This story was reported and written by Radio IQ.
During the COVID-19 pandemic the federal government gave Virginia millions to support child care improvements and help get parents back to work. That money has dried up. But parents and kids are celebrating the solution the state approved this year.
The Children’s Museum of Richmond was filled with the celebratory cheers of dozens of families Monday morning. The party came in the wake of hundreds of millions of state dollars flowing into Virginia's child care system.
Tomashia Cornitcher with the Virginia Promise Partnership knows the value of early childhood education. At the celebration at the Children’s Museum of Richmond, she explained how a head start program helped her son get potty trained and prepped for kindergarten.
“I stand by the term it takes a village to raise a child because as you see by the different walks of life in this room it truly takes more than one to take care of a child,” Cornitcher told the room.
The funding, agreed to in the 2024 budget, came after fears of a so-called child care coverage cliff when federal funds would run out at the end of this year. It also showed a great return on investment in pre-k programs: kids are better prepared for school and parents get to go back to work.
Governor Glenn Youngkin then used the study to create a framework for the new support system, and Jenna Conway, deputy superintendent with the Virginia Department of Education, said those building blocks were unique because they, “called for a significant state investment in a way we’ve never seen before to help sustain the system.”
The total cost of that investment? About $830 million over the next two years. Laws were also passed to make it easier for folks to enter the child care system to address workforce concerns.
Richmond Delegate Rae Cousins has a two-year-old daughter, she started the pre-school search a few months ago and found everywhere in Richmond had a waitlist. She did find a spot outside the city, but she hopes the money and funds will open up more options for families like hers.
Notably, the bipartisanship stemmed from public-private partnerships— giving state funds to private groups and nonprofits, but it came after 30,000 observations of classrooms so they could see the impact of those funds.
Delegate Rodney Willet said it couldn’t have happened without those partnerships.
“[There’s] hundreds of thousands of children across the state, it was the only way we're gonna get them the care they need, the early childhood education they need,” Willet said.
Parents should see the first impacts of the new changes this fall with a new website from the state that will help direct them to resources and child care slots.
