As the director of Kid’s Kingdom Academy and Daycare on Tulane Avenue near South Broad Street, Lynette Rivers does much more than look after her 40 small pupils. Rivers also finds herself taking on the role of therapist, psychologist, mentor, and leader for the adults in their lives.
Sometimes, parents come to her seeking jobs or housing assistance. She’s helped families who recently moved to the country navigate the unfamiliar system of applying for food assistance. She’s even offered teaching jobs to parents of her former students. And other times, emotional support is the most valuable thing she can provide.
“They need someone to watch their children, to teach their children, to nurture, to love their children, but they’re also sometimes looking for something themselves,” Rivers said. “I’ve had parents sit down and just talk to me and they break down and I’m there.”
This work is not easy, she said, but the joy it brings her has kept her rooted in the field of early childhood education for more than 20 years, working with her mother Eliza, who owns Kid’s Kingdom. And her job’s gotten a little easier in the past year, following a 2022 passage of a 20-year property tax to expand access to free early childhood education seats for low- and moderate- income families.
More than half of Rivers’ students are enrolled in the City Seats early childhood education program, which is now funded, in part, by the new tax. The city program provides a steady stream of funding that allows Rivers to maintain low student-teacher ratios and boost wages for her teachers. Kid’s Kingdom has also received additional support from mental and physical health professionals, who have performed onsite health screenings for children and given guidance to parents and teachers.
Since the program expansion began in July with the new funds, the number of free early childhood education seats in New Orleans has more than doubled, from 820 in the 2022-2023 school year to 2,235 in the current school year, according to Agenda for Children, the nonprofit that oversees City Seats. The majority of the new spots are funded through the program, but the nonprofit also netted more seats through other state and local funding streams.
In addition to funding more seats, the $21 million generated by the first year of the property tax — as well as an additional $23 million through a state matching fund — has paid for more child health services, bonuses for workers and expanding the number of childcare facilities in town. The city is also working toward making it easier for child care centers to get zoning permits.
As a result of those recent efforts, the city of New Orleans now ranks third in the nation for per-capita investment in early childcare and education, said Jen Roberts, the CEO of Agenda for Children. It’s also the only such program in the nation that focuses exclusively on infants and toddlers, not pre-K students, according to Roberts. “The millage is a remarkable opportunity, and at the same time, we know that there are so many needs that are just challenging to meet,” she said.
When the millage passed last year, Agenda for Children found that were about 8,300 children in Orleans Parish under age five living below the poverty line who were eligible for a publicly funded seat but not served by a publicly funded seat, according to the nonprofit. Even though the millage increased the number of seats, the number of eligible children who are not enrolled in a program has also grown to more than 9,000, according to Agenda for Children’s calculations.
“This is a really challenging time for all families,” Roberts said. “The number of families eligible has increased with wages stagnating, with housing costs increasing, with job opportunities maybe not being what folks want and need.”
The increasing number of children eligible for the free children signals the rise in children living in poverty, as well as a rise in the number of people “right above that threshold,” Roberts noted.
To meet this growing need, Agenda for Children nearly doubled the number of childcare centers participating in City Seats, from 22 in the previous school year to 41 in July.
Kynisha Jackson runs an accredited early childcare education program from her home in New Orleans East, where she serves six young children whose families live in Slidell, Gentilly and New Orleans East.
As a registered home provider, Jackson said she has sometimes been left out of initiatives that benefit center-based early childhood education programs, so she’s excited to be included in “what the big child care centers have already experienced” by having access to support services funded through the new tax. But she’s also working on securing space for a new facility.
“There’s so many kids that don’t have placements yet, so I’m right on time,” she said. “We’re trying to open up a daycare to meet the needs of all the children who still need to be placed because there’s funding out there for them.”
Rivers is already seeing the effects of the property tax on Kid’s Kingdom, which has been in operation for more than 40 years. Of her 40 young students, 23 are funded through City Seats. Her other students receive support to attend Kid’s Kingdom through a federally-funded Early Head Start program. She is expecting nine more City Seats students to enroll at Kid’s Kingdom by early 2024.
The tax also funds a first-of-its-kind partnership with Children’s Hospital that includes a team of seven medical professionals supporting students, families and teachers, Roberts said.This initiative helps teachers and parents feel better prepared to care for children with severe physical, mental and behavioral challenges.
But Roberts doesn’t want the recent success of the millage to be seen as the upper limit. The costs of childcare can be difficult to afford for middle-class families as well. She said she would like to eliminate means-testing for free or reduced-cost early childhood education.
“We don’t want to project ungratefulness in any way, but the needs are so significant,” she said. “I would love to have a universal program because we know that even if you’re not potentially eligible based on your income, it doesn’t mean that childcare isn’t expensive, or an enormous expense for your family.”
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