Higher wages
As the old saying goes, “Parents can’t afford to pay, teachers can’t afford to stay,” and the final line is, “there has to be a better way!”
I fully support the proposed increases in the Hawaii state minimum wage being debated by this year’s Legislature. I am hopeful that these new policies will be a “better way” for families, our keiki and preschool teachers. One job should be enough!
Nurturing and teaching our youngest keiki is based on warm, loving relationships between children and their teachers at school.
“Better quality early learning programs have: higher wages, better quality adult work environments, lower teacher turnover, better educated and trained staff and more teachers caring for fewer children,” (National Child Care Staffing Study, 1989).
Too many of our dedicated teachers are forced to take second jobs to make ends meet. It is simply not right that teachers are driven to do this, and it has a negative impact on their ability to give their best to our children.
Because preschools and child care are so labor intensive, there are no technological innovations, better, cheaper ways of running programs that will realize substantial funds that can be put towards increasing pay for teachers. Their pay comes from parents, or in some cases, part is paid through state subsidies.
Ask any young parents and they will tell you they cannot pay more for preschool and/or child care than they are already paying. The only other way to cut costs and increase teacher pay would be to decrease quality by adding more children to every classroom.
As a long-term advocate for worthy wages for preschool teachers, I urge people to support the increase in the minimum wage AND to find additional ways to financially support families such as increasing child care subsidies and providing tax rebates for early learning programs.
Jennifer Kagiwada
Hilo