Melanie Thomas-Price, founder and administrator of A Leap of Faith Child Development Center (ALOF), is passionate about positively influencing the lives of children at an early age. Over the past decade, this lifelong Delawarean has been preparing low-income children and families for a successful start in school and life.

We spoke with Melanie Thomas-Price about her experience as an early learning provider in Delaware and her dedication to advocating for more increased investments in this area.

Q: Can you tell us a little about A Leap of Faith Child Development Center Inc.?
We are a five-star early care and education center located in the city of Wilmington. Our students range from six weeks to 12 years of age. We’ve been in business for 16 years and have recently opened a second site in the city. If you ever have the opportunity to stop by, you’ll see that we love and care for all of our children.

Q: What is your role at ALOF? Why are you passionate about this work?
I serve as the CEO and administrator at ALOF, which means I handle the business operations but also spend time interacting with the staff, students, and families at both centers.

My passion for this work began when I was working as a family crisis counselor and public educator. It did not take long for me to recognize that low-income families and students needed help earlier than school age. They were experiencing multiple risk factors like lack of employment, lack of resources and opportunities, substance and domestic abuse, poverty, and homelessness. Families needed help, support, and mentoring. Not just for one risk factor but for multiple risk factors.

On top of that, the students weren’t prepared for school. So I made it my mission to build relationships with these families and give their children quality experiences that would prepare them early on for school.

And it’s been amazing to see our students grow. Not too long ago, one of my parents tagged me in a Facebook post and thanked me for giving her daughter a great start. The post had a picture of her daughter from one of our ALOF kindergarten graduations and then next to it was another picture of her daughter graduating high school. Moments like these are special.

Q: What challenges are you facing as an early learning provider because of the current purchase of care (POC) rate?
About 90% of our students and families receive POC. This isn’t something you’ll find in all early care and education centers because it’s not good business. But I’m passionate about this community and accept as many POC families as we can.

The POC rate has remained the same but our bills haven’t. And when I say bills I mean must haves like rent, insurance, and electricity. The current POC rate does not provide enough for us to cover our bottom line.

Because of this, families, children, and my staff suffer. The lack of investment makes it hard to purchase developmental and age appropriate tools for my students. It makes it hard to find and retain quality teachers. They don’t want to enter a profession or center where they aren’t paid well and I don’t blame them. Teaching is already an undervalued profession but being an early learning teacher is extremely undervalued. At ALOF, we’ve made the sacrifice to invest in our teachers. They receive a fair pay and regular raises but if the POC rate were increased, we wouldn’t feel like we are robbing Peter to pay Paul.

There is no way to provide a quality early education and get kids to where they need to be without more investment into STARS, POC, and early learning programs. How could we have gone so long without giving any additional assistance? We know that this sub-group needs more and yet we haven’t acted in close to 10 years. The truth of it is…we can invest on the front end by reaching the kids while their young or we’ll invest on the back end with lower graduation rates and higher prison populations.

Q: What is one thing you wish others understood about early learning in Delaware?
With a stable and healthy learning environment for early learners, we’ll see a change. A change in the achievement gap, a change in our community, and a change in our state.

We have to get back to the “it takes a village” mentality. Parents, Legislators, Teachers, and Early Learning Providers are all a part of this village. We need to intentionally and purposefully work together for the benefit of our young ones.

The 2016 Urban League National Conference in Baltimore brought together political, business, and community leaders to provide attendees with professional, civic engagement, and networking opportunities. The theme was Save Our Cities: Education, Jobs, and Justice.

There was a common conceptual thread that arose in all sessions and plenaries: choices. Many felt the nation is struggling today because of past choices. For instance, the nation chooses to spend more on prisons than on education. This choice has led to less money for school infrastructure, teachers’ salary and resources for students. Now is the time to make better choices.

During his speech, Secretary of Education John King outlined five choices that can be made to improve education in our nation and that can be easily applied to our state of Delaware. They are:

• Invest in early learning
  During a recent visit, Sec. King gave Delaware good marks in this area. In order to maintain our progress, we must continue to choose to invest in the momentum underway. Currently, around $9.4 million will go to support early learning initiatives like professional development activities for practitioners in early care and education, early childhood mental health consultation, developmental screenings and surveys, community readiness teams, and more. As outlined in a blog post by my colleague Melissa Hopkins, this number is still short of Governor Jack Markell’s recommended $11.4 million. At the end of this year’s legislative session, we eased off the gas as we travel toward quality, early access for all of our young learners and need to ensure we are making the right choices for them.

• Increase resources
  Our state’s school funding system is flawed, outdated, and unfair to students. It is in need of a major revamp, increased oversight, and transparency for the public. In his speech, Sec. King acknowledged that although solving the funding issue is crucial, increasing resources means more than just adding dollars to the system. Resources can come in the form of more counselors to help guide high school students to postsecondary success, whether they attend college or join the workforce. Resources can come in the form of better digital infrastructures and tools for teachers to implement blended and personalized learning. Resources can even come in the form of providing a more diverse selection of course options to prepare students for life outside of the classroom. Choices regarding money are often the most difficult to make. Yet when it comes to education, we must remember that increasing resources means more than just spending money, and how we spend has a major influence on the success of our students.

• Develop systems of accountability and supports
  Sec. King urged the audience to take advantage of the opportunities the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) is going to provide. Everyone can be involved by attending community conversations, meeting with elected officials, monitoring the process at the state level and most importantly by paying attention and intervening. In fact, this was a common theme throughout the conference. During the State of the Urban League Address, president and CEO Mark Morial warned the audience to stop ignoring the plight and issues in our society. We are accountable to pay attention and tell the stories of those who are unable. ESSA gives states more control of their education system. In other words, how they handle accountability, standards and assessments, the teaching profession, and other areas. Recently, the Rodel team developed a series of short summary briefs that spell out the information everyone needs to know, and the questions that should be asked when it comes to ESSA.

• Work to diversify schools
  A recent report stated that segregation in New York schools can start as early as pre-k. Wilmington has had its own dance with this issue. Sec. King recommended looking closely at housing policies and school zones to combat this problem. While the WEIC plan ended on a somewhat positive note this year, Delaware should consider the consequences of segregating schools and make the choice to change this pattern.We also need to focus on diversifying not only the student population but the education workforce as well. This includes teachers, administrators, coaches, and counselors. In Delaware, we know that the teaching population does not match the student population and situations like these can impact the student experience. Diversifying the workforce can be done by offering loan forgiveness programs and providing resources to retain teachers in our state. A perfect example of this work underway is the Teacher Leader Pilot, where current Delaware teachers are working with their peers to gain professional development and encourage them to stay in the classroom.

• Encourage local engagement
  Sec. King stressed the importance of local engagement as a way to improve education. He mentioned mentoring programs like My Brother’s Keeper and how ones like it are vital to helping and supporting our students. It is no secret that Delaware is a small state and if you are like me you are surrounded by people who know this and the advantages it brings. If all sectors, industries, and communities work together to strengthen each other’s initiatives to support our students there is no way that we can lose. Examples of collaboration and local engagement can be seen in the Delaware Department of Education’s ESSA community conversations that occurred in September. For more opportunities for engagement, check the Vision Coalition’s upcoming 9^th Annual Conference on Education. This event brings together voices from around the state and beyond for an engaging and interactive day focusing on the future of education.

My name is Laurie Jacobs and I am the newest member of the Rodel Foundation family. As a Delaware native, my path and Rodel’s have crossed on numerous occasions (sometimes like ships in the night).

After graduating from William Penn High School, I attended George Mason University (GMU) in Fairfax, Virginia. While at GMU, I served as an intern for numerous organization in the DC metro area such as Focused Image Public Relations Firm, American Enterprise Institute (AEI), and Main Street Radio Network.

During my extended breaks, I would alternate between finding a summer job and completing an internship. For instance, I interned at the Delaware Center for the Contemporary Arts during one of my summer breaks. As someone who enjoys learning and being of service, I was always looking for a new opportunity. So when my final summer break between my junior and senior year arrived, I went in search of a new internship opportunity and out of all of the sent resumes who should respond but the Rodel Foundation! However, lady universe interfered and I was unable to take advantage of the opportunity.

Flash forward a few months, I graduate from GMU with a Bachelors of Arts in Communication with a concentration in Public Relations and earn a position as a Sales and Marketing Support Specialist at Arkieva Supply Chain Software. During my time at Arkieva, I gained valuable experience with email marketing, branding efforts, and event planning while quenching my thirst for education and community service through organizations like the Metropolitan Wilmington Urban League and The Kennett Rotaract. It was through these organizations that Rodel’s path and my own passed again. I learned that there was an open position and this time, lady universe worked in my favor!

My interest in education include increasing parent and community engagement, helping high school students develop career pathways and building strong communicators within the minority population. I look forward to working with Rodel and its staff as they strive to create one of the best systems of public schools in the world by 2020.

As a rule of thumb, I will end by sharing some random facts about myself: I love the Philadelphia Eagles, I can be bribed with Haribo’s Gummi Bears or M&Ms, and I prefer to watch television with the subtitles.