City Includes $100,000 In Budget For Early Childhood Education To Help Parents Return To Work

  • Tuesday, December 20, 2016
  • Gail Perry

The city of Chattanooga’s budget for 2016 includes $100,000 for early childhood education that would be administered by the United Way. At an agenda meeting Tuesday afternoon, Leslie Searce made a presentation to the City Council showing the importance of the program. This is a pilot program and so will be limited to begin with. The purpose will be to provide high quality early childhood education and child care to parents who would like to return to work. Participants who are chosen for the program will be families that fit that profile.

The United Way collects data and from that realized that filling the number of jobs projected for the future in Chattanooga required "backing up to early education." According to the statistics, 85 percent of the brain is developed by age five. The goal of this program is to prepare kids for life and school. It was found that now only 40 percent of children in low income areas of town are prepared to enter school. That percentage remains unchanged when measuring for proficiency in reading in third grade. Ms. Searce said that 60 percent of children from homes in these areas are not enrolled in an early learning program with causes that include affordability and transportation.

The program that is being developed is a multi-generational approach that would provide scholarships for the education itself and also for childcare aimed at the parent. In addition to money from the city, private funds are being pursued.

On the agenda for Tuesday night’s 6 p.m. meeting was a decision to let Chattanooga Goodwill, Inc. collect and dispose of acceptable electronic waste. Orange Grove Center has handled this in the past, but because of new structuring where Orange Grove must hire outside employees, they can no longer manage the program for the city.

Betsy McCright from Chattanooga Housing Authority has been working to make sure that appointments made by the mayor to serve on the CHA board will be staggered so that more than one member will not rotate off the board at one time. The terms of the appointments will be discussed at the evening meeting.

The purchase of license plate readers was discussed at the preliminary meeting but has been postponed because the police officer who has the pertinent information is on vacation. Council person Carol Berz asked for the delay in order to create a policy regarding the technology because, she said, the information they provide could be interpreted as an invasion of privacy. The matter has been rescheduled for the Jan. 3 meeting.

In answer to a question asked at a previous meeting, City Attorney Phil Noblett researched the definition of "subdivision." It is a division of a tract or parcel that is divided into two or more lots that requires new streets and/or utilities. Such a development would be required to first go to the Hamilton County Planning Commission and then be brought to the city council. A minor subdivision is a large lot to be divided, if a public street is not required.

An employee of the public works department, Brit Elmore, was given an award from the American Pubic Works Association in Tennessee for outstanding leadership. He has recently been promoted to storm water construction supervisor for the city.

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