main transition periods there? How do we listen to businesses and figure out how can we work with the higher education institutions to figure out, do I need more computer scientists?

Chris Riback: Yes.

Victoria Farrar-Myers: Or to put myself here? Do we need political scientists? Maybe not so. But that’s okay. I think it’s really having some of those really frank discussions about what it is we need to move forward. Cybersecurity is a huge issue, but yet we don’t have a lot of students who are getting into data analytics. I teach statistics. Most of my students don’t want to be in my class. Yet what I talk to them about is this is one of the best skills that I can teach you.

How do we make it real? For years, I’ve always struggled to try to make it real for my students to answer the why. What’s in it for me? Why is it so important to be in front of me in my classes? We’re just doing that with parents now. We’re doing that with educators now. We’re doing that with our business community. We’re doing that to tell the story economically for our cities. So cities can convene. I’m not saying cities are going to solve the problem, but we have to be integral partners to be able to convene a lot of the dot connectors of this process. I think that’s really where I see the future going.

Chris Riback: Well. I hear that connecting from you, Victoria, Doc FM. Thank you so much for joining us.

Victoria Farrar-Myers: Thank you. It was a pleasure speaking with you today.

Chris Riback: Giana, thank you so much for joining us at the studio.

Giana Rocha: Yes. Thank you so much for having me. I’m so excited.

Chris Riback: I am, too. Tell me about yourself. What year are you in school, and what are your interests.

Giana Rocha: Yes, of course. So my name is Giana Rocha. I’m a senior at Brighton high school in Colorado, and I’m extremely passionate about authentic youth engagement and giving back to my community.

Chris Riback: What is authentic youth engagement? What does that look like?

Giana Rocha: Yes, of course. So authentic youth engagement just looks like the youth being engaged civically, and giving back to their community, and the adults giving them the pathway, and partnering with them in youth adult partnerships to make sure that they have the access to tools that they need to be involved and make a change.

Chris Riback: And what type of change are you looking for? Infrastructure, environment, education, opportunity, criminal justice reform, what are the areas that you’re interested in?

Giana Rocha: Something I’m super passionate about, and especially within Brighton, Colorado is suicide prevention and mental health awareness. In Brighton, Colorado, I’m a part of the Brighton Youth Commission, and I’ve served as a chair for the past two years. We host a local suicide prevention initiative called SPEAK. SPEAK stands for suicide prevention education, awareness, and knowledge. It’s a week worth of education and knowledge implemented in local schools to help break down the stigma surrounding mental health. And then at the end of each week, we host a 5k walk to help promote community engagement and make sure that everyone feels like they can be involved and that their voices being heard.

Chris Riback: Does mental health feel like a growing problem right now?

Giana Rocha: Especially right now, I believe so. Yes. After coming back from the pandemic, I’ve seen it myself, and within my community, within my schools, how impacted our young people in our community has just been after the pandemic and coming out of a virtual setting. So I’ve been definitely seen it grow and be a bigger issue within our communities. I’m extremely passionate about it, and I’m so honored to be involved, and be a part of SPEAK week, and to hopefully lead the way towards change, and lead the way towards saving lives.

Chris Riback: Do youths, kids your age, is there a feeling that there isn’t a place to turn? Is there a feeling that my problems are too big and nobody’s going to understand? What’s the opportunity that kids need?

Giana Rocha: Speaking from personal experience, I struggled my own mental health, and SPEAK was a huge thing that helped me cope and helped me realize that I wasn’t alone. So my motto is no one should ever feel alone. And I definitely think that SPEAK helps me elevate that and expand that belief. I definitely think a lot of our generation feels like they are alone in their struggles. And I think SPEAK just helps them show that it’s not as uncommon as it may seem.

Chris Riback: On these councils that you are in, in the work that you’ve done in Brighton with SPEAK, you work with a lot of adults. What do adults not on understand? What do we not get?

Giana Rocha: I definitely think, over the years, it has changed immensely. Coming into the roles I have come into, about five years ago, I joined the Brighton Youth Commission, I was under the impression that the adults never wanted to hear my voice, and that it was a very one sided street in that they just wanted to teach us and nothing like that. But I definitely have seen a huge turnaround, and seen a lot of adults coming towards me and asking me for my opinion, giving me a seat at the table. I definitely think that’s a huge asset.

Coming out of the global pandemic, we’ve seen a certain shift. I wish that adults would still have the same trust in us. Coming out of the global pandemic, I think that trust has been lost. They haven’t seen young people in environments like this. They haven’t seen young people striving and being the amazing people that we are. And I think a lot of that trust has been lost. So if I were to ask one thing of adults is to trust us, and to know that we’ve done this before, and to give us that same pathway that they once gave us before. And we will surprise you for sure.

Chris Riback: Actually, I don’t know that I would be surprised. Now that I’m getting you to talk with you, my expectations are super high, but I understand.

Giana Rocha: That’s exciting. Yes.

Chris Riback: I’ll be impressed. I might not be surprised. And what would you say to middle schoolers or even maybe younger than that? As I was learning a little bit about you from this conversation, one thing that did surprise me, you felt like you didn’t fit in middle school. Seeing your personality right now, it’s hard to imagine you not fitting in someplace. Why did you feel that? And what would you say to middle schoolers now?

Giana Rocha: So middle school, of course, is a tough time for everyone. And personally, I face a lot of issues with my own identity, going to a predominantly white charter school, and feeling like I was left out of the conversation a lot of times, and felt like I was looked down upon. And it was really hard for me to find my voice and find a pathway for me to succeed. From a young age, I always knew that I wanted be a part of something bigger than myself. And I definitely think what I would say to young people, especially middle school, is there is a way, there is a pathway. You just need to look for it. You just need to make sure that you keep using your voice and keep asking questions.

A lot of the times, especially as a young woman, people look down upon you for asking questions or you feel like you can’t ask questions, but you need to. You need to ask questions and ask the right questions to get further in life. I definitely think finding a good community is a huge asset. The Brighton Youth Commission, at first, was just a place for me to feel welcome, and for me to find people that I identified with, and found people that valued my voice, and then it turned into so much more. So if that looks like drama for you, if it looks like sports, if it looks like getting civically involved, you just need to find that, and find something that you feel you can thrive in, and that you feel really fits you, and will help you immensely.

Chris Riback: What do your parents say about the path that you’re on?

Giana Rocha: My parents are extremely proud of me, and I’m so honored to have lived through them and lived on their legacy. As a first generation student, it is really inspiring to see my parents say such amazing things about me. They completely encourage me and have supported me every step of the way. Coming to Washington DC and doing those things. At the beginning, it was a little rocky coming from a traditionally Mexican American home. My dad was like, “You’re going where?” So it was a battle there, but now they support me completely, and make sure that I have the tools I need to succeed.

Chris Riback: And what’s next for you?

Giana Rocha: Finishing out senior year has been definitely bittersweet after coming from this global pandemic. It feels like I’m not supposed to be here. It feels like I missed so much. And it’s been a really interesting journey stepping into the senior position, and saying goodbye to a lot of my roles, and finishing a lot of things out this way. But next, I definitely do foresee myself pursuing a career in politics, hopefully, attending a university in the fall to pursue political science. I haven’t committed to any colleges yet, but I’m definitely hoping to do that soon.

Chris Riback: The bidding is still open for you?

Giana Rocha: Yes, sir.

Chris Riback: Okay. They’ll all compete, Giana, thank you. Thank you for the work you do in your community and for joining us in the studio.

Giana Rocha: Of course. Thank you so much for inviting me, and having me, and giving me the opportunity to share my story, and hopefully elevate other youth voices to one day change the world.

Chris Riback: Councilmember Lightfoot. Thank you so much for joining us at the ELN Studio.

Willie Lightfoot: Thank you for having me.

Chris Riback: Glad to have you. What in the world does a barber shop have to do with helping address early childhood learning or reducing violence or doing anything other than helping some of us look better than we have a right to?

Willie Lightfoot: Right. I think barbershops historically have been places of trust, places of… that mostly oftentimes they transcend generations. People normally don’t change their spiritual leader, their doctor and their barber or beautician. So-

Chris Riback: Not necessarily in that order.

Willie Lightfoot: Right, right. I mean, oftentimes we as barbers, we tend to be the first interaction that young people have in the rites of passage of becoming a young man or a young woman, if you will. And so we have that relationship. And we live in an environment where everything is about relationships. And so I think barbers and beauticians play a huge role in every community in the world and the impact they have on early learning and on people’s first interactions with having relationship building and being able to talk to individuals within the community.

Chris Riback: Really describe that for me. Make it tangible. I’m a two year old boy, I’m a four year old girl, and I come in. And what happens? What’s the experience like for me?

Willie Lightfoot: Well, I mean, first of all, getting your first haircut is a very memorable moment for not only the child, but also for the family and the parent. And so I can’t tell you how many times over the years I’ve filled out first haircut certificates for families, for a kid, one, two years old, that’s getting their first haircut. So that interaction is huge, and-

Chris Riback: That builds the trust, I would assume.

Willie Lightfoot: Absolutely.

Chris Riback: How do you use that opportunity to advance childhood learning?

Willie Lightfoot: So what we’ve done in Rochester, through the last administration, we created a program where we were doing books, Storytime with Styles, for kids. We have books in every shop or participating shops where children and families, when they came in, they were allowed to take a book for free from the library.

Chris Riback: Almost like a library.

Willie Lightfoot: Absolutely. So while they’re there waiting for a haircut. We’ve had opportunities where parents are reading to their children while they’re waiting, which is huge when it comes to early learning, having that experience of being read to, and in an environment that’s outside of the classroom. It’s in the community. So you’re getting so much in that experience. You’re getting interaction with your community. You’re getting the experience of working with your family member in the outside environment, outside of your home, and/or outside of the classroom, which just has a tremendous impact on development.

Chris Riback: How powerful, because it also must send the message that reading is not just a school thing. It’s not work. It’s part of what you do in everyday life. It’s what you do when you’re with your mom or dad. It’s what you do when you go to the barber. Reading is just part of life and learning is just part of life.

Willie Lightfoot: Absolutely. And also when we look at the barbershops and your first initial question was how they impact not only early learning, but violence and things of that nature.

Chris Riback: Yes, yes.

Willie Lightfoot: And so we are also utilizing barbershops and salons to deal with healthcare disparities, also to put out information around violence within our community. We opened up the first barbershop in the Rochester City School District. We were able to go in and mentor young people. We give them a haircut for free. We’re mentoring them. We’re talking to them about issues that they’re going through throughout society and different things that are coming up in their lives, which is giving them alternatives to making bad decisions and choices. Because we as entrepreneurs and business owners are allowing ourselves to interact with them on a positive note to hopefully curve some of the violence within our community. And also created a program called Cut the Violence, where we go out and do free haircuts, toys, gifts, connect parents and families with resources within the community.

Chris Riback: Yes. I’ve gotten to read a bit about some of the incredible work that you’ve done. I know that it’s an important passion of yours. How do you connect those two passions? How do you connect advancing early learning with violence that could occur at later stages in a child’s life?

Willie Lightfoot: All roads lead back to education, period. Every role leads back to education. So the more that we can impact the child’s life, the earlier that we can impact that child’s life in a positive way, the better chance they have at becoming a productive citizen in our community. And so with the barber shop, that’s just one tool of many, I believe, that helps to reach them a very early stage in their life. Because again, most families are bringing that young man to the barbershop at a very young age, and then they tend to keep coming back. So there is someone that you’re going to have interaction with maybe twice a month, sometimes once a week, depending on their ability to be able to afford to cut.

And by us doing free haircut, we’re taking that barrier away of how often you can come, because we’re allowing… doing this for free. So we’re interjecting that early learning into them, not just about things that they would normally learn in school, but about life skills, which is very important, especially in regards to this generation, which tends to be the Google generation, which they’re not really getting the life skills, one-on-one, hands-on that our generation received.

Chris Riback: To close, Councilmember, and I realize this might not be specific to early childhood learning, but I bet with you everything connects, what does it mean to do it anyway?

Willie Lightfoot: Regardless of the situations in our community, regardless of how dim things often sometimes can look… I’m in a very challenging community that my barbershop is in and that I represent. Oftentimes, things get dim and you often think that nothing’s making a difference. You’re not making a change. You’re not moving the needle. And sometimes that can get discouraging. And so do it anyway is saying, hey, regardless of how it may look like, regardless of what the headlines say, regardless of what you may feel from time to time, that the positive and the love and the positive things that are inside of you, do them anyway. Because ultimately, they’re making a difference in our community that oftentimes we can’t quantify or qualify how many lives we’re saving by being positive, regardless of sometimes the over-negative that we’re seeing in our community.

So just do it anyway. Be positive anyway, regardless of what is happening around us when we turn the television on, when we read the news, and of course when we’re in the barbershop having conversations. Oftentimes negativity seems to overshadow the positive, so I always tell folks, “Do it anyway. Be positive regardless of what others are doing.”

Chris Riback: Councilmember Lightfoot, I had the opportunity to read about you before this. I’ve now gotten to talk with you. You did it anyway, didn’t you?

Willie Lightfoot: Yes. And continue.

Chris Riback: I know you will. Thank you. Thank you for what you do for your community. Thank you for joining us in the ELN Studio.

Willie Lightfoot: Thank you for having me. Appreciate it.

Chris Riback: Huong, thank you so much for joining. Welcome to the studio.

Huong Vu: Thank you for having me today.

Chris Riback: It’s great to have you here. Been looking forward to the conversation. What is the Boys & Girls Club of Dorchester, and what do you do there?

Huong Vu: So the Boys & Girls Club of Dorchester, we want to make the great impact in the life of young children, youth, and their families. So we have been providing early education childcare program, the youth program, after school and summer program, and also the program for children with special needs. I have been working for Boys & Girls Club of Dorchester for a few years. And my everyday work is I try to make sure that not just family of the Boy & Girls Club, but the family in the community, they can have the support services, and I’ll have them to assess into some free resources in the community so that the child, they can develop healthy and the need of the family who we met.

Chris Riback: So very interesting to hear that it’s boys and girls club, but it’s not just for boys and girls. It’s for the boys and girls, but you also focus on the moms and dads.

Huong Vu:���۱��.

Chris Riback: Why is it important to do that full circle of the children plus the parents?

Huong Vu: At our program, we recognize parent is taking a really important role in the child’s life. We want to value parents. They should participate in all of the level. They should be valued as the first teacher of the child and the expert in their own life. And we want them to be the powerful leader in the community.

Chris Riback: Do they want the assistance? Do they want the help? Do they want the tools? Do they want to learn about the available resources in the community? How do the parents react to the help that you are able to provide?

Huong Vu: I can tell you, our program, we have been working with a lot of families who are low income, who are underserved, the new immigrant family, which has come to this country, not just that we come to serve them, but they come to ask for help from us. Even we are the program who focus on the children, but we want to extend our service into all of the concrete need. They can come to our club to ask for fill out the school registration form. Or if they’re curious about their child’s development, we have a screening tool for them to know if the child’s reached the milestone. The need out there is really big, and we only worry that we cannot serve all of them.

Chris Riback: There’s too many. There’s too much need.

Huong Vu: Yes.

Chris Riback: What is the parent leadership model?

Huong Vu: I can tell you, the parent leadership model is the backbone of many great community organizations in Boston. We have been developing the parent leadership model for such many years. Again, we want to make parents at the center of everything. We want to have them to participate on all of the level. We want them to really value as the expert in early education. And we want to see them to step into our program, to partner with our staff to develop the model of the program. And further on that, we want them to be a powerful leader in the community to make the change, the impact, the positive impact in the policy and the system.

Chris Riback: As an immigrant yourself, why is it important to you to be involved in the work that you do? What do you hope the impact of your work is?

Huong Vu: Eight years ago, I started work for Boys & Girls Club of Dorchester just as a parent volunteer. And then I was promoted to be a part-time staff. And now I’m a full-time with the Boys & Girls Club of Dorchester. The directors over there, they really believe in me. They value myself, no matter my race and my ethnicity. And I want to pay forward for that. I want to set myself as a great model for the other immigrant woman so that they can step out of their comfort zone, they can dream big and think big, and they want to become to pull out their leadership inside themselves, to set the goal for their child, for their family. And saying about think big, they can be the great advocate and leader in the community. So we tell a lot of women, you go there, you go outside, you vote, but you worry that you cannot make any changes. But no, you, just as a parent, you can really, as an advocate and the leader in the community, to make a lot of changes.

Chris Riback: I know you would not want to talk too much about yourself. But given what you just said, do you get the sense do the parents see that you have done it? Does that make it believable for them when they see what you have done?

Huong Vu: Yes. When I reach out to a new parent who nervous about their future, I always started to share my own story, my own private story, even not a really beautiful, happy ending, but I want them to see myself as a migrant, an isolated mom at the beginning. Now I really go further on my career journey to become a full-time job. So I want them to really believe in themselves. If they work hard enough and if they build their own leadership, they can always be successful in a new country.

Chris Riback: The opportunity is there. Huong, thank you. Thank you for joining us. Thank you for the work that you do for those families.

Huong Vu: Thank you for having me have a chance to share my own story.

Chris Riback: Councilmember Cohen, thank you so much for joining us.

Zeke Cohen: Great to be with you.

Chris Riback: I really appreciate having you. What is the state of early childhood learning in Baltimore?

Zeke Cohen: We as a city have made a pretty big in investment. We know that particularly in a city that has suffered from some really serious disinvestment from redlining, from being the first in the country to have legislated residential segregation into city code. We know that we have a long way to go in closing racial achievement gaps. And so we have invested in early childhood education, particularly in Judy Centers, which are really an innovative form of early learning center for low-income kids that not only provide teaching to the child, but also support for families.

It’s really sort of a community school, community center approach. Because we know that often when we have young people that are struggling in some way, the struggle is also connected to their family and perhaps to housing instability or not having enough food on the table. And so we take the approach that we’re not just going to support our little ones, our children, but also their parents and the entire ecosystem of community that’s surrounding them.

Chris Riback: That’s what I wanted to ask you about. I mean, Baltimore is not unique. Urban centers like Baltimore, you’ve got health issues, environment, employment, higher education, violence, criminal justice, everything. How do you encourage focus on early learning when you have so many competing pressures?

Zeke Cohen: Yes. So I’ll talk a little bit about my own work sort of in this space. So as a former public school teacher, so young people is kind of near and dear to my heart.

Chris Riback: What grades?

Zeke Cohen: I taught middle school 6th, 7th, and 8th grade.

Chris Riback: You were really asking for trouble, huh?

Zeke Cohen: Yes, absolutely was. I’ll tell you to be a middle school teacher you either have to be really, really intense or really, really, really calm. And at some point, I hit the sweet spot, but definitely had some reliving of my own horrific middle school experiences as a teacher.

Chris Riback: That’s called payback.

Zeke Cohen: That’s right. But I also loved it. I mean, young people really give me a lot of energy and I’ll tell you could tell who had had access to high-quality preschool. You could really tell the young people that had a more enhanced vocabulary, whose literacy was a little further on. It was really as a teacher noticeable who had been through our pre-kindergarten system.

I’ll also say that one of my formative experiences as a city councilmember was a school shooting that took place in 2019 in West Baltimore. It was at a high school. A gentleman walked in with a gun and shot one of the school staff. And we held a hearing in the Education and Youth Committee about youth voices, youth violence. And the idea was to really hear from our young people about what they needed to reduce their exposure to gun violence.

And I’ll tell you, a lot of the adult conversation at the time was about, “Should we have more metal detectors in our schools or should school police walk around armed with a gun on while they’re in school?” But when we got to the young people, they wanted nothing to do with that conversation. In fact-

Chris Riback: Yes. What did they want?

Zeke Cohen: So what they said is, “You all are city leaders are spending too much time thinking about how to better police us. What you need to be thinking about is how to prevent violence and trauma from occurring the first place.” And they spoke about their own lived experiences with homelessness, with food insecurity with day-to-day violence they’d see in community. All the different adverse childhood experiences ACEs that we talk about, the young people spoke about their own lives and called on us as legislative to use our power to address it.

And so I’m a former teacher, when young people speak with that level of precision and power it behooves us to listen. So I followed up with those three young folks Jaionna, Damani and Bryonna and said to them, “Listen, I’m interested, but I want you to work in with me. Let’s write a bill that directly addresses trauma.” Because we know that whether you are in early childhood or whether you’re in high school, so many of our young people confront very, very difficult issues.

We spent about a year doing a listening tour across our city in laundromats, in libraries and rec centers and classrooms. We heard from hundreds of people about their own experiences with trauma and what we could do to heal it. And then we pulled everyone together in what we called our first ever Healing City Summit over at Morgan State University, where our young people, some of them very little, did panels and TED Talks and poetry about healing from trauma.

And then we went over to Coppin State, another HBCU in our city, we had a big community fair and then we marched together to Frederick Douglass High School, which is where that shooting had taken place. And the young people spoke about what it was like not just to have been through this traumatic experience, but to have then written a bill to directly address it.

And our then Mayor Jack Young signed what we called the Elijah Cummings Healing City Act, which made Baltimore the first city in America to have legislated trauma-informed care. And so everything that we do whether it’s related to our early childhood education or our older adults, we think through the lens of the trauma that has impacted the people we serve and how we can better support our communities.

Chris Riback: Where are those three students now?

Zeke Cohen: So Jaionna is working, Bryonna is in college and Damani is actually there at Coppin State where we were at. He’s learning computer science programming, but both Bryonna and Damani have stayed involved as we created a trauma-informed care task force, they’ve helped to inform it. So they’ve been integral not only to the early phase of the work, but in really pushing it and powering it forward.

Chris Riback: And isn’t that the example, access the youth access, the talent young. You said they were in high school. You’re going even younger, middle school. You’re going to early learning, but put in the investments early and it pays off.

Zeke Cohen: 100%. We either invest early on where we know every dollar we spend in the high quality early learning space pays huge dividends down the road or we pay for it on the back end. We’re a city that experienced mass incarceration. We locked up over 100,000 of our own people during a former mayor’s term. That is unconscionable. And you think about how much it costs to incarcerate someone versus how much it costs to educate them, it’s not even close. Not to mention the amount of damage that was done to families, to entire communities.

When Baltimore went deep into the war on drugs it essentially morphed into a war on communities of color. We saw where I used to teach in Sandtown-Winchester, kids would leave the school, they’d get jacked up against the wall. Their backpacks would get checked. It created this horrific relationship between law enforcement and particularly black children in our communities. It was a complete failure as a policy.

We are now having to walk that back. One of the things I’m proud of in the Healing City Act is that we not only train all of our city agencies in trauma-informed care, but we also ask them to work with us to shift policies. So I’ll just give you one example, which is we started with our library system. It is a place where everybody goes from people experiencing homelessness to-

Chris Riback: A tremendous community resource.

Zeke Cohen: 100%. It is a hub of civic activity and it’s also where my daughter goes to get books. She’s four years old, but it’s a place where people go to get online. People go to find housing. Our libraries are just a huge hub [inaudible]

Yes. And so one of the policies that they had was a zero tolerance policy. Anyone who was suspected of either being drunk or high would be immediately kicked out. And instinctively it makes sense. You don’t want someone who’s drunk causing trouble in a library. However, we know in 2022 that addiction is a disease and that to criminalize it or kick people out who are suffering is the wrong approach.

So instead through the Healing City Act, we’ve actually brought peer recovery coaches into our libraries. These are folks who have been through addiction themselves and who can help support parents, family members, anyone who’s struggling can help provide treatment, provide Narcan, whatever they need through a harm reduction lens. That’s the kind of rethinking of policies that I believe we need. And to close it out, we know that investing in our youngest people pays enormous dividends in creating safe, sustainable communities and strong adults.

Chris Riback: Wow, it sounds like you are doing a great deal of investing and we all hope it leads to the healing that your efforts, other efforts and the bills that you’ve passed will help bring. Councilmember, thank you. Thank you for coming to the studio.

Zeke Cohen: Yes, I’m honored to be with you. Thank you.

Chris Riback: Councilmember Maness, thank you so much for joining us today.

Kathy Maness: Thank you. I’m so glad to be here.

Chris Riback: You are the immediate past president of NLC. What did you see in early childhood learning during your time? You had that role during some of the most difficult times imaginable.

Kathy Maness: Right.

Chris Riback: What’s the state of early learning in our nation today?

Kathy Maness: Early learning is so important and during the pandemic, it played a huge part because many of our childcare centers were open for parents who had to work. A lot of parents were working from home, but we had essential employees who had to go into work. And thank heavens our early learning centers were open to provide the needed childcare for those parents.

Chris Riback: None of us wanted to go through that. Did you feel on some level that it took a crisis to raise some awareness around an area that I’m sure you already knew the criticality of?

Kathy Maness: Unfortunately, yes, it did. I have had wonderful childcare centers for my children and now my granddaughter. So I know the importance of quality early learning, but it did take this crisis for our community to realize. Hey, they could open. They were there to help families. They were there to help our communities. And most importantly, they were there for our young children during this time.

Chris Riback: You, of course, have an incredible vantage point both locally in Lexington, South Carolina but also because of your roles and your national involvement nationally. How would you characterize the range of what you see in our communities nationwide?

Kathy Maness: Well, I was the president of the National League of Cities during a very difficult time for our cities, towns, and villages across America. And we saw where communities were closing. We saw how our city halls, our town halls, had to do a balancing act to keep our employees there, not having shutdowns, deciding what we were going to do to keep our community safe.

Chris Riback: So many competing priorities.

Kathy Maness: That’s right. And our early childhood learning centers were there as a partner to us as local elected leaders to help try to make things normal when they really weren’t. And I am so thankful for our early learning centers and our early learning community, that they were there for us.

Chris Riback: Everyone grasping for just a sliver of normalcy.

Kathy Maness: Right.

Chris Riback: An hour of normalcy- [crosstalk].

Kathy Maness: Yes.

Chris Riback: Is what it felt like. Given what you’ve seen and given what you know from your experience, what guidance might you have for local elected officials who might be struggling with those tensions, the competing tensions of priorities, health needs, environmental needs, infrastructure needs, employment needs, education needs in their communities? Any guidance that you would give them around, from based on what you’ve seen, around how to prioritize or make sure that early learning stays part of the focus?

Kathy Maness: Early learning and education is very important to me. I have a master’s in early childhood education. I’m a former third grade teacher. That’s still considered an early childhood, and it is my passion. And it is important that to us, as local elected officials, to know that these young children are our future. They’re going to take my place one day. They’re going to be a Councilwoman or a Councilman in the town of Lexington, South Carolina. They are going to be the president of the National League of Cities. And we’ve got to be there early for them to help them learn, to help them grow, to encourage them. And that’s what we saw through our early learning centers during this pandemic.

Chris Riback: Thinking back to your previous self as a third grade teacher, and I’m willing to bet that once a third grade teacher, always a third grade teacher- [crosstalk].

Kathy Maness: Always. That’s right.

Chris Riback: I’m sure. But thinking back to you at that point, whatever point that was in your life, what would you say to teachers today, to caregivers today about the stresses that they are feeling and some who might be questioning, “Can I do this again another day?”

Kathy Maness: That is a great question for me because I left the third grade classroom and went to work for Palmetto State Teachers Association. I’m now the executive director of the largest professional association for teachers in South Carolina. I hear it every day and it breaks my heart the stresses that our teachers are under. Our children have experienced losing that year or- [crosstalk].

Chris Riback: Yes.

Kathy Maness: A year and a half.

Chris Riback: Such loss.

Kathy Maness: And it’s showing. When we started this year, we had to teach children how to be in a classroom again. And for our early learners, it’s the first time they’ve been in a classroom. So they missed that kindergarten year being in there where they were able to learn by play and to learn how to be a part of a community, part of a classroom. And it is hard. It is hard on our teachers now. And we, as local elected officials and as communities, need to lift our educators up, our early learning educators all the way through high school. We need to lift them up and let them know, “You are important, and we know that you are making a difference in the lives of children, starting with our early learners.”

Chris Riback: Making that difference every day.

Kathy Maness: Every day.

Chris Riback: What’s next for Lexington, South Carolina?

Kathy Maness: Well, we are coming back. We did a good job during the pandemic. We have a fabulous town administrator. I have a fabulous staff at our town and our council, so we’re coming back. We’re doing things for early learners. We’re redoing our beautiful park downtown, making it more friendly for families and young children. And that is so important that we’re doing that. But I just appreciate the cities, towns, and villages across America, as they worked very hard during this pandemic to respond, recover, and now we are rebuilding. And for many of us, it’s better than ever.

Chris Riback: It’s time to visit Lexington, South Carolina, isn’t it?

Kathy Maness: Please come to Lexington, South Carolina. I am so proud of my town.

Chris Riback: Well, I’ll go there for a number of reasons, including, I appreciate your having come to the studio.

Kathy Maness: Thank you. [crosstalk].

Chris Riback: Thank you so much.

Kathy Maness: Thank you.

Chris Riback: Vice Mayor Abbot. Thank you so much for joining us.

Katie Abbott: Thanks for having me.

Chris Riback: Looking Forward to chatting.

Katie Abbott: Yes.

Chris Riback: Describe Pinecrest, Florida, for me please. What is the community like? What are your biggest challenges?

Katie Abbott: So, Pinecrest, Florida is a municipality of Miami-Dade County. So, Miami-Dade county is this big. It has 34 municipalities, and we are one of them. We’re a suburb of Miami. It has about 18,000 residents. We’re 26 years old. We just celebrated our 26 anniversary last week, so we’re very proud of that. We are, some still consider us a semi-rural community. We are very family-focused. We’re school-focused. It’s a wonderful place to be. I grew up there. It’s just night and day from when I was there.

Chris Riback: I understand that one of your governing philosophies is cradle to grave.

Katie Abbott: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Chris Riback: Tell me about the cradle part. What’s the role of government in early childhood learning?

Katie Abbott: So, it’s interesting in Pinecrest, because our school system, our public school system is actually Miami-Dade. So, it’s a bigger picture, but we work so closely with our schools. We have five public schools in Pinecrest. We have an education committee that we meet monthly with our principals, with our school board, with the whole district. We have parents who are interested. We give yearly grants to our five schools of $10,000 each. So, there’s a real tight connection between our local government and Miami-Dade County public schools.

Chris Riback: What’s that coordination like what? What lessons, what guidance might you have for other officials who also have to do that type of coordination, because any effort like this requires working across levels of government, and then also with local community members?

Katie Abbott:  Absolutely. I think it’s all about reaching out, and making connections, and getting to know your representative. So, for example, our school board member, I know her well. I can email her. We’ve talked. We’re very open, and I think sometimes even elected officials are hesitant to reach out to other elected officials.

Chris Riback: Yes.

Katie Abbott: But you really need to keep that line of communication open in order to get things done.

Chris Riback: What is the Pinecrest Youth Advisory Council?

Katie Abbott: It’s my favorite.

Chris Riback: Well, tell me about it then please.

Katie Abbott: I am so proud. I co-coordinate our Pinecrest Youth Advisory Council. It’s 24 students who live in Pinecrest. They go to various schools. So, they go to private schools. They go to public schools. They’re eighth grade to 12th grade, and they’re just students who are devoted to learning about government number one, and number two, giving back to the community. So, they volunteer at our events. We hold workshops for youth. Anyone is able to come, and then we talk about to topics that are of interest to them.

Chris Riback: What’s of interest to them? What are they bringing to you these days?

Katie Abbott: So, okay. So, right before I came here, we had one on the environment and the changing climate. We had a local executive director of an art facility come and talk about rising sea levels. We talked about elevation of the student’s houses. They got to make a flag that put, they put the elevation on it. They planted a mangrove. We talk about college interviews, 101, college hazing, topics that are of interest to that age group.

Chris Riback: How do you also navigate, because you’ve talking about a lot of important issues, sometimes personal issues how do you navigate progress when an environment sometimes can become political? We see news from Florida, but Florida’s not the only place.

Katie Abbott: Right.

Chris Riback: Every state, every local municipality has its politics. How do you push past politics to make progress?

Katie Abbott: Absolutely. In Florida, in particular, it’s getting a little bit more challenging, especially with recent proposed legislation that we’re trying to navigate. Here at the conference yesterday, we were talking about efforts that they were proposing that actually, I might not be able to do, going forward. So, it’s very challenging. We can continue to work on it. We continue to do what we think is best for our community and our children. We just, we can’t give up, right? We have to keep doing what we need to do.

Chris Riback: Got to keep pushing forward.

Katie Abbott: Yes.

Chris Riback: Now, you know that I cannot have a conversation with you without asking as well, about Palmetto High School.

Katie Abbott: Yes.

Chris Riback: I understand that there’s a debate team that has had a few stars-

Katie Abbott: A few.

Chris Riback: … of which, you might be among the most famous, but maybe-

Katie Abbott: Absolutely not.

Chris Riback: Maybe not the most famous.

Katie Abbott: Not the most famous. So, our school, our local public school, support public schools, has produced many people who are successful in the world, including Ketanji Brown Jackson, our current Supreme Court nominee. Jeff Bezos went there. He was valedictorian. Our current Surgeon General, Dr. Vivek Murthy-

Chris Riback: Yes.

Katie Abbott:  … went there. Many more successful people, whether you know them or not out of this public school, outside of Miami, Florida.

Chris Riback: There’s a lesson there isn’t there?

Katie Abbott: There’s a lesson there. There is certainly a lesson there. We have to keep supporting our public education.

Chris Riback:  Got to keep supporting public education, and got to watch out for who comes out of Palmetto, because they might run a big company, or become a new Supreme Court Justice.

Katie Abbott: Yes. Absolutely.

Chris Riback: Or a Vice-

Katie Abbott: Or a Surgeon General.

Chris Riback: Or a Surgeon General, or a Vice Mayor.

Katie Abbott: Or a NASA astronaut. We’ve one of those.

Chris Riback: You have one of those?

Katie Abbott:  Yes.

Chris Riback:  Or a Vice Mayor of Pinecrest.

Katie Abbott: Or a Vice Mayor of Pinecrest.

Chris Riback: Thank you so much for joining us today.

Katie Abbott: Thank you so much. This was great.

Chris Riback: Kelly Allen Grey, thank you for coming.

Kelly Allen Grey: Hello.

Chris Riback: Hello. Thank you for coming to the Early Learning Nation Studio.

Kelly Allen Grey: Well, thank you for having me.

Chris Riback: So, let’s start in the past. When you served on the City Council in Fort Worth, how did you successfully elevate early learning with colleagues who maybe didn’t see the role for local government in early childhood learning and development?

Kelly Allen Grey: So how I even came to this is I wanted a library in my council district. And more importantly, I wanted a children’s library. I wanted not just a floor or two that was dedicated to children-

Chris Riback: One didn’t exist there.

Kelly Allen Grey: No, one didn’t exist. And I wanted a complete children’s library to focus on early learning, but zero to 18 because we lose our kids, especially in middle school. So, it really became my job to make my council members understand that education and economics go hand in hand. And so when you start to talk about how so many of our kids who grew up in Fort Worth, went to Fort Worth public schools, they went to college and then they never came back home. How do we get those kids to come him back home? That always is a great selling point. And so that became the foundation of education, economics in the city of Fort Worth.

Chris Riback: It brings them all together, doesn’t it?

Kelly Allen Grey: Absolutely.

Chris Riback: And how are you able to make this happen when you have to navigate a mayor, perhaps a state government, many different officials who might have different political backgrounds?

Kelly Allen Grey: So as crazy as this sounds, in the city of Fort Worth and in most of Texas, I’m sure, we’re nonpartisan. So, education in the city of Fort Worth wasn’t red or blue. It has really been about the kids. And how do we have kids reading on third grade level when they are supposed to and creating those partnerships? So really it was the mayor who started leading the challenge along with the superintendent from school district, several people from the business community to having that conversation about education and then us putting all of those pieces together and then bringing all of those people who are in that space of early learning together to collaborate. And that had never happened.

Chris Riback: And what are you focused on now? What are your priorities right now?

Kelly Allen Grey: So, post-council, still involved in early learning, although… So as crazy as this is, and I guess my whole life up to this point has been absolutely bananas.

Chris Riback: That’s for a different show you understand.

Kelly Allen Grey: Right. My background, actually, my undergraduate degree is in secondary education but I never taught. And I never taught because I never could figure out how to be just in a classroom all day long but the love and the passion remains. And so now I am a part of the Early Learning Collective, which the Bezos Foundation is one of those supporters of, and still being involved in that space, still doing all of those things with Reed, Fort Worth, from the city of Fort Worth, being involved in some of Mayor Parker’s initiatives. And just trying to make sure that we stay in the game on early learning and making sure at our littles are as best prepared for school and that next step in life as we most possibly can be.

Chris Riback: Kelly, what role does racial equity play in this work?

Kelly Allen Grey: It plays everything. In the city of Fort Worth, I-35 is the dividing line between east and west. And what happens on the west side of I-35 in schools, in communities is totally different than what happens on the east side. And so having that, being in that space of racial equity and talking about fairness and diversity and inclusion and making sure that the kids who live in what we consider our lower socioeconomic neighborhoods have those same advantages, that same technology, that same everything, so that they can compete on the same level as the kids who live in those upper middle-class neighborhoods is absolutely important. And it takes all of us, even in our uncomfortableness in talking about race and equity, to make sure that we’re doing the right thing.

Chris Riback: And in Fort Worth, you tell the folks in Dallas that the west actually starts at I-35. If you’re on the wrong side of I-35-

Kelly Allen Grey: You’re on the wrong side of I-35.

Chris Riback: On the wrong side… So, yes. That also is another show. That’s another conversation.

Kelly Allen Grey: That’s it and is it.

Chris Riback: Kelly, to close out, what advice would you have for newly-elected officials who want to try to drive real change and bring a library, put in an early learning center? What advice do you have out for them?

Kelly Allen Grey: Use your voice. Use your political capital. Do what you say you were going to do. When you ran to get elected, you were full of fire and you said you wanted to do all of these things, do those things. That’s my advice to you. Do those things. Don’t just make them be a campaign speech, actually put them into action.

Chris Riback: Listening to you today, I bet you use your voice and I bet you put them into action.

Kelly Allen Grey: It happened.

Chris Riback: It happened. Kelly, thank you. Thank you for coming to the Early Learning Nation Studio.

Kelly Allen Grey: Thank you. Thank you for having me.

Chris Riback: Mayor Mei, thank you for joining us in the studio.

Mayor Lily Mei: Thank you for having me. It’s a pleasure.

Chris Riback: It’s great to see you. Tell me about Fremont, California, and tell me about the state of early childhood learning in your city.

Mayor Lily Mei: Sure. So just to introduce Fremont – Fremont is the fourth largest city in the Bay Area. It’s larger than every other city in the Bay Area, except for San Jose, by land mass.

Chris Riback: Wow.

Mayor Lily Mei: It is home to an incredibly diverse population, which makes it an incredibly rich community to live in. And when it comes to education, we want to make sure that we provide educational opportunities and equity and access to so many of our community members. So some of the things that I’m most proud of in the school district where I previously served two terms as a school board member, is that we have access to supportive services, which are important, especially at the younger ages. And one of those programs is Glankler, which is an early learning center, which helps address some of the needs for preschool and early education, as well as the fact that Fremont Unified is one of the largest school districts in the state of California. It is approximately 35,000 kids.

Chris Riback: Wow. That’s a lot of kids.

Mayor Lily Mei: 42 schools. And I’m very proud of my time during the tenure, that every single elementary school, junior high school, now they’re middle schools, and high schools, rank some of the best in California. And three out of the five high schools rank best in the United States in the US News World and Tuck report.

Chris Riback: That’s outstanding. Congratulations. You mentioned equity. You kind of started with equity and how important that is. Describe if you would, why it’s important. I think I know why it’s important. Why is it a challenge?

Mayor Lily Mei: Well, I think equity is a challenge sometimes because people view it as being, especially in different parts. And I grew up, personally, I was born in Chicago, grew up in Philadelphia. And sometimes when you talk about schools and education, it ties to your zip code and what you can afford. And so therefore, when I got on the school board, I wanted to make sure that every child had equal opportunity to excellent programs. And one of the schools that I’m most proud of during my tenure was Durham Elementary. And at that time, it was one of our lower Title I performing schools. And by providing supportive services and not just taking one principal that one size fits all fits one school and you could translate them, finding the right mix of supportive educational opportunities. And in this case, it was a principal who understood that it’s not just taking one of the highest performing schools and saying that anybody could be the principal there because the kids test so high, but finding someone who understood that this school has 30% migrant families and speaks Spanish and other languages.

We are also home to one of the largest cities that are Asian in the United States. It is the sixth largest Asian population city, with the largest East Asian Indian, and also one of the largest Afghan populations. And I was part of the team that sought the principal for that elementary school, Durham, to find someone who understood English language learning, to understand that many parents, with a city where over 50% of the families have one or two members that come from immigrant backgrounds, that they may not have had the same educational opportunities. That every parent loves their child, but they may not have had known how to help support them. So we partner with Cal State East Bay in supporting parenting classes, so parenting and quality education, having Urdu and Farsi support parent groups, being participating in Latino and black family math and reading nights. So in three and a half years, it went from one of the lowest performing schools to being one of the best California Distinguished School, and actually National Blue Ribbon School in three and a half years.

Chris Riback: That’s fantastic. So many languages represented, so many backgrounds represented. And you touch on another important point that I haven’t heard enough of, I don’t think. Obviously, programs are important, and having the right program in the right place is important. But that principal, having the right people really matters as well. Doesn’t it?

Mayor Lily Mei: It does. And so you talked about that just now. And we have also in our school district some of the programs that I think are really important. In my previous life, I was a worldwide sales controller for a tech company, and many of my employees spoke multiple languages. And when we look at the world changing today and how we deal with commerce, I think that that experience is really important. So we are also home to a Mandarin immersion program and three Spanish immersion programs, as well as a science magnet program. And not just in beginning in elementary school and having that flexibility, but building the capacity to junior high school and also into high school for language and culture, really does make a difference in how we do business. We are also recognized for the past five years, four out of the five years we are listed as the happiest city in the United States.

Chris Riback: You seem very happy.

Mayor Lily Mei: It’s not Disney, it’s actually Fremont. And we’re home to a lot of the topics that we talked about this week in terms of manufacturing. We have makerspace in the library, so it’s not just limited to one of the schools it’s accessible to the public as a whole, whether you’re in private school or public school, but to the community. And last year we also added makerspace and robotic space into one of our community centers for junior high and high school.

Chris Riback: What’s the role of partnerships? And particularly around early learning, what role has business played in your community and how do you think about coordinating across private and public sector?

Mayor Lily Mei: So that’s actually what I got involved in myself personally. My daughter was going through school, and we had overcrowding and issues. And one of the challenges was about reboundary-ing and redistricting. And so I got involved because I felt it was important not just to be complaining about an issue, but to be part of the solution. And we’ve got great partners in the city of Fremont. We have some small manufacturers, over 900 plus manufacturers. Some small ones you may have heard of, such as Tesla. So not only are the cars supercharged, so are the people. And apparently, according to Philz Coffee, we drink some of the most coffee of all the Western United States. And I probably am a testament to that.

And then Facebook is a good example. When we created the makerspace in our library with Archimedes, they actually helped us donate some of the PCs and equipment to allow us to set up that space. And I myself am a bit of a nerd, so I formally worked in tech and am involved with a lot of the hackathons, and also Introduce a Girl to Engineering Day. And I’ve helped host those for Tesla and others over the past couple years. I used to help the Hackathon, which was with 42 Silicon Valley, and creating innovative solutions for programming and coding, and allowing it to address some of the most critical climate issues and action issues in our city and around the region. I hosted it and kicked it off for the first two years. And then for the third year, IBM dumped me for Bill Clinton.

Chris Riback: I will say, if you are a nerd, it’s not evident in this conversation. To close, special needs pre-K, that’s something that I believe you have focused on as well. Why have you put focus there, and what are the needs in that area?

Mayor Lily Mei: Well, I think the needs are a couple different areas. One, as the mayor, and also in a position where a lot of the families, sometimes there’s a stigma still in terms of seeking assistance. But truly if you’re able to address programs and provide them earlier on, we have better outcomes. We’re also home to Friends of Children With Special Needs, which is a nonprofit that I’m very proud of, that we just celebrated its 25th year, where it provides classes, not just for the children, the families, but enrichment across things like summer camps, it also has a facility for independent living for adults, and also even for employment. And one of the centers that they have now in San Jose, they have the ability to make little machines from Legos. They also create things like soap and coffee shop. So it creates a pathway. And the other program I’m most proud of, from when we talk about Glankler Preschool, they have a band. Because some of the children, while they’re autistic, are very talented in music. So they have a Friends of Children With Special Needs, they have an Always Dream band. And they are children that were formally of the Glankler preschool, who, as they got older, even though they were sensitive to music and somewhere on the spectrum, they are amazingly talented musicians.

And so with that and special needs talent shows and programs, helps us to provide the wrap around. And truly, when we talk about education, you need to make sure that every child is being addressed. And every child learns differently, and to build that capacity into the schools, and that’s what we talked about here at National League of Cities. I happen to be the chair of the mayor’s task force on education for the past three years. And working with mayors, we learned some of the best practices on how we can facilitate, especially in these challenging times, things like mental health. We have a large refugee community, and to date, we opened up our hearts and our wallets and have raised over 440,000 to help the Afghan refugees and provide our nonprofits with services to help relocate people, to help get people connected to the services and licensing or other things that they might need to get them situated. And that’s what I’m really proud of. To be a true home, it’s not just a home to one group of people. It’s to provide the solutions and make it a place to live, work, play, and worship in peace together.

Chris Riback: A lot going on and a lot to learn from in Fremont, California . Mayor Mei, thank you so much for joining us in the studio.

Mayor Lily Mei: Thank you for having me.

Chris Riback: Mayor Bronin, thanks so much for coming to the studio.

Mayor Luke Bronin: Thanks for having me.

Chris Riback: I saw, I believe it was yesterday that you posted your State of the City address, and I couldn’t help but notice that you appeared to be in a library when you were giving it. Why is that the location you chose?

Mayor Luke Bronin: Well for a whole bunch of reasons. First of all, the Hartford Public Library is, in my view, one of the most important institutions in our city. It’s a phenomenal library system. It’s branches are really oases in our neighborhood. They are about place where you can go access books, but they’re about a whole lot more than that too. It’s access to technology. It’s access to adult education. It’s a place where families can go. Kids can learn. Adults can search for jobs, on and on. The services provided at our libraries are really vital. That’s one answer. The other answer is it was a library that we had just built after the neighborhood had been asking for it for about three decades. It was on the site of a historic theater that had been demolished through neglect. Part of the theme was about perseverance and partnership and what we can do with those two things.

Chris Riback: Interesting. You pre-taped and released the State of the City address. Smart way to do it.

Mayor Luke Bronin: Well, it’s something we did last year because of COVID. We could have done it in person this year, but this was a nice way to be able to deliver the State of the City address and still be at the National League of Cities.

Chris Riback: You finally figured out what we all look for.

Mayor Luke Bronin: That’s right.

Chris Riback: How can we be two places at once?

Mayor Luke Bronin: Exactly.

Chris Riback: What is the state of early childhood learning in Hartford?

Mayor Luke Bronin: Hartford has been a real early leader when it comes to early childhood. I am grateful to my predecessors who really focused on this area for a while. We’ve got a great team that manifests itself in a lot of ways. One, we have a pretty extensive network of early learning centers throughout the city that the city operates or contracts out. We’ve also been working hard to try to identify best practices and bring them to Hartford. The Providence Talks program was a great example of an innovative way to use technology to help increase the number of words the kids were hearing from their caretakers and family. We adopted that, brought it to Hartford, and call it Hartford Talks. We’re not above stealing good stuff. We’re constantly looking for ways to do more in this space. The other thing that I would say is we’re really focused on infant and toddlers as well because number one, learning starts very early and number two, a lot of our families need that help.

Chris Riback: In terms of the government institutional support and yes, the history that Hartford has even here with the NLC is quite extensive. You have a Department of Families, Children, Youth, and Recreation.

Mayor Luke Bronin: We have a Department of Families, Children, Youth, and Recreation, and within that department, we have a division that is specifically focused on early child development.

Chris Riback: And did you inherit that or is it-

Mayor Luke Bronin: I did. I inherited the broader office of Families, Children, Youth, and Recreation. We’ve really built up that focus on early childhood.

Chris Riback: What inspired you to build that up?

Mayor Luke Bronin: Well, just the enormous amount of data that suggests how important and how powerful early learning is for lifelong learning and lifelong success. We want to set up our kids for success as best we can. It’s one of the most important interventions that we can make. Like I said, we like any community, have a long way to go and a lot more to do. But our team works awfully hard. And I think they’re one of the more innovative and certainly committed teams around.

Chris Riback: Any insights, lessons you can give around coordinating across private and public sector? To be doing what you are talking about, to have so many years in your city of commitment to early learning, business must be involved.

Mayor Luke Bronin: Yes. Our business community is involved, and they’re very supportive. But what I actually would say is where we’re really focused is building those partnerships with families. You cannot be effective in early learning space without working closely with families. And that means identifying the barriers and the needs that families may have, the things that they need to have a little help overcoming so that they can get their kids into the early learning programs. It also means trying to change the mindset about early learning so that it’s not seen as a form of childcare, but really seen as fundamental to a child’s education. That’s something that we really focus on and have really worked hard to communicate and build partnership with our family.

Chris Riback: It so much more than just childcare. What is the Hartford Unity grant?

Mayor Luke Bronin: Hartford Unity grant is one of a number of initiatives that we are funding with our American Rescue Plan resources. It’s geared toward young people in our community and trying to make sure that they are getting connected to mentors, to coaches, to sports programs, to a whole lot of fun after everything they’ve been through over the last couple years. We’ve already given out about a million and a half dollars to 68 youth serving organizations around the City of Hartford. But we set aside seven and a half million dollars for this Unity grant program. We’re reviewing the newest applications now. That focus on young people, not specifically on early childhood, but on young people in general was one of the top priorities in our American Rescue Plan because young people have experienced this pandemic in profoundly dislocating ways. We need to make sure that we are focused in every way we can on helping them heal, recover, and reconnect after this.

Chris Riback:  I’m sure you already knew it, but can you believe how many organizations you have in Hartford and in the area who are focused on serving youth through that whole [inaudible]? I looked at the list of who have gotten the grants. It’s kind of an embarrassment of riches.

Mayor Luke Bronin: We’re blessed to have a tremendous number of organizations that are doing great work. One of the things that we really wanted to do with our Unity grants was make sure that we were providing support to organizations big and small. It wasn’t just the usual suspects. It wasn’t just the biggest players. It was in some cases, small neighborhood organizations that are doing great work on a small scale, and they don’t have the capacity to put together a big 100 page grant application, but they do awfully good work with the resources when they get them, and we want to make sure they got them.

Chris Riback: What’s next? What’s next for Hartford specifically around early learning?

Mayor Luke Bronin: Well, I think that a couple of things. First of all, we want to continue to focus on quality. It’s not just about getting young people into the classroom. It’s also about making sure that we are making that early learning experience as effective and educational experience as possible. We study closely the results that we have, and we’ve also partnered with the National League of Cities to look at the pipeline of early learning educators and look at compensation issues because there have been longstanding challenges in that area across the country. Compensation’s not high enough. Amounts budgeted are not big enough, that’s including in Hartford. The first thing was to look in the mirror and see what wasn’t working and then try to get better at building a system that attracts, recruits, and retains great talent to deliver quality education to our kids. I think it’s important that that be a national priority.

Chris Riback: No shortage of challenges or opportunities. Mayor Bronin, thank you. Thank you for joining us in the studio.

Mayor Luke Bronin:  Thanks for having me.