Main Street Welcomes Congressman Gerry Connolly!
On Thursday, June 10th, Main Street welcomed Congressman Gerry Connolly, City of Fairfax Mayor David Meyer, City Councilmember Janice Miller, the Northern Virginia Association for the Education of Young Children (NVAEYC) as well as early childhood educators and advocates for a discussion on the current state of early childhood education.
The children graciously welcomed our visitors and then we moved into a discussion about the needs facing the early childhood education sector today.
Early Childhood Education and Care is essential for children, their families, and the future of our communities. It is at the very foundation of our country’s economy, now and in the future. During Covid, we’ve seen that business and government can’t operate if parents don’t have a place for their children while they work and children need high-quality preschool education in order to help business and government to operate in the future.
Early educators are vital; they need to be honored for their skilled, nurturing work through professional compensation and benefits. It is impossible to keep high-quality, well-educated, and trained teachers if we can’t compensate them fairly.
We are mostly private and often non-profit organizations. We need help so that we pay teachers more without having to increase tuition for parents who already struggle to pay current rates.
High-quality programs that work effectively and efficiently are already in existence (like Main Street!). We don’t need to build a new system but instead should support the existing early childcare providers to thrive and grow.
