Melissa Minic, NCSL 

Before the COVID-19 pandemic, 1 in 6 children between the ages of 2 and 8 were diagnosed with a developmental, behavioral or mental health disorder such as attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, anxiety or depression. The number jumps to more than 1 in 5 for children living below the federal poverty level.

The depth of the problem is reflected in the fact that children in early education settings are suspended and expelled at three times the rate of school-aged children, and Black preschoolers are 3.6 times more likely to be suspended than their white counterparts.

Outside of family, early childhood educators are often the biggest influencers for healthy child development. Given the increased stressors they’ve faced throughout the pandemic, many educators are fighting to keep their heads above water. Anxiety, stress and burnout have spiked amid severe child care staff shortages, and many providers―most of whom are low income―have experienced hunger and increased difficulty paying for basic needs. Moreover, many are carrying student debt.

Photo Credit - NCSL

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Michael Overall, TULSA WORD 

Oklahoma will offer start-up grants to ease a shortage of child care across nearly half the state, officials said Tuesday.

The Department of Human Services will provide up to $10,000 per child for new day care centers that open in what the state considers “child care deserts,” officials said. That includes Tulsa and 33 other counties, with more than half the state’s population living in areas “where there aren’t enough licensed child-care providers to meet the needs of working families,” according to DHS.

Some areas have faced a chronic shortage of child care, but the problem grew worse after facilities closed during the COVID-19 pandemic, said Jackie Evans, who owns Aunt Jackie’s Childcare Home in Tulsa.

“A lot of places never reopened,” said Evans. “We’ve never recouped from the pandemic, and now there are lot more children who need child care than there are places for them.”

As a licensed child care provider for 42 years, Evans won’t be eligible for a start-up grant, but she will welcome new facilities in her neighborhood, where she has a long waiting list for children to enroll at her day care.

Photo Credit - Tulsa World

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THE HUNT INSTITUTE

(Editor's Note: The Potts Family Foundation was honored to be a part of the Oklahoma delegation at this informative event along with Sec. Brown, Brittany Lee (OKDHS), Carrie Williams (OPSR), Tiffany Neill and Lauren Jenks-Jones (OSDE), Rep. Lawson, Rep. Baker, Rep. Randleman, Rep. Rosecrants, Rep. Waldon, Sen. Rosino, Sen. Joanna Dossett and Sen. Stanley.) 

From Wednesday, August 24 – Friday, August 26, 2022, The Hunt Institute hosted a bipartisan convening with 52 state teams, including Puerto Rico and Washington DC, comprised of senior elected officials, gubernatorial staff, and key early childhood system leaders for the 2022 Early Childhood Leadership Summit in Phoenix, AZ.

Across the three-day convening, teams heard from prestigious keynote speakers and panelists, including fellow elected leaders and some of the nation’s leading early childhood experts, in addition to spending time considering high-impact strategies to improve early childhood education in their states.

Teams also had the opportunity to connect, collaborate, and network with one another on critically important early childhood topics and discuss how to address the most pressing early childhood needs within each state.

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 24

As attendees arrived, our Hunt team set up at the Arizona Grand for the Pre-Conference Caucus Caucus. First, Dr. Dan Wuori of The Hunt Institute welcomed attendees by highlighting the major early childhood issues under consideration for the week. After a short break, we gathered for the Summit’s first panel discussion featuring The Honorable Howie Morales and Dr. Kayla Hahn, moderated by our very own Dr. Lauren Zbyszinski. The conversation centered on how states can create and sustain strong early childhood governance structures in their states.

Following this discussion, attendees were able to connect with each other during a brief welcome reception, before grabbing dinner and settling in for day one’s final conversation. Our President & CEO Dr. Javaid Siddiqi opened the floor for The Honorable Pamela Northam of Virginia, Paul J. Luna of the Helios Education Foundation, and The Honorable Abby Cox of Utah to discuss the role of collaboration in advancing early childhood education initiatives across the country.

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KATHARINE MANNING, HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW

For the past few years, we’ve been experiencing collective trauma. But trauma is not new in our organizations, and it’s not going away, either. Estimates are that six in 10 men and five in 10 women experience at least one trauma, and approximately 6% of the population. Trauma is not new, and it’s not going away. It’s time for organizations to learn how to respond to it.

The past two years have been incredibly turbulent, as we’ve faced Covid, racial violence, political upheaval, environmental disasters, war, and more. Anxiety and depression have skyrocketed. Organizations have had to confront issues they never expected and find new ways to support their employees through repeated traumatic experiences.

The reality, though, is that trauma is not new in our organizations. It’s not going away, either. Estimates are that six in 10 men and five in 10 women experience at least one trauma, and approximately 6% of the population will experience PTSD at some point in their lives. Trauma and distress can arise from a wide array of causes, including domestic violence, sexual assault, racism, bias, harassment, economic uncertainty, political division, and more. New challenges arise every day, and conflict and strife anywhere in our globally connected world affect us all.

As we’ve seen the lines between work and home blur and a fundamental shift in our expectations of the places we work, organizations have struggled to provide the support and leadership their employees and customers need. That’s why it’s so important that they take steps now to build the cultures that can see them through this crisis and the ones we’ll all inevitably face in the future. To do that, we need to build trauma-informed organizations.

Photo Credit - Yaroslav Danylchenko

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MAYA PAYNE SMART, TIME MAGAZINE

Agrowing number of states, cities, and districts are now requiring schools to teach phonics. In other words, to teach kids how to read. That’s welcome news for a country that’s suffered from dismal reading outcomes for decades and now also contends with persistent COVID-19-wrought learning losses.

For too long, showing young children the basic connections between the sounds in speech and the letters that represent them in print was not granted the primacy it deserved. A hodgepodge of word-guessing strategies and picture-book appreciation passed for reading instruction, hurting the literacy and life prospects of millions of kids. Without sufficiently direct and sustained instruction in how our written language works, most U.S. fourth graders had attained only basic or below basic reading skills, according to the latestNational Assessment of Educational Progress. Many of them are poised to one day join the ranks of the 36 million U.S. adults with low literacy skills.

Mass reading-curriculum reform and teacher retraining to implement it are critical to turn this disaster around, but more is required. The reality is ineffective instruction in schools isn’t our only literacy issue. The United States is also suffering from willful underinvestment in families during the first years of life, right when parenting can make (or break) kids’ reading prospects. The U.S. spends just .03% of its GDP on early childhood education and care, on par with Romania and Cyprus. That’s compared to the more than 1.5% spent by Iceland and Sweden.

PHOTO CREDIT - CATHERINE FALLS COMMERCIAL/GETTY IMAGES

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KATHARINE MANNING, HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW

Access to affordable physical and mental health services is one of OK25by25’s four focus areas. Over the past year, the Potts Family Foundation participated with a wide range of stakeholders to develop a State Obesity Plan, managed by the State Department of Health. Yes, there was an early childhood subcommittee! The stakeholders reviewed a number of state and national reports over that time and developed recommendations for addressing/reversing the obesity trends we see in our state. One report, just recently released, is the 2021 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS), created and maintained by the CDC. State Health Department shared the most recent report with our stakeholders and the findings were NOT positive. Since 2011, the state has seen a steady increase in “obesity prevalence in adults,” rising from 31.1% of in 2011 to 39.4% in 2021. The latter value ranks Oklahoma 46^th, where 1^st is best/lowest.

The report also reveals that this issue correlates very highly with key socio-demographic and-economic groupings. For example, looking at Education, the educational attainment level that had the lowest prevalence of obesity in Oklahoma were those “graduated from college.” From an income perspective, the highest prevalence of obesity was found in the $50,000 - $74,999 income range, the second highest income range. The prevalence of obesity tends to occur more prominently in persons of color, with Native Americans and African Americans having the highest percentages. Finally, the age range 45-54 had the highest prevalence of obesity at 50%!!

The State Department of Health also shared two additional studies, one from the Trust for America’s Health (TFAH) and the Biden Administration’s national strategy on hunger, nutrition, and physical activity. The TFAH report, entitled State of Obesity: Better Policies for a Healthier America, can be accessed at the following link: https://www.tfah.org/report-details/state-of-obesity-2021/ . The latter report can be accessed at the following link: https://health.gov/our-work/nutrition-physical-activity/white-house-conference-hunger-nutrition-and-health#:~:text=Our%20goal%3A,diabetes%2C%20obesity%2C%20and%20hypertension.

While all of these reports point to a serious health problem, we should all be encouraged that there are a growing number of resources and stakeholders coming together to address this problem. We at the foundation continue to do our part to elevate the dialog, discussions, and deliberations.

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