Dear friends and supporters of preschool,

Good news first, and then a call to action! Your advocacy is important and works! Below is a summary from Nicole Scott the program director for Pima Early Education Program (which we affectionately call PEEPs) about the great strides we are making locally. The full report is uplifting reading.

In this second year …PEEPs served 1,356 children, a 63 percent increase from year one. Most of this growth was due to the tremendous expansion of PEEPs classes by our school district partners.

Collectively, PEEPs, Head Start and statewide programs assisted over 5,500 children to attend high quality preschool in Pima County, which is about 42 percent of the need.

The number of high-quality preschools increased to 285, and PEEPs classes and scholarships were available at 187 locations. Of the children participating in PEEPs, 78 percent were children of color and 18 percent were dual language learners, which is important as children of color and dual language learners benefit the most from high quality early childhood care and education.

In addition, a survey with an unusually high response rate, found parents are very satisfied with their children's participation in PEEPs, and the program enabled the majority of parents to return to work or increase work hours.

Our work isn’t done, though.

Federal funding has been a lifeline for PEEPs and Arizona’s child care programs. Now, according to a recent report by The Century Foundation, the expiration of these funds could lead to the closure of 70,000 child care programs nationwide and 3.2 million children losing their current child care spots. The shuttering of centers will mean the loss of hundreds of thousands of jobs, not even counting the millions of parents whose only feasible way to participate in the workforce will evaporate practically overnight. The think tank estimates families will lose a cumulative $9 billion in earnings per year.

Please let all our decision makers in Congress know: expiration of child care subsidies threatens the whole economy. We are doing our part locally, but we need the Federal dollars to avoid the child care cliff. Here is a link to the Arizona Congressional Delegation Contact Page: CONTACTS

Keep up your important advocacy for kids and families!
Thanks,
Penelope