Children's Policy
“Out-of-school time (OST) programs operate ten hours or more per week on an on-going basis serving school-age (K-12) children. OST programs provide regularly scheduled, structured and supervised activities where learning opportunities take place outside the typical school day. OST programs may occur before school, after school, weekends, or during seasonal and track breaks.”
State Policy
National Policy
Your Senators Need to Hear From You! Call February 24
Late last week, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill to make drastic cuts for the remainder of this spending year, including $1 billion in cuts to Head Start and $39 million in cuts to child care – meaning 368,000 children will lose access to child care, Head Start and Early Head Start. Now it's the United States Senate's turn – and they have the opportunity to make a better choice.
Tomorrow, Thursday February 24 -- we're asking everyone to call his or her U.S. Senators and tell them that we can't afford to have these children lose their child care and Head Start programs.
How to Call:
Please take a few moments to call your two U.S. Senators. 202-224-3121 is the Capitol Switchboard. You can also find their direct office phone numbers with your zip code by going to http://www.naeyc.org/policy/action.
Ask to speak with the staff person who handles child care and early education. Introduce yourself as a constituent and explain why cuts to these programs hurt everyone.
Messages:
The Senate must sustain the current investments in child care, Head Start and Early Head Start. Even with these investments, we are far from helping many eligible children. We cannot move backwards on our current investments.
It is not fiscally responsible to make cuts to child care and Head Start, especially now. Noted economists have said investments in high quality early childhood education are the smart choice for larger savings down the road.
We should not harm children's potential and our nation's economic future with shortsighted cuts to child care and Head Start. If we do, we make it more difficult for families to get and keep a job and for children to be prepared for school and the future workplace.