Juneau serves as a symbol of the state in a number of ways, and presenters at the Chamber of Commerce luncheon believe that the city can also serve as an example for the rest of the state in another way: early childhood development.<\/p>\n
Anchored by former City and Borough of Juneau City Manager Kevin Ritchie, a group of presenters offered a number of potential benefits to investing in pre-kindergarten education. Both Ritchie and Director of the Association for the Education of Young Children Joy Lyon said Juneau is in a position to be a \u201cpilot community\u201d for the rest of the state in terms of investing in early childhood development.<\/p>\n
\u201cJuneau always has an issue about, \u2018Are we the best capital city we can be?\u2019\u201d Ritchie said. \u201cCertainly childcare, preschool and youth services are a major component of that.\u201d<\/p>\n
He and Lyons, along with local business owner Bruce Denton and Juneau School Board President Brian Holst, described both the need for the investment and an outline for how to fund and execute such a plan. A great deal of learning and development happen before the age of 5, Ritchie explained, and Holst spoke about the fact that Juneau kindergarteners aren\u2019t as prepared for school as they should be.<\/p>\n
Ritchie\u2019s presentation proposed a $4.5 million investment in early education. One way to secure the funds, Ritchie said, is to take advantage of a continuing 1 percent sales tax that goes to a vote this October. Half of one percent of the existing 5 percent sales tax, he explained, would be around $4.5 million and the city could take that money and use it to invest in early education. That would result in taking money away from capital projects and maintenance, however.<\/p>\n
He explained that an investment of that magnitude would more than pay off in the long run. Increasing the amount of daycare and pre-kindergarten education would provide more local jobs, and that down the line, it would save both schools and the state money, Ritchie said. According to multiple studies, Ritchie said, better early education cuts down on future special education costs and (even further down the line) reduces the amount of state spending on jails and prisons.<\/p>\n
Lyon explained that the three main focuses for the increased investment in early childhood development are affordability, availability and quality. Some in attendance, however, felt sought clarification on the exact ways the money will be spent and specific measures that will be taken.<\/p>\n
Ritchie said the main goal at the moment is to start a conversation about the need for this investment in early education, saying he\u2019d like to meet with the CBJ Assembly or the Juneau Community Foundation to set specific plans and goals and get the ball rolling.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know exactly how it would be structured at this point,\u201d Ritchie said, \u201cbut we need a group of experts that can say, \u2018This is the best way to do it,\u2019 and then keep massaging it to make sure it\u2019s the most efficient, effective thing that we can do.\u201d<\/p>\n
State Rep. Justin Parish, D-Juneau, was also in attendance, and spoke passionately about the issue, specifically about how the initiative will positively affect the city itself.<\/p>\n
Parish has noticed that while other areas of the state are gaining state jobs, Juneau is losing them. He said he makes a point to ask state commissioners whether or not they live in Juneau, and if they don\u2019t, he wants to know why not. In some cases, it\u2019s because there isn\u2019t easily accessible or affordable daycare or child services.<\/p>\n
He saw eye-to-eye with Ritchie and Lyon, saying that Juneau has a chance to be an example for the state, and it starts with keeping families in town.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is happening,\u201d Parish said of the loss of state jobs from Juneau. \u201cThis is real. This is having terrible economic consequences for us. Anything that we can do to say, \u2018Juneau is a place where I want to raise my family, Juneau is the place where I want to have my employees, Juneau is the place where I can be sure that my employees will be showing up, even when their kid\u2019s sick,\u2019 we should be doing that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Clarification: An earlier version of this article stated Parish told the Chamber that he makes a point of asking state legislators whether they live in Juneau. He was referring to commissioners, not legislators.<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u2022 Contact reporter Alex McCarthy at 523-2271 or at alex.mccarthy@juneauempire.com.<\/b><\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Juneau serves as a symbol of the state in a number of ways, and presenters at the Chamber of Commerce luncheon believe that the city can also serve as an example for the rest of the state in another way: early childhood development. Anchored by former City and Borough of Juneau City Manager Kevin Ritchie, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":428,"featured_media":13669,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-13668","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13668","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/428"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13668"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13668\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13669"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13668"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13668"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13668"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=13668"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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