Our Children Deserve the Best

“All I really need to know I learned in kindergarten.”

The famous Robert Fulghum title is more than just a musing about life; it speaks to the fact that what we learn in our earliest years bears critical importance for the rest of our lives.

It’s not a leap, then, to understand why excellent early childhood education (ECE) is more than just a nice-to-have. It’s vital to children’s long-term well-being.

“Research has found that children enrolled in high-quality ECE programs the first five years of life are more likely to enter school on grade level, a critical metric for high school completion,” says Payal Seth, JP’s Sr. VP of family programming.

Such programs also play a significant role in children’s healthy social-emotional development — another reason early childhood education is a core pillar of JP’s programming.

Currently, however, the United States is in a yearslong ECE crisis. There aren’t enough child care options or teachers, and this deficit disproportionately impacts young children experiencing poverty. The ECE field has lost nearly 10% of teachers since before the COVID-19 pandemic for many reasons, not least of which are low wages, demanding responsibilities, and a lack of respect for the profession. ECE teachers are primarily women of color living at or below the poverty line and are paid significantly less than K-12 educators.

Lack of access to quality ECE intersects with and exacerbates generational poverty, but it doesn’t have to be that way. JP is aiming to disrupt the status quo with a new program: the Early Childhood Education Fellowship.

What is the ECE Fellowship?

“The ECE Fellowship was designed with a goal to help build a pipeline of highly qualified early childhood educators and strengthen the quality of childcare for families experiencing poverty,” explains Payal, who co-designed and helped launch the program in 2023.

The fellowship provides full tuition coverage for JP teachers and JP moms pursuing associate or bachelor’s degrees in ECE and allows JP teacher fellows four hours during their 40-hour workweek to dedicate to their schoolwork.

“I knew that taking this opportunity would benefit my career but also have an immediate impact on best early education practices for the JP kids and families.”

Shelby Nightingale, JP Fargo-Moorhead Community Teacher and ECE Fellow

The fellowship also organizes annual gatherings so that all participants can share their discoveries, challenges, and hopes for translating theory into practice.

“We set out to build a bright spot and demonstrate what is necessary and possible in order to increase training, compensation, and retention of early childhood educators by incentivizing and supporting the completion of their [degrees],” says Payal.

Ultimately, by investing in ECE educator development, JP aims to keep more credentialed teachers in the field, positively affect their economic mobility journeys, and continue to support high-quality education for JP kids.

A JP Teacher Fellow’s Perspective

Shelby Nightingale, the community teacher in JP Fargo-Moorhead’s Child Development Center (CDC), is a current teacher fellow. As a biology major at Wichita State University, she worked part-time at the campus CDC and fell in love with early education. However, she didn’t realize she wanted to be an ECE teacher until she’d nearly completed her bachelor’s degree in 2016.

“I felt that I had made a mistake in the path that I chose for myself,” Shelby recalls. “The ECE Fellowship gave me another chance to rewrite my educational path without the worry of increasing my student debt, which kept me from continuing school in the past.”

Shelby is an example of how JP’s support of teachers furthers their mission to support JP kids; she’s directly applying her ECE education to her CDC classroom. “I knew that taking this opportunity would benefit my career but also have an immediate impact on best early education practices for the JP kids and families,” she says.

Shelby has also been sharing what she learns with her fellow JP Fargo teachers. Knowledge-sharing and network-building at JP and her college campus are two of her favorite aspects of the fellowship experience. She didn’t anticipate forming such a deep connection with her Minnesota State University Moorhead (MSUM) professors. Now, that connection has translated into a growing partnership between JP and MSUM, which has developed an interest in Fargo’s CDC work.

As a teacher who works with JP families, Shelby has especially appreciated the common ground she now shares with JP moms. “I can connect and have conversations with JP moms about our college experiences,” she reflects, “and I am able to have another level of understanding of all the hard work they are doing while they are also being wonderful moms.”

A JP Mom Fellow’s Perspective

Sintia Regino is a JP Las Vegas mom and College of Southern Nevada student who is also in the inaugural cohort of ECE Fellows. Sintia already works as an enrollment assistant at a local Head Start and has a goal of one day opening her own daycare center. She sees the fellowship as a powerful opportunity to continue growing in the profession.

She also brings a great deal of personal experience to the field.

“My son is on the spectrum, so I know the challenges that some parents may have dealing with that,” she shared. “Also, my mom used to have a home daycare. My grandma used to babysit a whole bunch of kids, so that inspired me, too. I would take care of — when I was younger — my younger siblings as well.”

Given everything Sintia has to juggle as a single mother, a Head Start employee, and a student, the fellowship’s tuition coverage has been a game changer. “Sometimes it’s hard working a full-time job and being a single mother, so just that financial cushion that I have with the fellowship has helped me tremendously,” she says.

Juggling that many responsibilities has also made Sintia’s success that much sweeter and serves as a reminder to celebrate wins throughout the journey. “Just getting over that first hump, that first semester, was an accomplishment for me,” she remembers. “I thought I wasn’t gonna make it.”

But she did — and she still is.

The Future of Early Childhood Education

At the end of the day, it all comes back to the kids. “Economic mobility doesn’t work without child care, without childcare teachers, without an equitable child care system,” JP President and CEO Chastity Lord says. “We hope that this fellowship can play an exemplary role in creating a more equitable system so that children and their families have equitable opportunities to thrive.”

Payal hopes to continually increase the number of moms and teachers in the ECE Fellowship program. Sintia wants to see more funding for ECE programs at every level — local, state, and federal — because families shouldn’t have to struggle to make that investment in their children’s futures. Shelby looks forward to more teachers prioritizing ongoing professional growth in the field.

“Our JP moms and children deserve the best quality child care,” she says. “And JP is giving us an invaluable opportunity to be the best.”

Find this story and more in our magazine, Imagine!

At Jeremiah Program, we know that supporting single mothers means supporting their children. That’s why we’re proud to join the whole family’s journey — two generations at a time — and that’s what the second issue of Imagine is all about.

Hear directly from the college-bound children of a JP alum what their mother taught them about education. Read a Q&A with the entrepreneur daughter of one of JP’s first graduates, who earned her degree in 2000. Learn how JP is investing in the next generation through 529 accounts, tutoring, summer enrichment, and more.

READ THE MAGAZINE

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