Happy, happy 2021 to you and yours! We start off the new year with hopeful words from EW's new Executive Director, Jess Zimbabwe; and reflections on child care from Denise Louie Education Center Executive Director Susan Yang. And, don't miss highlights from our recent social media!
Though it’s only January, 2021 has already been a wild ride. On the national stage, we saw how dangerous disinformation and racist rhetoric led to the siege of the Capitol. Then, just two weeks later, many of us collectively exhaled while watching a peaceful inauguration ceremony. Closer to home, the 2021 legislative session is underway in Olympia (albeit entirely virtually), with ambitious proposals around COVID recovery, police reform, housing, and climate change.
At EW, staff and board have been hunkering down for a virtual holiday party, working from home, and making occasional masked-up site visits to projects around the region. We are all eagerly following news about vaccine rollouts, hoping for a day when we can see each other, friends, partners, clients, and neighbors in person again.
We all seek news and stories about creative solutions and bold commitments. And we’re also reminded that there is a long road to a just recovery ahead. We face an uncertain timeline for economic recovery, a looming eviction crisis layered on top of an already disastrous housing affordability calamity, and the heartbreaking devastation of this deadly disease, with even worse outcomes for Black, Indigenous, and Latinx people. It takes almost a daily practice to sit with the enormity of the challenges that lie ahead, and then re-commit yourself to doing what you can.
We at Environmental Works are honored to do this work alongside an indefatigable group of partners, friends, and colleagues, like Susan Yang of Denise Louie Education Center, about whom you will learn more below.
I leave you with a stanza from the incredible poem “The Hill We Climb,” which Youth Poet Laureate Amanda Gorman recited on Wednesday at the inauguration:
So here’s to January, and the turning of new leaves, and love as a legacy.
Yours,
Susan Yang joined Denise Louie Education Center as its Executive Director in 2015, after more than 15 years in various policy, program, and research roles in early learning and human services. At Denise Louie, Susan and staff work daily to honor founder and activist Uncle Bob Santos’s legacy by providing high-quality, culturally competent prenatal, birth-to-five early learning services to diverse families throughout Seattle. Environmental Works has been fortunate to partner with Denise Louie in providing architectural services on several child care center build-outs over the years.
What drew you to leading a direct service organization?
I’m an accidental ED – the opportunity sort of fell in my lap. Denise Louie Education Center’s mission is something I cannot say no to. I’ve also really enjoyed the opportunity to be closer to families. In policy, we focus on statistics and data. At Denise Louie, I talk with kids and their families daily and witness their progress. It’s very rewarding!
The pandemic has forced hundreds of child care programs in Washington to close temporarily or permanently. What impact has the pandemic had on Denise Louie? On the child care sector?
Denise Louie is at half-enrollment during the pandemic (now serving approximately 500 families), so our revenue has been cut in half. At half-enrollment and half-revenue, it’s almost impossible to survive. We’ve worked hard to fundraise and apply for loans, so we can keep our doors open and continue to serve families.
Denise Louie focuses on young children’s well-being, social-emotional development, and foundational skills to prepare for school, all especially critical during the pandemic. All children have a similar capacity to learn. We work to minimize the opportunity gap, so kids are at an adequate starting place for school and beyond.
Our single biggest expense is labor – people are at the heart of what we do. If we make child care as low cost as possible for families, that is a sacrifice borne by our staff and we can’t retain high-quality teachers.
The pandemic has highlighted the importance of child care providers, as well as public school teachers. People need to think about public investment in quality child care programs, the same way we pay for public [K-12] education.
Who is Denise Louie serving now?
We closed in March of 2020. We reopened in April, when we brought back infants and toddlers. In May and June, we brought back preschoolers. In August, we did a presentation and learned that many families were scared to come back. Many Chinese families were facing discrimination because some people were blaming them for the virus, and that made them scared to return. We are now primarily serving children with special needs, children experiencing homelessness, and children of essential workers. We are also providing home-based services. Kudos to the team and families for making it happen!
What resources do you recommend for learning more about the child care sector, advocacy and policy?
The Children’s Alliance’s Early Learning Action Alliance presents a unified advocacy agenda for children ages 0-5 in Washington. Child Care Aware of Washington also advocates for early learning. The Washington State Association of Head Start & ECEAP advocates for preschool at the state and federal levels.
What’s giving you hope in 2021?
Our society is starting to truly understand how much inequity there is in early learning and other institutions. We’re within a small window in which we can restructure our systems so they better serve kids and families who are furthest from opportunity, and make a long-term impact on their ability to move forward. We must also be willing to establish benchmarks, what we need to achieve and by when, so that we can evaluate if we are achieving our goals and making a difference or not. We need to act.
I am hopeful that the pandemic has caused more people to see systemic inequities, and the importance of child care educators in social-emotional development – building greater respect for this important work. This increased awareness has the potential to bring positive change to child care, and to create a more equitable society for our youngest learners. There’s a lot to be done, and we can all play a part.
