As a parent, full-time employee, and champion for helping Maine reach our educational attainment goal – 60 percent of adults will have a credential of value by 2025 – I was grateful to read your recent guest editorial by business leaders Lucas Caron and Jeremy Fischer making the case for how essential high-quality child care is an a key underpinning of our economy.
COVID-19 has turned life as we know it upside down. The novel virus reveals everything we’ve once taken for granted and is forcing us to reexamine how we do everything that was once “normal.”
As the working fathers who co-authored this Maine Voices editorial said, there is no question that if kids are in school less time, and parents have to work, childcare is essential. I fear the lifelong consequences if childcare is not kept at the center of the public policy conversations right now.
I support the Governor’s Economic Recovery Committee’s recommendation that $20 million of Maine’s $1.25 billion federal CARES Act Relief fund be spent on childcare for babies through school-aged children and an additional $25 million be spent on childcare for young students during their out of school time. Childcare is a crucial pillar of the economy that affects not only parents but the businesses that employ them and the broader community.
Now, more than ever, we need bold action to create the childcare-public school partnerships that holistically serve the needs of our children and our working families, community by community.
Katherine Johnston
Educate Maine
Gardiner
Send questions/comments to the editors.
