STORY AND PHOTOS BY KAREN BOSSICK

In six years as principal of Hailey Elementary, Stephanie Wallace has never seen so many young students entering her school without the skills for success as she did this year.

Today, with both parents working in most households, they often don’t have time to introduce them to the skills necessary to navigate kindergarten, she said.

When I was a kindergarten teacher, kids came and played in the sandbox. We expect that they need to know how to read now. They need to have experience with language, to have had quality books read to them, she said.

Wallace took part Tuesday night in a panel discussion focusing on early childhood learning and child care organized by the Spur Community Foundation.

Early learning is not just about learning ABC’s, Sun Valley Community School Lower School Head Janet Salvoni told the audience, which filled the Community Library’s lecture hall. Early learning involves some 2,000 things that need to be learned beginning when the child is still in the cradle.

Too many of today’s children struggle to manage emotions, understand compromise and what it means to be part of a community, she said. They can’t sit and listen to a story. They even have trouble opening packaging to eat a snack. And all this makes them feel unsuccessful.

She showed a picture of a young boy throwing a temper tantrum as a provider sits with him helping him learn to process his disappointment at not getting the toys he wants. A young child’s brain grows rapidly between the time he is born and the time he turns five, and that is the time the child needs to be learning self-control and how to identify the emotions of others, she said.

But child care providers trained in early childhood learning can be too expensive for some parents.

A survey showed that many parents cannot afford more than $30 a day for childcare, and childcare providers need at least $40 to offer the correct provider-to-child ratio and keep the lights on, said Salvoni.

Only the top 25 percent of wage earners in the Wood River Valley can afford $45 or more for day care, said Kathryn Ivers, who oversees the Wood River Early Learning collaborative, which is tasked with assessing the need and finding solutions for child care.  That said, 85 percent of the 13 of 17 child care providers surveyed said they would be open to expanding if they had the facility and staff to make it work.

Brittany Skelton, who heads the City of Sun Valley’s Community Development Department, said she and her husband Zac Southwind were able to nab one of only two spots for infants that were available at an in-home licensed daycare to allow them to return to work after son Arlo was born seven years ago. Now they have their son and 2-year-old daughter River in pricey day care and afterschool, only because they have good paying jobs.

“As a working parent, I think about this every single day in my mind. What if something rocks the boat and childcare or afterschool care goes away?” she said.

Idaho is one of the few states that doesn’t fund early child care and development, said Robert Sanchez, the new executive director of the Idaho Association for the Education of Young Children (AEYC). Forty percent of Idahoans live in a childcare desert with no access to quality child care. Others spend nearly a third of their income on learning and development for their preschoolers.

“Idaho children are missing out on critical detection of learning gaps,” he said.

In August Idaho Health and Welfare paused a Child Care and Development Block Grant that provides subsidies to low-income families because of a projected $15 million budget shortfall. The maximum amount a family of four can make is $54,000, and the state wants to lower that. And, as one attendee in the audience pointed out, the state turned down a large grant that would have helped fund early childhood development several years ago.

Currently there is a 28 percent gap between available child care and what’s needed, Sanchez said, and the longer families have to struggle the greater the learning gaps for children. And year-after-year reading intervention for children who are struggling to catch up is also expensive, said Deborah Van Law, executive director of the Blaine County Education Foundation.

Some parents out of necessity have to pass their children off to mothers who babysit several children at a time and are not trained in child development, said Wallace.

“They’re doing their best, but they’re not able to provide the children all they need,” she added.

Such shortfalls have consequences.

Idaho businesses lose $550 million a year because of parents having to take off work to deal with child care issues, Sanchez said. It causes labor shortages in the hospitality, restaurant, retail and healthcare businesses. Some businesses must close early, as a result.

Year-after-year reading intervention necessitated by for children who are struggling to catch up is also expensive, said Deborah Van Law, executive director of the Blaine County Education Foundation.

Childcare issues are solvable, Sanchez said. Employers can provide flexible schedules, allowing parents to trade off being home with their children. They can provide a childcare co-op, onsite childcare and benefits to offset childcare costs.

The Advocates opened a childcare facility this summer, and it’s serving 31 children with 67 on the waiting list. The NEST just opened at the Church of the Big Wood in Ketchum, thanks in part to church staff rearranging offices. It is serving 35 families.

One woman in the audience announced she is holding an open house on Friday for her new bilingual childcare facility in Ketchum, which will serve children between the ages of three months and five years. And Spur Community Foundation Executive Director Sally Gillespie offered that perhaps room for early childcare can be set aside at the Community Campus, which used to house Head Start.

The Blaine County Charitable Fund provides some funding for parents to access childcare and it’s offering parent education workshops for parents focusing on things like math.

Tricia Swartling, who heads up The Advocates, suggested that some Local Option Tax money collected from tourists be set aside for child care funding. Currently it is used to guarantee airport flights and affordable housing.

Salvoni said she could even see seniors involved with helping to tend to young ones. She told how the Sun Valley Community School started out with kindergarten to fifth grade and expanded to two-year-olds by rearranging class space.

“We have empty and underutilized spaces in the valley…wouldn’t (putting them to use) be magical?”

WANT TO LEARN MORE?

Sally Gillespie suggests screening the film “No Small Matter,” which examines early childhood education. It’s available at https://www.nosmallmatter.com/.