Financing and Budgeting
Chapter 7 / Planning and Administering Early Childhood Program
Aloha Everyone!
“Money Talks!” While reading this chapter I realize that money talks. As teachers how can I say to the parents of my students that I can’t help your child because I’m not getting paid enough, there are no programs here to help your child because there is no funding, and I don’t have the time to teach your child because I just don’t have the “time!” due to furlough Fridays.
This chapter got me thinking “What will happen to me once I become a full time teacher with HI- D.O.E.?” What role will I play?, what role does our government play?, and how can our government help out in our education system? Regarding out government, here is what this chapter said:
“The government contributes to low-quality care when its agencies impost payment at market rate (i.e., subsidies are capped at levels determined by what families with average incomes are supposed willing to pay) for child care services or fail to provide higher reimbursement for higher quality care. Generally speaking, governmental agencies use estimated cash costs to determine what they will pay for services, and thus, to some degree, circularity results. In other words, because agencies pay a certain number of dollars, program designers plan their programs on the basis of expected amounts of money. If funded the first year, program designers write a similar program the next year in hopes of being refunded. Thus, the agency pays approximately the same amount again and the cycle continues. The program is thus designed around a specific dollar value whether or not it makes for the “best” program.”
“WOW!” Are you kidding me? There is got to be another way raise funds without jeopardizing quality teachers and good programs. I would run some kind of fundraising events at least once a month, like Cars wash, Huli Huli Chicken, Bake sales, and small carnival on the weekend on school ground. I would definitely do something or get involved to rise some funding for my school programs.
Marketing Your Child Care and Education Program
Chapter 8 / Planning and Administering Early Childhood Program
Why is marketing so important to your childhood care center? Marketing helps the center explain what it can provide for the children in the community.
“According to the American Marketing Association (2207), Marketing is the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large. In other words, marketing encompasses much more than advertisement (contrary to popular perception). It includes deciding on the type of product you will offer, deciding what consumer (client) you will target (market segmentation strategy), identifying that client’s needs and desires, and then designing and refining your product to meet the needs of your client.”
If I was in charge of marketing for a childhood care center, I would start with a marketing plan:
1. Student’s specific needs.
2. How a program might be designed to meet the need?
3. How each program wills admission the service to the student?
4. How much the parents might be willing to pay for their child service?
5. Who the competitors are?
6. How to design our child care center to be different from other childcare center?
7. And, last naming the early childhood center were the community can identify it.
This is how I would market my Early Childhood Center. ;-D
One of the amazing components of the Head Start program, where I work, is all the funding that it receives. There are a lot of programs scattered throughout the world and what's special about each one is that each is able to provide a broad spectrum of services for everyone - children, families, staff. However, it has also received a lot of funding because of its movement towards school-readiness which often compromises quality for quantity, product for process. So, how do we know exactly what to spend out money on? Quantity and product or quality and process?
ReplyDeleteHow sad to hear that you would grade where you work a D-. Maybe you're grading to harshly - perhaps is like your own child and you expect them to do better than others? Anyway if it's something that you might be interested in improving, how would you go about it? What's the first thing you would do, if you could do it?
ReplyDeleteHi Gary,
ReplyDeleteYou are discussing some very interesting limitations within the DOE schools. What is interesting to me is what is currently happening in education policy wise. As we have seen, NCLB does not work -- yet, it continues to be central to our classrooms. Also, the present secretary of education is pushing for yet another policy -- Race to the Top.
Should administrators place themselves in positions to question and object to policies which are not in the best interests of students? Or should administrators remain the pawns in ensuring federal government sanctions are implemented? If something is created through federal government, does it mean it is correct?
Jeanne
Children will always need good teachers and there is no promise that all teachers will receive a luxurious salary. Teachers should remember that their job is to help children. Of course finances are always very important but if it is possible to function without a high source of income then we should do just that. This is when imagination and creativity are very effective and can often offer some very colorful solutions. It is very unfortunate that school is not the first priority. Furlough Fridays are crazy. The adults who manage the money try to solve the problem by taking away from the children’s education, this is very sad. Perhaps the government needs to be a little more creative.
ReplyDeleteMarketing is also very important. It takes planning and anticipation of upcoming problems. Parents want to make sure that their child will benefit from your program. There has to be a constant upkeep of a program to make sure that it is running at its top performance.