Expanded Services
Due to the volume of requests, P’s & Q’s has expanded their services geographically and services. We are now serving the North Georgia area including Barrow, Jackson, Madison, Oconee, Social Circle and Walton counties. In addition to providing teacher aides for child care centers and sitters for private individuals, services now include drivers for center buses. Providing temporary staff to centers that meet multiple needs makes good business sense for all.
New Survey: Recession Hurting Georgia’s Afterschool and Summer Program and the Children and Families They Serve
Just as children in Georgia’s communities need more help, afterschool program leaders across the state say they are being forced to increase fees and reduce staffing, activities and hours to cope with budget cuts and rising costs. Nearly all Georgia respondents to a survey of afterschool programs (98 percent) say the recession is affecting their communities, and report that they are seeing higher food prices and more families struggling to provide for children. Yet afterschool programs are unable to offer as much help as children need because their budgets are down. Ninety-three percent of respondents say children in their communities need afterschool care and are unable to access it.. Georgia Afterschool Alliance June 25, 2009.
Does Universal Preschool Improve Learning
The Education Edge June 8th 2009
As Congress considers plans to create a new federal program to encourage states to implement government-funded universal preschool, policymakers should consider all the available empirical evidence from preschool programs. A broader examination of research evidence from existing preschool programs casts doubt on supporters’ claims that new spending on universal preschool programs will yield meaningful long-term benefits for students.
Specifically, Members of Congress should consider the experience of Georgia and Oklahoma—states that have offered universal preschool for more than a decade. Despite considerable taxpayer investments for universal preschool—$4,200 and $7,400 per student in Georgia and Oklahoma, respectively—neither state has experienced significant sustained improvement in students’ academic achievement as measured by the National Assessment of Educational Progress fourth-grade reading examination. In fact, Oklahoma has seen declines in fourth-grade reading. This evidence casts into doubt that a federal universal preschool would yield the significant long-term benefits that supporters promise.