Fort Worth ISD has plans for infants in school. How does it work in other districts?
Fort Worth ISD is moving forward with plans to establish four early learning centers across the district in areas where affordable, high quality child care is hard to come by after voters narrowly approved a November bond to fund the project along with other improvements.
Three other bond measures were defeated in the same election after opposition groups lobbied against them, pointing to the district’s lackluster academic performance and what they called limited information about the bonds in the weeks leading up to the election.
The failed proposals included proposition B, which would have provided funding for the renovation of middle school and high school auditoriums; proposition C, which would have provided funding for three stadiums; and proposition D, which would have provided funds for the renovation of school gyms and fields.
But district leaders said they were “thrilled” with the passage of the largest, $1.2 billion proposal A which is set to provide for major renovations of all district middle schools, the construction of new elementary campuses and a unique opportunity to meet the growing need of child care in so-called child care deserts in portions of the district.
According to a 2020 analysis of child care provider data and census data by the advocacy organization Children at Risk, there are fewer than five seats in subsidized child care centers in some areas of Fort Worth for every 100 children of working parents.
Bond proposal A, which passed by a 57-vote margin after a careful review, sets aside $13,798,232 for the project, which will establish four centers across the city in areas identified as lacking in high quality early childhood education.
The district has not shared any details about where the campuses will be to date. The early learning centers are the smallest portion of the bond.
Child care in Indiana Schools
As child care needs crystallize across the country in the wake of employment struggles related to the pandemic, Fort Worth ISD is not the only district looking at utilizing existing facilities to meet the needs of infant and toddler care.
In Syracuse, Indiana, a small town with limited child care options, the Wawasee Community School Corporation - which is similar to a school district in Texas -began welcoming children of teachers and children of employees at a local manufacturing plant and other infants and toddlers from the community amid the pandemic.
“I call it a child care desert,” Brittany Rosenberry, who serves as COVID-leave coordinator for the district, told the Star-Telegram. “I myself had issues as well with childcare trying to find care when COVID hit and a lot of the center’s closed and we’re actually about 30 minutes from Goshen and Warsaw, which are the bigger cities.”
District leaders developed the program, with the help of a grant from Early Learning Indiana and began offering seats to infants, toddlers and pre-K programs for 3- to 5-year-olds at three elementary campuses across the district.
“We believe that the sooner you get them into a school type setting, the better that they will be once they do become K-12 students,” Rosenberry told the Star-Telegram. “We want to start them out early and in a really good environment for them to be safe and secure and reliable.”
The program, which the school system is considering expanding to meet the needs of teachers and employees across the county, is not based on income — although parents are eligible for scholarships based on need.
Fort Worth Weighs Options
That is one possible approach that Fort Worth ISD officials have considered as they explore options to serve early learning needs across the city.
When asked about the bond in October, Chief of Schools Jerry Moore said early learning options at Fort Worth ISD could include programs that are based on income and need, and/or programs that serve the broader population. The potential programs could expand beyond the centers passed as part of the bond, Moore said at the time.
“There may be a couple of different types of early learning spaces,” he said at the time. “It may not all be income based … we are entertaining all sorts of ideas to support our community as well as our faculty and staff here in Fort Worth ISD that have a need for early childhood learning spaces.”
In the Wawasee district, needs are assessed on a case-by-case basis.
“It’s not income based at all, it is open to the community, and we try to find avenues that if they come and say, ‘Hey, I can’t afford this,’ we’ve tried to sit down and come up with a plan to help them afford it,” Rosenberry said. “Just because somebody can’t afford something, we (still) want to provide that parent and that child with education and with reliable safe care.”
The district in Indiana employs all of the teachers and paraprofessionals in the classrooms, unlike Crowley ISD in North Texas, which has Child Care Associates staff their early childhood education programs.
Fort Worth ISD officials visited the district when planning for the bond proposal to see how such a program could work.
Wawasee schools is also inviting local district officials in Indiana that are interested in starting similar options in their districts. Since the Wawasee program has started, there has been wide community support, leading to a wait list and plans for expansion.
Early Head Start approach
Another option Fort Worth ISD is considering is a model similar to Crowley ISD, which provides support and building space for the operation of a federally funded early Head Start program which is staffed and run by Child Care Associates, one of the largest child care providers in North Texas.
For Head Start programs that serve 3- and 4-year-olds, schools can receive state funding, according to the Texas Education Agency, but similar funds are not eligible for infants and toddlers under current regulations.
While Fort Worth ISD has not provided details on which approach they will take, or where the centers will be located, Child Care Associates CEO Kara Waddell, confirmed that she met with the district to offer support.
“We don’t have a specific MOU but have agreed to work together and we’ve offered to connect their classroom placement decisions with the infrastructure work of the now-forming Blue Ribbon Action Committee on Child Care – to help ensure we ‘do no harm’ to quality child care as we work to expand services to all children.” Waddell said in a statement.
The Blue Ribbon Committee Waddell referred to, which was announced last month to “guide critical investment opportunities in child care and early education for children 0-5,” is looking at solutions across the county, including involving schools in early childhood education.
Leaders urge caution
Fort Worth Mayor Mattie Parker, who is serving on the committee along with Arlington Mayor Jim Ross, said that the collaboration gives child care providers a one-up on one of the significant costs of operating a center: building costs.
“They don’t have bonding capacity, they can’t build the actual physical building that our children deserve to be in,” Parker told the Star Telegram. “There is an opportunity to co-locate high quality early education opportunities in school district owned facilities.”
Parker and Waddell said that however the programs are implemented over the coming months and years, they should be established with attention and care to the existing child care infrastructure in Tarrant County.
“If you start removing children as early as three from that childcare setting, you’re going to bankrupt a very delicate model that’s already in place right across our county,” Parker said.
“I think as long as the hand-off and transition is (implemented) thoughtfully between the provider into kindergarten, we’re still in a good place. In this situation, in particular, we may be able to go beyond our wildest dreams, because you could create an ISD setting (and) put the right people in place at every education level, without disrupting private care models.”
