"The child care industry has been subsidizing early care and education on the backs of teachers through low wages and by burdening parents with tuition rates that just keep climbing," writes Kay Heidrich, director of Trinity Lutheran Church Preschool. "This needs to stop. Our system is broken and needs to be fixed."
Jill Magnell, owner and director of Little Discoveries in Moorhead, writes, "With fully funded child care, we can offer our educators the same wages, benefits and recognition as K-12 teachers and we can provide a break for our working parents struggling to afford child care tuition.
Magnell writes, "The Child Care Stabilization grants stipulated that 70% of the grants go toward increasing compensation. We were thrilled to be able to do so for our teachers. Before the grants, our center was able to pay lead teachers only $15-$16 per hour. Now we pay $18-$18.50. We were able to move full-time assistant teachers from $12 per hour to $15 per hour and bring part-time aides and staff up to the $12-$14 per hour range. This was huge."