An advocate for early childhood education says more attention needs to be paid to existing programs in rural communities. June Widman serves on the Early Childhood Advisory Council. The panel met for the first time Wednesday in Frankfort. Widman says sound quality child care should not go un-noticed.
“If we want to increase the availability of quality programs for young children, let’s look where young children already are…instead of saying it could only be done at school or could only be done under the auspices of Head Start,” said Widman.The Madison County school superintendent looks for constructive ways to improve pre-school education. Tommy Floyd also serves on the Early Childhood Advisory Council. Floyd says there’s a time for talk, and a time for action.
“We have a lot of discussions in education. We have a lot of discussions as people. And sometimes we wrestle the pig in the mud as long as we possibly can, but at the end of the day, if we’re not finding out that we’re making some progress, we need to rethink how we’re getting some things done,” added Floyd.
Floyd stressed he is not talking about rushing any decisions.
Members of the new council know there are funding challenges. A substantial amount of monetary support for previous early childhood initiatives came from the master tobacco settlement. Those monies continue to shrink with each passing year.