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Today’s Courier Herald Column:

In my post college career I was an Atlanta banker. One week before my 23rd birthday, I was placed in charge of a branch in Mableton Georgia. I had to quickly assimilate into an established staff that was still referring to a part-time teller with over two years experience as “the new girl”. Upon meeting one of the more seasoned tellers, I was told – after she literally looked me head to toe, twice – “Hmmph. I don’t need this. I’ve got one of you at home.” I promoted her.

It was a good group, and over two years, no one quit, and no one was fired. The branch far exceeded all goals given to us. But in order to get the job done, we had to make occasional allowances and adapt to whatever the real world handed us.

One of the more challenging events was when the Cobb County School System decided to adopt a calendar that incorporated multiple half-day teacher work days. Of my staff of 10, half had children in Cobb County schools. And each requested these days off. Every one of them.
We discussed various scenarios of whom to decide to allow off. But generally the ones with the lowest seniority were the lowest paid, and even the senior staff couldn’t afford the expense of a half day of daycare, which would cost them more than they would make for their full day of work.

Eventually, necessity stoked creativity, and we brought about seven kids into our break room and conference room for the afternoons that involved teacher work days. No one took time off so that we were fully staffed, and between the oldest kids and rotating staff members, we kept the children entertained and our customers were taken care of. We also got some coins rolled with cheap child labor.

And so it was with this experience in mind that I was initially quite skeptical of Governor Deal’s plan to move Georgia’s lottery funded pre-kindergarten program to shorter days. His original plan would have been to scale back the Pre-K day from 6.5 hours to 4. This invoked memories of my rogue daycare center. The vast majority of kids in Georgia’s Pre-K program have working parents, and the strain of trying to find half-day daycare or other arrangements would make the program cost-prohibitive for many. I’m guessing the Governor and General Assembly got an earful, as the proposal has now been adjusted to restore the day to 6.5 hours, but reduce the number of days from 180 days to 160.

It will be much easier for parents to make proper day care arrangements for the 20 full days than 180 half days under this new plan. And thus, the children targeted for this program are much more likely to benefit rather than end up in just a full day of daycare.

The downside to this program is that Deal’s original plan would have expanded the program by 5,000 additional students. Now, the expectation is for just 2,000 additional student slots to open up.

Overall, however, I would have to give credit to the Governor and his staff for getting this one right, or at least, making the proposal better. Like it or not, when dealing with education, especially a program targeted toward at-risk children, the program has to work for student and parent. And for the program to work for the parent, it also has to be conducive to their employment.

For those still committed to the value of public education, these are good changes that deal with realities of our current budget. Everyone gives a little, and most still get what they need. And in the process, the Governor gets another early victory.

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While doing some re-search on Lottery Funded Pre-K teachers here in Dade County I seen saleries as much as 58 thousdand, down to 36 thousand for the number of days of 180 of In School Activity.
Now I have to wait to see if the same salery will continue with 160 days as promoted by this new plan. Not bad getting a 20 day a year off raise huh? Oh but I forgot that they will be adding two more kids per classroom.

Once Again it's all about "FREE" Day care for the little crumb eaters. Lot of people want to have them, but don't want to care for them. They have all the fun and the Taxpayer get screwed because they have to pay for their "Fun"... Just Sayin'

Well at least it keeps me from being ask to "Babysit" any kids...lol..lol.. Like that would ever happen....lol..lol...