STATE ISSUES EDUCATION AND WORKFORCE
EARLY CHILDHOOD CARE AND EDUCATION Having access to high-quality early childhood care and education programs encourages parental/guardian employment, which creates more economic security and better opportunities for families. The Chamber recognizes that finding solutions to ongoing childcare needs will require collaboration with federal, state and local governments, business and industry, philanthropic and nonprofit community and education providers. The Chamber steadfastly supports early childhood education, prenatal to five years old, and full funding of pre-K and kindergarten programs. Targeted spending on our youngest children is simply a smart investment. Enact legislation to establish a fully funded universal, high-quality full-day prekindergarten program for all four-year- old children across the state. Support for continued funding of the Oklahoma Strong Start Pilot Program. It is a three-year pilot program that provides subsidized childcare for employees working in the state’s licensed childcare system. This is an effective tool for teacher retention and recruitment in an industry that has “childcare deserts” due to a workforce shortage. Support and awareness of early literacy programs such as the Dolly Parton Imagination Library that provides a book a month to kids age 0-5. LONG-TERM, STRATEGIC EDUCATION FUNDING The Chamber supports development of a long-term strategic plan that will enable improvement in classroom teaching and academic performance.
SAFEGUARDING CHILD NUTRITION The Greater Oklahoma City Chamber recognizes that
federal nutrition programs play a key role in keeping children in the Oklahoma City metro region fed. The Child Nutrition Reauthorization Act has not been updated in more than a decade. The Chamber supports the reauthorization of this act to better serve the children of the Oklahoma City community. The Chamber supports using all available federal funding to support the health, mental health and wellbeing of our future workforce, using all available tools to ensure the academic success of our students. This includes ensuring the state administers the summer EBT programs to ensure students are fed. • This should include increasing the minimum number of instructional hours, currently 1,080 hours, required for a complete school year. In addition, we are supportive of extended summer learning opportunities and after school programs. We also support ongoing funding to enable schools to achieve targeted classroom sizes. • Amend existing school funding statutes to implement a new formula that significantly increases overall per-pupil spending and includes specific weighting factors for low-income students, multilingual learners, and students with disabilities. • Support for incentivizing the increase of instructional days to
school district calendars that choose to meet the regional average of 180 days through an additional funding formula weight.
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