Hopkins Blogs

 Parents don't often discuss it aloud but they quietly ask, does it really matter whether my child is in a racially diverse preschool?

Child care is expensive, yet fewer and fewer low-resourced, working families are applying for government child care assistance, leaving more than $180 million in unspent funds on the table.

Four thousand years ago, in ancient Babylon, a young boy by the name of Elmesu carved a message out of clay wishing his father good health and a long life. This was one of the first, but certainly not the last time a father would be honored in this way.

This month we celebrate Mother's Day in the U.S., so I thought a brief history of the holiday would be in order.

An essay written by an immigrant mother El Salvador who was forced to flee her country after witnessing her neighbor murder a man at the local market.  Now enrolled in Hopkins House's Early Childhood Learning Institute (ECLI), she speaks of the importance of education to the future of her family.

 Thank goodness, children have held a special place in the hearts of our U.S. Presidents.  We thought we would share some of the programs established by recent Presidents that help our children. 

The 2018 Early Childhood Workforce Index, published by the Center for the Study of Child Care Employment, presents a stark picture of the compensation landscape of the ECE workforce.

While Virginia deserves credit for spending nearly $71 million this year on pre-k programs for at-risk four-year-olds, this spending misses the mark. By focusing only on 4-year olds, this substantial investment of tax-payer dollars may be too little, too late. 

If you are a working parent with a child under the age of 5, you already know that the cost of child care has not merely gone through the roof but blown it away. If you are a child care professional, you already know that you earn so little, you can't even afford a house, let alone one with a roof.

I want to go on record favoring a property tax increase to pay for upgrading Alexandria public schools in line with the School Board’s ten-year $291 million request -- with two conditions.

The Alexandria City Public Schools proposal for a "Pre-K Center" is the wrong solution to the school district's classroom capacity problem.

High turnover in the early childhood workforce in the United States is very high and has been for years. Hopkins House is working hard to address this problem through a long-term strategy that is beginning to show very promising results.

In remarks to parents of the Young Scholars enrolled at the Hopkins House Helen Day Preschool Academy (Alexandria campus), President J. Glenn Hopkins shared thoughts on a range of issues, from highlights of the school year, faculty recruitment, and child safety, to ensuring a socio-economically diverse student body.

It is bad enough that 2014 was the deadliest year for children in unlicensed day care in Virginia, but the reluctance of some state lawmakers to deal with this tragedy is even worse.

According to an unprecedented investigative report published this week by The Washington Post, 43 children have died over the past decade in unlicensed child care centers in Virginia. This is tragic and should be unacceptable to anyone who cares about children.
 

When I was just a child, I was a solidier, a pilot, and Captain of a starship.  I was all these things in my mind's clear eye as my big sister read aloud to me from fantastic books she bought home from school.  These memories are as vivid and joyful to me today as they were so many years ago.

On the occasion of the 60th anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court's Brown v. Board of Education decision, a recently released report finds that access to quality early care and education, especially for racial minorities, is anything but equal.

No doubt about it, quality child care today is expensive and getting more expensive with each passing day.  A recent PBS Newshour broadcast explored the question of whether it's more cost effective to quit work to care for your child than to pay for child care.  Watch the broadcast and let us know your thoughts.  

 

 For many families, child care is the highest single household expense in the family budget, exceeding the cost of housing, college tuition, transportation, food, utilities, and health care.  As the cost of child care continues to rise, more and more children are denied access because their parents can't afford the tuition.  The Hopkins House Children's Scholarship Fund offers help and hope. 

 Children today are surrounded by technology, from televisions in every room, smartphones to smart homes, and iPods to iPads. They are part of the new digital universe.  For some educators, technology is the cure for all that ails us.  But, do these new fangled gadgets belong in the preschool classroom?  The answer isn’t as clear as you might think.

 Despite the great deal of care, time, and thought that goes into making the hard decision to close an institution during severe inclement weather events, the decision to close is not likely to warm the hearts of many. 

 It may surprise some parents to know that there is no single, all-encompassing background check available in the U.S. to ensure that their childcare providers and others who come into contact with their children, including volunteers, are not sex offenders, violent offenders, or wolves in sheep’s clothing seeking to prey on children.

In the absence of a clear definition of "high quality" in preschool, children are likely to be subjected to learning only those skills useful in the workplace.  But, what of those other skills essential to being a well-rounded and thoughtful human being, such as discovery and exploration, and play?  

 True of many children of my generation, rearing children was the domain of mothers -- and fathers knew well to stay their distance.