A Report From David Smith, Chairman of the Early Care & Education Work Group to speak

 

David Smith, Chairman of the ECEWG gave the Noon Rotary Club an update on the progress to date in determining the needs here in the community.  Mr. Smith pointed out that most of the 'heavy-lifting' of gathering and summarizing the data had been accomplished by ECEWG's coordinator Jan Santopietro and committee members including Dee McPeek.  

 

Mr. Smith discussed a variety of studies done that all pointed to the fact that the readiness of children to enter into the school system impacts all of us regardless of whether or not we directly have children in that age group.  Numerous studies have determined that there is a substantial long-term benefit and 'return on investment' when considering the resulting savings to taxpayers.  School ready children, by their 40th year, represented a higher percentage of well paying jobs and reduced involvement with the legal system among many other positive factors.

 

The Committee's work thus far has identified 212 'slots' available for a projected 481 children whose parents have indicated that they could benefit from and would participate in affordable early child care and education if it were available in our community.   Their next tasks include developing possible solutions and proposing methods by which these solutions could be made a reality.