Headstart program
New early child care program hopes to address the shortage of workers
While the nation suffers from a shortage of early childhood educators, Hamilton County Schools and the city of Chattanooga are trying to create a solution: a child care career pathway for high school students.
District and city officials held a news conference Thursday at Chattanooga Head Start Avondale, where they unveiled plans to open an early learning futureready institute at Tyner Academy this fall.
“I’m thrilled to announce today that we are partnering with Hamilton County Schools to launch a new future-ready institute focused on training the next generation of early learning professionals in our city,” Chattanooga Mayor Tim Kelly said at the news conference.
The program, dubbed the One Chattanooga Institute of Early Care and Learning, will allow students to graduate with their child development associate certification.
“These students will be immediately employable by an early learning center with a direct career pathway to higher education opportunities and salaried jobs in their career to come,” Kelly said.
Superintendent Justin Robertson said it’s part of the district’s mission to engage the entire community.
“We were pretty bold in saying that we’re going to push this community because these are complex issues,” Robertson said at the news conference. “For this community to move forward, it’s going to be even more important that we have partnerships like this that take city government, county government willing to work together.”
Students will also receive on-the-job training at child care centers.
“Between birth and 5 years old, that is the most critical time of development,” Champion Christian Learning
Academy Director Cynthia Evans said at the news conference Thursday. “We’re not just talking about academically, we’re talking about socially. We’re talking about physically. We’re talking about cognitively.”
Evans added that early child care is essential for preparing students for kindergarten.
“What children need to know in order to be successful in kindergarten today is not what we needed to know to be successful in kindergarten when we were in school,” Evans said. “The standards continue to change. We also know that we can detect deficits and literacy and math at the early level if kids are in the right school with the right staff.”
Christy Vandergriff, deputy director of early learning for the city of Chattanooga, said there is enough funding for early learning programs but not enough workers.
“We have a lot of child care centers that have closed classrooms right now across the city because they don’t have anybody in those locations,” Vandergriff said in an interview following the Thursday news conference.
She added that child care centers are also looking to increase mental health support staff.
“We’re seeing an increase in challenging behaviors,” Vandergriff said.
The city will distribute $250,000 during the next five years to support the program. The funding will come from Chattanooga’s COVID-19 relief funds.
Future-ready institutes are schools within a school that provide programs of study in a variety of fields. Some institutes prepare students with credentials to enter the workforce straight out of high school, while others offer post-secondary education credits.
The early learning program will mark Tyner’s fourth future-ready institute.