| Giving Back to Those Who Give So Much
 Happy Teacher Appreciation Week, National Nurses Day today, and Mother’s Day (a bit early). We send best wishes and thanks to all teachers, nurses, and mothers for their compassion, encouragement, and commitment to making sure children grow up healthy and happy.
School nurses deserve an extra serving of praise because they are taking care of children and teens with routine physical ailments and unprecedented social/emotional problems. School campuses have eased back into “normal” routines this year, but it’s going to be some time before students have processed the harsh impact of COVID on their young lives.
On this National Nurses Day, we’re glad to have released our latest edition of the School Nurses’ Manual, a free resource that school nurses and counselors clamor for. It’s a super easy guide chock full of resources to connect students with free or low-cost health care.
Teacher appreciation extends to early childhood teachers who, despite being woefully underpaid, give 100% to the infants, toddlers, and pre-k kids in their care. State Sen. Bob Mensch (R-Bucks/Mont) and Rep. Frank Farry (R-Bucks) joined us this week on separate tours of high-quality child care centers, underscoring that child care is a widely popular bipartisan issue. Both lawmakers commented on the importance of affordable care for working parents and pledged their support to do more on behalf of providers.
Our gift to early childhood teachers is to continue the fight for more state funding so they can – at the very least – get a raise and be able to continue in the profession they love. (See Advocate and Serve below.)
Another sign of our deep appreciation of early childhood teachers is coming up on Tuesday when we honor Nancy Thompson, owner of Jolly Toddlers Early Education Center, at the Children First Champion for Children celebration at the Fairmount Water Works.
For forty years, Nancy has nurtured countless children in her Southampton, PA, center and is a rock star in the early childhood community. Without fierce leaders like her, the early learning sector simply wouldn’t have overcome the relentless challenges of the past two years. Get your ticket to Tuesday’s event and show your appreciation of Nancy and every other early childhood teacher.
And last, but most certainly not least, Happy Mother’s Day to all of Pennsylvania’s moms, grandmoms, expectant moms, foster moms, and stepmoms!
Take a moment on Sunday to read a special commentary by Mai Miksic, our Early Childhood Education Policy Director, that’s scheduled to run in the Delco Times. It’s her Mother’s Day Wish List, but we suspect that many moms, nurses, and teachers have wish lists just like it.
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