Why I am hopeful for the future of child care in Erie County
There is a child care and early childhood education crisis affecting children and families across Erie County. Many leaders and organizations recognize this and have been advocating for a solution. The Erie County Gaming Revenue Authority, in partnership with Erie County, is taking tangible steps and providing funding where it's needed most. ECGRA was recently awarded $2.5 million in American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds by Erie County. These funds are the first steps in fixing Erie's fundamentally damaged child care system.
Early Connections (formerly the YWCA) has operated in Erie County for over 130 years, providing outreach and programming to young children and families. At first, the YWCA primarily focused on providing housing, education and employment services for young women living in the Home for Girls. To meet the growing demand for child care, this expanded into opening the Children's Center in downtown Erie. After disaffiliating from the national YWCA and becoming Early Connections, we continued to focus on developing programs to meet the needs of our community.
Now, Early Connections provides high-quality early care and education programming at four sites, two in the city of Erie, one in Union City, and one in North East. As an intermediary, Early Connections is dedicated to providing connections and supports for high-schoolers and nontraditional students working in the child care field. This strengthens the pipeline between high schools, employers and higher education institutions to help individuals become credentialed child care workers at little to no cost while improving the quality of child care centers.
For a long time, we've grown in this city and championed early childhood education.
According to Start Strong PA, as of September 2024, Erie County faces a shortage of 93 staffing positions in early childhood education, with the potential to serve an additional 744 children if the positions were filled. A vast majority of centers reported teacher shortages, including difficulties recruiting new teachers and retaining current staff.
The child care staffing shortage is driven by low wages, which fail to meet the cost of living in Erie County. This creates challenges in hiring, retaining staff and expanding programs to serve more children. As a small program, we've certainly encountered these issues firsthand. The first round of ECGRA funding is designed to address this issue directly.
All industries are feeling a squeeze when it comes to staffing, but early childhood education faces unique challenges. Unlike retail or food service, we can't operate with fewer staff without compromising the quality of care. Early childhood education requires specific teacher-to-student ratios to ensure each child receives the support they need. Without enough staff, programs are forced to close classrooms that would normally be full of eager, learning children.
Addressing staffing from the state level, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro proposed approximately $1,000 bonuses annually to all child care employees in recruitment and retention grants. If passed, this would be an investment of $55 million in the child care workforce.
It's not only staffing that's an issue. Once the current empty classrooms are filled and additional children need to be served, capital improvement projects will be another hurdle to manage. A lot of Erie facilities are entirely tapped out on space and affordably acquiring new rooms is difficult or impossible, especially when factoring in the other challenges at play. This is yet another limiter for child care progress that can be addressed by future ECGRA, Erie County or state investment.
Nick Scott Jr.: Child care and economic development in Erie - it is time for action
More: ECGRA, Erie County invest nearly $1 million to address shortage of early childhood educators
The difficulties we face seem insurmountable when we just talk about them, but I think there's hope on the horizon in the form of tangible action. Thank you to ECGRA for investing in solutions that not only support families today but also help elevate the conversation around early childhood education both here in Erie and in Harrisburg. I'm encouraged by statewide advocacy efforts like Pre-K for PA and Start Strong PA, which are working alongside local leaders to make sustained, strategic investment in child care a priority across Pennsylvania.
Michelle Harkins is the executive director of Early Connections in Erie.
This article originally appeared on Erie Times-News: Why ECGRA is investing $2.5 million in Erie Co. child care | Opinion
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