Thank you, Councilman Johnson. All right. So we're going to move -- Clerk, if we can call for our next panel before -- excuse me. Clerk, will you please call the third panel -- I believe it is now -- for Resolution No. 230637.
The fifth panel is Laverne Cheeseboro and Aliya Johnson-Roberts.
Oh, wait, wait. We're still on Panel No. 21 4. We went back so we got to do Tiffany Chavous --
Thank you. All right. Are we ready to proceed, Tiffany and Dr. Spina?
Excellent. Tiffany, if you can state your name for the record and then you can proceed with your testimony, and Dr. Spina afterwards.
Sure. Hello, everyone. Thank you for having me. My name is Tiffany Chavous and I am the Executive Director of Somerset Academy located at 719 West Girard Avenue. Between the ages of birth to 5, a child's brain develops faster than any other time. Providing a high quality child care program is critical for our youngest population to be prepared socially, emotionally and academically when entering kindergarten. If we are going to stop gun violence, addiction, generational poverty, it begins at this age. Quality is about making sure that our children, parents, teachers and the community are creating an environment for children to be successful. When our classrooms are closed due to a teacher shortage, it not only impacts the hundreds of children who are unable to attend in the learning process, it also impacts families and our communities. Although we have space here at Somerset for an additional 50 children, our classrooms are closed because we have a need for high quality staff to support the children and their families. We have a large special needs population and because we do not have teachers, we created a science room, a century room and hired a behavioral specialist to support the children. It is essential for our teachers to have the skills, preparation and ability to support what is needed. That cannot happen if we do not have the compensation required to offer the best to address trauma, violence, poverty, diversity, academics and much more. The children in this community deserve a quality education. Our children deserve the same quality of care that is afforded to the children in the surrounding Philadelphia counties. Unfortunately, this is not the case, but it should. We need to provide teachers with a higher rate of pay to retain quality staff and grow our program. We need to provide teachers with a higher rate of pay for our children to have consistency. Having more teachers allows more children to be educated. It allows parents to return to work. Having affordable, quality child care with staff who are adequately paid prevents high turnover in forcing parents to make a difficult choice between working and caring for young children. We are transforming lives and must demand what our students, parents and staff need which are higher wages for us to be successful. Thank you.
Thank you, Tiffany Chavous. Appreciate you for your testimony. Now, can we move forward. Dr. Leslie Spina.
Good afternoon. My name is Leslie Spina and I'm here representing the Voice of ECE and also Kinder Academy. I operate SSPA locations in Philadelphia, serving over 500 families and I've been doing this work for 29 years. So I'd like to thank this Committee for coming together and providing this opportunity to hear about this work. I'm here to speak specifically about the funding side of this, and funding's a multi-faceted topic with ingrained complexities. You have heard about many things in this industry that are very complex. And so, I think that this will require more than one conversation but we'll start here. I want to take you back to March of 2020, the pandemic start. It's three-and-a-half years ago now. No 7 one could have imagined the ways in which the world would change. This is especially true for the field of early childhood education, an industry at that time already on the brink of collapse. My organization had 100 employees. On February 21st, I used my house to secure a $2 million loan to expand to a new facility that would support families in an area with really very few high quality early childhood education programs. We would hire an additional 30 people right out of the gate. Our plan was that it would be a hub for ongoing credentialing and degree attainment for up-and-coming early childhood professionals. This was the dream. The risk would be worth the reward for sure. We were positive about this. Unfortunately, we all know what happened early in March. COVID- would dictate all of our next 7 moves. 100 exceptional hard-working 8 early childhood professionals would 9 be laid off with no plan for return. 10 As weeks passed, the world came to 11 understand that early childhood was 12 vital to the economy, also essential 13 to children and families. No one 14 could go to work without a plan for 15 their young children. 16 Early childhood had a moment 17 in the sun, everything could change. 18 And as a society, we would commit to 19 investing in early childhood. That is what I thought. The children and professionals involved in this work would finally have a moment where we recognized as a society that it was time to invest properly. I think that that is not how it actually happened. While the depth and breadth of the challenges to the field beyond the scope of -- is well beyond the scope of this hearing, I'm going to outline some of the core challenges that threaten to change the landscape of the industry permanently. Without intervention, the gap between high quality programming for young children will widen. It will continue to widen and widen. As a society, we'll pay this price. We will pay it for generations to come. So I challenge this Committee, the people here, our elected officials and each of the other elected officials in Philadelphia who are not here to consider early childhood in the impact of these following things. And again, this is all about funding but this is a complex diagram with funding at the center. These main points are staffing shortages, pay parity, challenging behaviors in the classrooms and insurance and discrete barriers that are bearing down on our industry right now. As I said, none of these exist in a silo. They are all this overlap, this feeding on one another in the worst possible way at the worst time. So when I think about the staffing shortages, there's things that I think you can't possibly imagine. There are nearly 4,000 reported vacancies for teachers in the early childhood system across the Commonwealth. There's evidence that there are many more unreported vacancies. This does not give us insight into how many of the spots are filled with people who do not have the knowledge or experience, the background to be in these positions. They don't have the background running classrooms with 20 children with as many as 60 percent of children with identified special needs and only staff. 2 This situation contributes to a revolving door of staff.
The work is challenging and without the appropriate skills, nearly impossible. Not to mention the impact on children who face challenges and do not have adults who understand how to manage their needs and those of the other children in 11 the room. What is the ask 12 contributing to this staff shortage? 13 It's not only money. It's a broad 14 spectrum of things. It's the overall 15 shortage of workers. 16 We recognize that all 17 industries are struggling to get 18 staff. It's the exceptionally 19 complex onboarding requirements. Typically it takes two to five weeks to have a new person start employment, long hours in less than ideal work conditions, demanding classroom environments, including these childhood behaviors but not limited to that, limited resources for in-classroom supports. There is a low opinion of the field as a profession. Don't forget our teachers are degreed professionals probably with loan debt that they're trying to pay off, very often limited or no benefits, low pay, the lowest pay scale of all professionals in any field exist here in early childhood education. We should be ashamed of ourselves. If we had a system on which we built a pipeline that help people considering the field access this more reasonably and in a more financially stable way, we would eliminate the constant tumultuous staffing turnover. There is a pathway and I'm positive it can be built. It's easy to point at the problems without saying that there are ways to fix this. I must emphasize that the staffing shortage is more than just teaching staff. There's a need for administrative staff and support staff as well. DBHIDS was here talking and they never mentioned it, but I know that they are also challenged by the staffing shortage. All of these staffing shortages create the perfect storm leading to further shortages. Teachers are not getting the help they need in the classroom because administrators are stepping in to cover teacher shortages and lack of substitute pools. They still have to manage their own work and other stability. The desperate situation has led leaders feeling they have no 18 options, opening the door to hiring people we would never have engaged in prior years. Not because they're not good people, but because they didn't have the funds of knowledge, the education, the experience, the hands- on time with children to make this work for children and families. This puts us at greater risk for noncompliance, sinking quality, higher turnover, increased staff dissatisfaction and so on. This is an excellent opportunity to remind you that our children live and learn here. Is this the message we want to send our children on their first educational experiences? This is not widget- making. This is helping families build strong children, helping our community thrive. Pay parity, I'm going to call it unfair pay. We should call it what it is. Teachers in early childhood education classrooms seek the same educational attainment as those in K-12. Same Bachelor's degree, same certification, but we do not currently see pay parity. The unfair pay contributes to the destabilization of the industry. It forces professionals in the field to either hop to other jobs or look outside the field for compensation that is more reasonable for their level of education. We can't blame them. We did see a temporary stabilization of wages with the COVID-19 relief funds. However, those dollars are a thing of the past. We cannot count on that money. We see a resurgence -- we will see a resurgence in the departure of people from the field. When I have to explain to my staff that they made more last year than they did this year because those COVID funds are gone, people will say I can't take another pay decrease, much less lack of an increase. Increase in wages is exceptionally difficult in an environment where we go more than a decade between subsidized rate increases.
Almost all child care facilities in Philadelphia accept some kind of subsidy, whether it be Child Care Works which is ERC funding or other funding. Programs with high levels of private pay families, those paying the true cost of care find it easier to have regular pay increases. Annual increases seem reasonable. All of our expenses increase annually. Every person employed in the private world expects a yearly pay increase. It's the norm, not the exception. Unfortunately, the thought of this is different in programs that accept payment from the Commonwealth, those that serve the most needy families. Funding to early childhood has yet to have a champion. I am hoping someone here is the champion for that. Increases would not mean more money, but a reasonable way to keep even with the cost of living. I can't help -- I can't express enough that these very small increases don't cover the cost of our overhead costs just to keep the doors open, much less passing it onto staff as pay increases. It should not be acceptable for teachers in this industry with a Bachelor's degree or a Master's degree to make less than half of the salary of their kindergarten counterparts. We must contemplate using a system that considers the actual cost of care to underpin the industry, which leads to support for children and families and working professionals. This is commonsense. We cannot expect the cost of care continue to be supported by maintaining suppressed wages for those doing the work. We have to pay our mortgage so the mortgage gets paid and the teachers don't get more money. We must remember that many of those people in the field are degreed professionals with college debt, adult responsibilities while living a life in which the decision to stay in the field of choice means either they will not be able to support their children, they will have to get a second job or they have to leave the field to fill the hole. There is no 6 option. We need to consider what business could possibly compete or stay afloat without understanding the cost of care. There's no grocery store that charges you less for the supplies that they buy, the perishable or nonperishable. Since the pandemic, the general public expects to pay more for everything, more for food, more for gas, more for rent. Still people absolutely cannot seeing paying any amount more for early childhood education. This is true for families but also seemingly for legislative bodies. Raising the minimum wage is not the solution alone. Maintaining the status quo of compensating professional teachers at state- aligned minimum wages does not consider the investment they've made in their own education. We as citizens need to ensure that there's a professional pathway, including pay parity for early childhood teachers that is aligned with K-12 teachers. Our youngest students deserve hig quality, educated and experienced teachers. This is not a job of last resort. It is a career that contributes to the greater good of our Commonwealth, of our cities, of our communities and it should be treated as such. We've heard a lot of talk about challenging behaviors in the classroom. Following this outcry from the field, a group of early childhood leaders came together to compare stories, situations and discuss how we manage in this late phase of COVID-19. That's the Voice of ECE, Early Childhood Education. The topic returned again and again to challenging behaviors in the classroom and the lack of resources for children, but also for families and staff. It has reached epidemic proportions. I have no classrooms that are touched by this. Our classrooms have a minimum of percent. We expect between 4 9 and 8 children in every single 10 classroom to have an IEP. I wanted 11 to talk about that earlier when 12 people were talking. It is not 13 exceptional to have an IEP. It is 14 the standard that we see children 15 with IEPs in early childhood 16 classrooms and IFSPs in classrooms 0 17 to 3.
We need the essential tools to 18 manage this crisis. We don't have 19 them right now. 20 Teachers have climbed every mountain to stay in this field, but this may be the proverbial straw that breaks the camel's back. We're seeing teachers reach a level of frustration that they cannot manage. It stems from the fact that they don't have the skills to support children. They're early childhood educators, not special education teachers. But when the percentage of children with special needs in excess of 30 percent and perhaps 60 percent, it becomes an impossible task. Without additional support staff, these teachers cannot manage the needs of children appropriately leading to classrooms in chaos and opportunities lost. I want to build on what Sharon said when she said that one teacher with those 10 children and now she's doing one-on- one with that one child who needs help. Well, what she didn't say is there's in that room. That leaves 20 the other teacher to manage the 19 children. Can you imagine having 19 children in your home and trying to manage that? Nineteen 3- and 4-year- olds in your room by yourself in your home, it would be impossible and no 1 one would think it would be appropriate. The folks at the Voice of ECE identified a trend, now to take our thoughts out to the field. No one was surprised to see that leaders were identifying this situation as untenable to the ongoing operations of their programs but also detrimental to the health and safety of the children and care. This puts them in a very dangerous situation. We convened a group of policymakers and early childhood leaders to outline the situation, identify areas of improvement and recommend short- and long-term solutions at all levels. The people doing this work are overwhelmed by classroom challenging behaviors and the pandemic -- and the problematic behaviors of adults. These adults have not been able to manage the mental health or developmental health system in a way that supports their children. It's extremely frustrating. We heard that from families earlier. Many have faced repeated expulsions from programs. The situation continues to spiral down for everyone involved. We want to reduce expulsion rates, lack of resources to support teachers and families. This is absolutely necessary if we hope to help children on their journey through the education system. We can't do that without these supports. We need the funding, the infrastructure. Perhaps not directly to child care centers, but a full rescoping of the infrastructure. Administrative staff indicate the following as contributing factors: Lack of support for new, unskilled and experienced staff. The disappearance of historical knowledge related to skills, appropriate expectations and trauma-informed practices, broad swaths of new staff with limited inventory skills for managing these behaviors and staff not experienced in relationship- building with families, because it's not just the children that we are here supporting. Low wage scales compound the situation. When wages remain relatively equivalent to those of six years ago, but the incidences of challenging behaviors and children that require do not have support services onsite increase the lack of support to manage this crisis, job satisfaction just falls. Additionally, we're facing these insurance industry barriers. That may be the final thing that closes the doors to child care centers. The other challenges faced by the industry outlined here had a seemingly more internal focus on operations where insurance seen something akin to a vendor issue. We're all surprised that this is written as a real formidable problem. We're hearing from our colleagues the insurance companies with little or no 4 reason are increasing rates beyond those reasonable to this type of industry. Many insurance companies are opting out of providing coverage for the industry at large.
We're seeing that in huge swaths. Indeed we want businesses of all kinds to operate with insurance. There's no question there. Child care centers are legally mandated to have general liability insurance. Operating without insurance is a nonstarter. We fear that private insurance companies will price up providers making it impossible for them to continue operations. The field of early childhood is complex and multi-faceted. I had the great joy and privilege of dedicating my life's work to this field. I am so happy to be here. My commitment is not only to the children and families but also to the dedicated professionals, primarily women who show up daily ensuring that our community's children have access to the best possible environment and experiences. The people who do this work have unparalleled dedication. It's my greatest hope that elected officials of Philadelphia, the people here and your colleagues, will step in and step up advocating for investment at all levels. The work is a common good and should be viewed as such. It is a part of the education system of our amazing city. Early childhood programs are a part of the fabric of America. This is how people go to work. Parents of young children can only go to work with reliable child care. The work is not babysitting. It's partnering with parents to invest in positive educational experiences from the onset. It all goes back to a system that is broken and the need for both re-alignment of services and reform for the funding structure of early child education. Building and funding infrastructure and a holistic system that explicitly addresses the needs of children, families and staff comparable to all other education systems is necessary. We're on the roof after the storm begging to be rescued. We will return and help our communities rebuild. This is what early childhood does. It does not matter the situation. Early childhood professionals step in first when it's time to rebuild. COVID-19 is the most recent example, but there are others. After every disaster we see women come forward to care for children. Our eyes always on the future. We are in peril of not being able to do this in the best way possible for our children.
Dr. Leslie, thank you so much for your riveting testimony. I certainly learned a lot about the obstacles that early childhood education centers are experiencing. One of them that really, really bothers me is the ongoing behavioral issues that we observe in these spaces, only because a lot of our students are not getting the attention that they deserve. I am more curious about how our state officials probably need to be more involved in this conversation than anything, but then it's also what else can we do around funding to support this because it's clear that these instructors need more support than ever. And I'm trying to think about the fact that how do we all collaborate even with the child care centers because there may be ways in which there can be some sort of collaboration between the centers so that we can help all the centers at once but who knows. With that being said, thank you. Are there any questions from my colleagues?
Can I say one thing? I'm so proud to be here in Philadelphia where we have created a tax that is supporting our children because that is not frequently seen across the United States and certainly not in the Commonwealth. We're the only city in the Commonwealth, but there are other states that have found a way to fully fund their early childhood programs and embed more resources for mental health supports, behavioral supports and so forth. So --
Yeah, that was actually one of my -- yeah, that was one of my questions. So I want to know are there any specific initiatives or models from other cities that you believe can serve as a successful example for Philadelphia to follow in promoting equality -- well, more so not equality, but quality early childhood education?
Yes. New Mexico has done a really great job and there are other small programs that have done really well. And like I said, the PHLpreK program really is doing a great job. But we are only funding 5200 children and there are 100,000 children in the City who are under age 5 so we have a ways to go with that. And I hope that we get to a place where all children are funded but the Commonwealth's program Pre-K Counts also is not fully funded. So while we are making strides, I think we need to look at what New Mexico did and their people voted to say, yes, we are going to pay taxes to make sure our children are in the best environments possible. And there are some small programs in Massachusetts and San Francisco throughout the state, so I'd be happy to share some resources on that and have further conversations about the unique things that they've done to get their communities invested in dropping money in the hat to make sure that our children are in the right place.
Thank you so much. Appreciate you. Any other questions from colleagues?
I just want to say, Mr. Chairman, thank you, Dr. Leslie Spina, for your very, very detailed and informative testimony.
Thank you, Councilmember Johnson. Clerk, will you please prepare to call out the next panelist for Panel No. 5 on the following Resolution No. 230637.
Thank you. Laverne and Aliya. For the record, this is our final panel by the way everyone. So thank you for continuing to stick with us during this very informative session. And if we can have both Laverne and Aliya. Starting with Laverne, please state your name for the record and then proceed with your testimony. Thanks for coming today.
Okay. Laverne Cheeseboro. Thank you, Committee Chairman Anthony Phillips. Thank you, Kenyatta Johnson, for bringing this hearing today. Good afternoon to everybody on the Council Committee of the Children and Youth. I'm the owner and director and lead teacher of Heavenly Made Creations Family Group Child Care Program in Southwest Philadelphia. In 2018 after graduating high school, my son became employed at my child care program as a teacher assistant starting at $10 an hour. In 2020 prior to the pandemic, I expanded my child care program enrollment of 6 children to family group enrollment at 12. With COVID happening and the ARPA funds we received, I was able to give my son an increase in his hourly wage, and I hired two additional assistants to stay in compliance with the OCDEL regulations. There are times that I do not pay myself to meet payroll for staff. Having a quality program, we encourage staff to get a minimum CDA. Associate's degree and Bachelor's, they can get that also as a benefit for free by the T.E.A.C.H. program. My son enrolled in the CDA program and as he planned his future, it required more money. He was offered a position at Walmart during the pandemic paying him $17 an hour. And in the same year they raised it (inaudible). This position only required an (inaudible) and he went to work for Walmart. I couldn't compete with that pay rate and he said it didn't make sense to stay in school, he was leaving the field. The other employees I had eventually they took the same route. One transitioning to nursing and another transitioning to the hair industry. While they love teaching children and working in the early childhood education field, they couldn't afford to stay. Without funding support, we cannot compete with these pay rates nor encourage high school graduates to get a CDA or go to college to work in the early childhood education field. One of the main barriers teachers face in getting credentialed stems from needing to work for more money to provide for their family in a time where inflation is at an all-time high and ECE is paying at an all-time low.
Thank you so much, Laverne, for your testimony. If we can now proceed with Aliya.
Good afternoon. I am Aliya Johnson- Roberts, and I want to send a heartfelt thank you to the Committee Chair Anthony Phillips and the Committee as a whole for the opportunity to testify today. I am Aliya Johnson-Roberts again, a second generation child care business owner located in Northeast Philadelphia employing 40 staff and educating 250 children while partnering with their families in the community. I personally come from a background deeply intertwined with the child care industry. I mentioned I'm a second generation child care business owner. My mother has been doing this work over 40 years and still dedicates herself to it, of which I am grateful because that is one less employee that I have to hire. I still vividly remember the consistent staff members that she employed for an average of 10 to 20 years literally. When I first entered the child care industry and began supporting her on the business side, I was struck by the realization that her staff were being paid $20 to $30 per hour without formal degrees, but they possessed the wealth of experience that spanned decades. Their pay had gradually increased over the years, a testament to their unwavering dedication to the children they cared for. However, it was this very dedication and the corresponding pay raise that eventually became one of the reasons my mother had to make the heartwrenching decision to close both her child care centers and her home programs. Their wages were simply unsustainable, particularly when viewed in the context of reimbursement rates, and the fact that her staff did not have the requisite credentials to qualify as what is considered to be a high quality child care program according to Keystone Stars, which supplements reimbursement rates. So today in my own child care facility, I'm fortunate to have three of her longtime employees who have been serving right alongside her for 15 to 23 years. My mother now 72, one of the women 48 and one 82 years old are still working in the program. So they are a testament to the passion and love that child care professionals bring to their work. We currently again have 40 staff that we employ, but they range now from $28,000 to $60,000 in salary. Now, that includes longtime experienced staff with Master's degrees. So again, my mother years ago was paying up to $30 per hour. Our max right now is $60,000 with a Master's degree and years of experience. Over the past year, 35 percent of my staff members who are also dedicated have approached me seeking a wage increase. Their reasons are profound, relatable and poignant. I heard them say this raise will prevent me from needing a second job or my husband isn't well and I have to find a way to supplemental income. I must admit that there's a constant fear that our amazing staff will leave the program or the field because of pay or frustration. These are not isolated cases but indicative of a broader problem. Our industry is rewarding but can be very demanding and grossly underfunded. The disparity in pay becomes even more apparent when we examine the differences in work schedules across various age groups within our program. We have infant, toddler and school-aged staff who work tirelessly year-round, eight to nine hours per day while our preschool counterparts tend to have a shorter day and have more closure days because we do have a school year-based preschool program, so they have the ability to take off during summers due to low enrollment. And so, it's only fair that our dedicated staff members somehow they seek to save throughout the year to sustain themselves during the summer months as no one can be expected to work continuously in this industry for 12 months without a break. Despite our best efforts and intentions, our pay disparities, they persist. Our salary scale which is well-intentioned, it often falls short of recognizing the experience and dedication of most of our teachers and staff.
We are teachers with high school diplomas and we are seeing a lot more of that as we continuously have turnover. This past year has been the most challenging in my years of 9 experience in the child care 10 industry. We witnessed an 11 unprecedented level of turnover, 12 averaging one to two employees per 13 quarter if we're lucky and around two 14 to three over the summer months, 15 where we used to have maybe one, maybe two per year, and most are leaving the industry all together. I must add that the need to balance ratios and classroom coverage with teacher call-out due to personal needs, their family needs and honestly days where they just can't make it, we see ourselves, administrative staff, in the classrooms, and we're supporting staff and children who may have challenging behaviors. Just last month we had a teaching team state if you guys don't do something, we cannot return tomorrow. So we had to have an emergency meeting to figure out how to support all parties so that we can continue to serve the 250 enrolled children. This exodus of qualified teachers poses a severe threat to our ability to meet the increasing demand for child care services where at full capacity necessitating full staffing. Plus, we personally have additional floaters and support staff to cater to the needs of the children. However, the staffing shortages have made it exceedingly difficult to recruit and retain infant and toddler staff members who rightfully seek a livable wage. To complicate matters further, most of our children in the infant and toddler space are subsidized resulting in income caps that are consistently lower than the actual cost of providing quality care. This issue makes it imperative for us to hire based on bare minimum staffing requirements or in cases of desperation, we have to offer a higher wage than initially budgeted for. We are a lucky program. We're partnered with the School District and Philly Pre-K so we do receive various funding. However, infant, toddlers nor school-aged receive the additional supports nor the additional funding, so we are still in the need of support around special needs and challenging behaviors, which for us is percent 20 of our program with only 2 percent of 21 staff with formal special education 22 degrees or experiences. 23 We for the first time was 24 told that we just made the 25 requirement to meet our staffing standards for STAR 4, high quality, where we typically easily do that, but it is difficult to find staff who have the education and experience. So we personally added in $75,000 per year for staff mental health support where we have a consultant visit our program weekly to meet with staff to help meet their personal needs to ensure their well-being in hopes of retaining our beloved staff. We literally created two positions, a special needs coordinator to manage the increasing IEPs that we have, and we have an education specialist to further support our staff, again in hopes of retaining them. However, we have to cut the budget somewhere. So in closing, I urge you to consider the heartfelt stories of those like my mother and all of our dedicated staff. We must address the wage disparities in the child care sector not just for the sake of the individuals but for the countless children and families who rely on the stability and quality of care they provide. We implore you to consider these challenges seriously and help us take steps to address the pay disparities and the needed supports in the child care sector. The children and families we serve depend on it and the future of early child education has an imbalance. Thank you for your time and attention.
I just want to say thank you, Aliya. You've given me some ideas now around this particular concern. I'm trying to think maybe with Councilmember, you know, Johnson who just introduced this resolution, different funding opportunities, but also what are some policies that we can do to have in place to avoid some of these issues that have gone on in our City. And I just want to have a teaching part. For me it's very challenging because we have a teaching shortage among our K to 4 schools and we're trying to figure 5 that out as well. And so, like you 6 said better pay, better support 7 systems as well as some ways in which 8 we can provide any particular love on 9 these teachers that might help 10 increase the recruitment for teachers 11 in our early childhood education 12 centers, so thank you. Councilmember Johnson.
Yeah. I just want to thank Ms. Johnson- Roberts for her testimony. I want to thank Laverne Cheeseboro who I've been at the day care center several different times and she's been advocating around this particular issue for a significant period of time and making sure we prioritize it. And so, I just want to thank them and everyone else who participated on this panel today, in this hearing today and we'll also review the testimony and take away what we need to as we focus on ways to strengthen this process for our young people. Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. Any other colleagues or comments that would like to be recognized? (No response.)
Okay. Thank you. So seeing there being no 18 further questions from members of the Committee and no other witnesses to testify, I will ask if there's anyone present in this hearing whose name we have failed to call and that wishes to offer testimony on any of the bills being considered today -- oh, wait a minute. I see Councilman Jim Harrity's hand before asking for a question or comment.
Yeah, it was just a comment. I just wanted to apologize for being late. I had some technical difficulties, but the Council Support staff finally got me online. Always when you got something to do, the computer goes down. But I apologize and thank you, Mr. Chairman, for your leadership.
Thank you. Yeah, we recognized your presence earlier, so I want to say thanks a lot for managing to get through all of the technical difficulties and being online with us today. All right. So there being no 20 other witness testimonies, this concludes the business before the Committee on Children and Youth. Thank you all very much for your attention. God bless and let's continue to do the work of the Lord together, especially for the children of Philadelphia in these early childhood education centers. Thank you, Councilmember Johnson, for introducing this resolution. This is very important. And thank you for all of the witnesses who testified today. We look forward to doing the work. Please hold us accountable. We're going to do the best that we can because what you said means a lot to myself and my colleagues on City Council. Thank you and God bless. (Hearing concluded at 3:30 p.m.) C E R T I F I C A T I O N I, hereby certify that the proceedings and evidence noted are contained fully and accurately in the stenographic notes taken by me in the foregoing matter, and that this is a correct transcript of the same. _____________________________ TANEHA CARROLL