Elect leaders who will support children, families
To the Editor:
As the director of the Jackson County Department of Social Services, every day I observe young families in Jackson County who are struggling with economic self-sufficiency. Central to this struggle is child care for their young children. Whether our young parents are already in the workforce or are still preparing for the workforce by educational and training pursuits, child care is a necessity.
For many families, child care costs as much as housing, sometimes more. People who want to work find that after paying for child care there is little to nothing left in their paychecks for rent, gas, or food. I see parents struggling with this problem every day.
The Jackson County Department of Social Services participates in the N.C. Child Care Subsidy Program and we have funding to offer help to up to 375 children. A variety of other early childhood programs exist in our community, such as Head Start Programs, operated by Mountain Projects; NC Pre-K Classrooms, operated by the Jackson County Public Schools and other programs, and a variety of other types of early childhood programs. However, all of these programs together do not offer adequate capacity and funding to provide services for the almost 3,000 children ages birth to 5 years of age who live in Jackson County.
Meanwhile, decades of research show how high-quality early childhood education sets children up for success in school, and in life. Kids who have been to a strong preschool enter Kindergarten ready to read, and more likely to do well from day one. There is an amazing social and economic benefit to enrolling as many children as possible in high-quality early childhood education programs.
The high cost of good child care is a cornerstone economic issue for working families in Jackson County and indeed, all of Western North Carolina. It is critical that our elected officials understand and support our community’s need for adequate and high quality early childhood programs. We, as citizens and community leaders, need to know that the policy makers that we send to Raleigh, support our community need for early childhood education services. We need to ask the important questions about their willingness to ensure that our state’s early childhood programs are available to hard-working families. Clearly, support of early childhood education is an opportunity support the best investment our senators and representatives could make in our state.
As you make your decisions about who you will vote to send to Raleigh, to make spending decisions for us, I hope you will ask this important question to the candidates — “Will you support early childhood education for our young families and their children?”
Jennifer Abshire
Jackson County
