What a fun, philosophical and ground-level discussion about the importance of round-the-clock and calendar care for young learners. Beth brings an unmatchable passion to her dream of supporting learners. I really appreciated how she can connect the dots between “mis”-behavior, home structure, health, and resourcing learning environments. There’s a 4 to 1 dollar return on investment for extended care hours beyond normal “School Hours”. Well, team, how can we convince each other to poney up the money to expand these programs?
Links:
Oregon Afterschool and Summer for Kids network
Transcript:
keevin bybee 0:00
Today, I have the pleasure of speaking with Beth wound ROSAT. She works with the After School Alliance. And I would really love for her to tell us a little bit of what she does and how she came to do what she does around kids and education and well being.
beth unverzagt 0:17
Thank you so much. I’m appreciate being here and talking with you. I actually am part of a national initiative. So my group is a collaboration of state agencies and statewide groups, Oregon after school for kids, so we’re part of the After School Alliance. We’re also part of the CS Mott Foundation network. So all 50 states have groups like ours, that are advocating for better quality child care. And after school and summer programs. We’re here we’re working hard we advocate on the both on the state level on the national level.
keevin bybee 1:00
Well, wonderful, you know, I am so glad that people are providing these programs, you know, even as a relatively privileged family, we found it super challenging to to get enough care both for our kids before they could go to public elementary school, and then for the out couple hours that my wife and I might still be working after school hours. And and so you know, where I come at this as a family doctor thinking about how it’s challenging for me? And what about all of my other families that I care for who have a lot of restrictions on when they can leave work to take care of their families? And so I’m just kind of curious, how can we as a society, do you think help our families meet their needs and keep kids learning?
beth unverzagt 1:51
Yeah, and think about the families that work off hours, cost of care is very high, especially for infant care. So if the ratio is one to four, so one person for four children, and even that, I mean, having, when you have a small baby, you know, that just one is a handful. So we just don’t have enough childcare. And this is not just Oregon, but across the country. We are looking for solutions for childcare and after school programs. Normally, in a school day, so a school runs 172 days. And there are lots of days off, we often kid around about no school November, when there are only 11 days of school. And so when school leaves at 230, who’s caring for our children. And that’s that’s the real issue is that the schools and the way in which they’re structured, are not meeting the needs of families. And we have, we have a shortage of teachers, we have the big resignation. And the in child care and school age programs is worse because in school age, these are part time people. So these are part time jobs for after school. You know, they might come before school after school, they might be full time in the summer, in the summer of a program could operate 55 hours a week. And we see in a lot of the low income areas across Oregon, where the programs will operate. They’re operating in a public school. Summer doing an incredible job by actually being available the day when school gets out till the day when school starts. And in other places there is absolutely no care, or they’re operating three weeks of the summer, or they offer a summer program for literacy. And it’s two mornings a week. So who’s going to be able to get off at 12 o’clock and pick their kids up? And the the problem is that the system defeats itself. So for our lowest income families across the country, the federal government provides something called employment related childcare. And employment related childcare actually helps sustain and support primarily single moms with children to actually be able to go back to work and to have access to childcare. But the cost of care is so high. The subsidy does not meet that cost. And so, you know, I might sign up I would have $300 a week I might get $167 in subsidy but how am I going to make the rest of that up. And if I have more than one child it’s even more difficult. So the provider the the parent themselves has an issue with funding. And the provider has an issue with funding. There are some Oregon is in the process of redoing our system. It used to be years ago, it was Office of Childcare that received the subsidy, the subsidy went through Department of Human Services, and then went to the Employment Department because it was connected to employment. And then it was moved by Governor Kitzhaber to the Department of Education. And the Early Learning Division was born. Now that has been a few years, and this past legislative session, our legislators moved out of the Early Learning Division into what they’re now calling the Department of Early Learning and care. So it’s becoming its own state agency. And
they, there’s a tremendous amount of work in trying to redo the system into to make it better and certainly very progressive. As far as the national perspective, I’m fortunate because of our national connections, I get to see what other states are doing and how they’re responding to these, these critical issues. But you know, when you hear on the radio, childcare is a critical issue. It really is. And we have to find some solutions. So how do you find solutions for our lowest income families? How do you create supply for all families? And how do you provide quality programming? What’s that look like? What’s the cost of a quality program? I’ve done a lot of work on this. I think school age in some ways is a little bit easier to structure with with programming, because in cooperation, 80% of our programs in Oregon, are actually co located in public schools. So they may in fact, be a licensed provider, like a Champions that’s a for profit, or a YMCA that is a nonprofit. They may be a Boys and Girls Club, which has its own facility, but also partners and has school facilities. And boys and girls clubs will offer to elementary and to middle school and some high school. And then there are parks and rec. So those are episodic. So so it’s a very confusing world. Lots of people don’t know, and there’s no centralized place of being able to access information. The childcare division has their website. But for a low income second language family, it is very, very difficult.
keevin bybee 8:10
Yeah, I feel Yan that you touched on so many important points. The when do parents work? One of my first interviewees was a guy who lives in Vegas, and he was thinking about a 24 hour school just because of all the casino workers. And then, you know, you mentioned how a lot of programs are already located in schools. And so we’re my engineering mind goes is, why don’t why isn’t that already? Just what the school does? Why is it that we arbitrarily, you know, close the doors at three o’clock, instead of having the school be available in some capacity? All, if not all, the time more hours, instead of half opening the doors and then allowing it an external group to use those services. Not that we don’t want them to but you know, why is there not that fundamental baseline of the school doing it already? And I’m just kind of curious if you have any comments or insights into why we as a society have not decided to do that.
beth unverzagt 9:17
I think it’s cost and it’s up primarily cost. So there’s a cost to the use of the building. A a provider, childcare provider would come into a building and in some school districts, they charge them, they they charge them a sizable amount of money for the use of the room. Other programs they don’t charge or other school districts they don’t charge. But it’s is it’s about a certain set of beliefs. I think that in fact that these beliefs that this school belongs to who? Well it really belongs to the community. and it is paid for by the community. But our system that has created this 172 days and, you know, there’s a lot of discussion around what we should have school year round, well, it really hasn’t worked. And there have been studies that have been done around year round school. And when you go into an after school program, a childcare program, it’s different than the school day. It’s a more open free environment. I think that actually teachers could learn a lot from working in summer programs. And after school, there’s a lot of creative things that could be done and should be done in teacher preparation that could be done in the summertime to get teachers ready to be in the classroom. And you have time. So you so that’s part of what after school has is they have a gift of time. Whereas the school if you go into school, everything is regimented because it’s about managing kids. I one of one of my past careers was applied for a charter when Oregon. I was first charter before him before we even had charter law. And got turned down by the school district and went ahead and started at a private school with a group of friends of mine. And what I found was that people were very responsive. But we were open from seven in the morning until six at night. Every day other than two days, two weeks out of the year. We were we were open. And we were open to the public in the summertime. So you could not attend the school during the during the school year, but come in the summer for summer adventures.
keevin bybee 12:09
So many good points. You know, one thing I guess it might be worth disentangling is, you know, school in quotes, right? I guess you mentioned how most of school is managing kids to keep them quiet enough to do some academic work. And the the advantage of the most after school programs is the flexibility. And I guess, can we get flexible about what we call school and what we call after school so that the line is blurred. And kids get what they need when they need it when they have the capacity for it. Right?
beth unverzagt 12:48
Yeah, there’s a group in New York called expand Ed, where they’re actually attempting to do that, where the school and after school are really clearly working together in developing a more comprehensive piece. There’s also in many places across the country, while community schools. And so there was a long time ago national block grant and Oregon did quite a bit with community schools. But they found the logistics of within the school difficult. It was such a new concept. We now have in Portland community schools. So there are 90 Community Schools, you most people would recognize them as being son schools, schools, uniting neighborhoods, and they basically offer free care for kids. They are desperately underfunded. They the whole concept of a community school is to do those kinds of wraparound services. They all hire a manager so they’re funded by Multnomah County and they receive additional funds by Portland Children’s Levy. So Portland’s been quite magnanimous and they provide extra funding for mentoring programs. And Lisa Pellegrino is the person who manages the Portland Children’s lottery. She’s been doing it as long as I’ve been in my position. So we have history of seeing what the city and the county have done. But how do you how do you break down those barriers, where you actually have really engaged in programming, so they’ve gone through several iterations over the last 10 years? It’s especially in the providing the kinds of services that families need, there was a very unique program for a period of time I’m in Gresham called U turns. And they were actually located in the school. And so if kids in middle school got in difficulty, they were sent to U turns they weren’t sent home. So they went to U turns, and they went through counseling and got supports. And somebody figured out what the real issue was. Because usually your behavior problem is not because of the behavior, it’s because of whatever the underlying issue is. And so then they did a U turn, and they got them engaged in activities. And so you know, oftentimes, a young person who’s having difficulty will cause problems, so they can get kicked out of school, well, we don’t want them out of school, we want them in school, and we want them served appropriately. And, and you get in less trouble if you have things to do. And you are engaged within your community. So in Iceland, they’ve done great studies, and they provided after school programming in every single school, recruit reduced drug abuse, reduced, absenteeism reduced, because they engaged young people in the things that they wanted to do kids know what they want to do.
keevin bybee 16:22
Exactly that one of my favorite psychiatrist, Dan Siegel, talks about how every, quote, misbehavior is just an unmet need on some level, and how can we meet those needs, you’re running a common theme here, which is under resourced and underfunded. And when we were talking about how it’s hard for families to work, because they can’t afford the child care, or they pay all of their salary towards it, what comes up for me is the fact that we’re already paying for it anyway, in lost wages, or people not achieving their full academic potential, which means that they’re not going to get that higher paying job to help them feed forward into the economy. You know, I’m trying to put together a balance sheet that shows how we really are losing money by not funding these programs. So appropriately. And so, you know, how, what kind of story would you tell? How do we convince people to see that we’re just, you know, shooting ourselves in the foot because we’re not doing this.
beth unverzagt 17:34
So I would say they’re what we’re talking about as a return on investment.
keevin bybee 17:38
I hate to make it in those terms. But you know, it’s a language everyone speaks at least
beth unverzagt 17:42
right. And so we actually produced for Oregon, a return on investment. So on our website, we have a report, and looked at and analyzed the things that we could get our hands on. And for every dollar that you would spend on an after school program, your return on investment is $4.62. And that is conservative,
keevin bybee 18:09
we’ll definitely have to link to that. And so I guess you had touched on it. Another thing, which is the beliefs that hold us back. So what’s a belief that holds us back from making that investment? Do you have an insight or intuition there?
Unknown Speaker 18:25
Part of it is school funding. So you’ll hear teachers over and over again, and you’ll hear the teachers union, which is very strong in Oregon, say we don’t get adequately paid. And if you look across to Vancouver, or you look, in California, Oregon, teachers don’t get paid very well. But they do have three months off. And so, you know, depending on your level of education, and depending on your school district, and, you know, I believe in local control. And I also see some issues with it because you have to have systems. You know, our Department of Ed can’t tell the school districts what to do. We create laws, legislature creates a law, and then we create rules. And everybody’s got all these rules that they have to follow. But I think that there’s a belief around that if it happens in the school day, it’s learning. And what we know is that learning happens 24/7 It happens wherever someone is. So if you know you can’t tell me that going to an armsie class, or going to the museum or going to the library isn’t as effective. You know, and there are some I have some really deep concerns as especially around literacy, and the inability. So I once had a federal legislator asked me, what would I do if I could change anything in education? And I said, Well, the first thing I would do is I would require that every kindergarten first and second grade teacher get a reading endorsement, that they actually know how to teach reading. So yeah, that touches
keevin bybee 20:29
on the education of educators, I would like to think that we as a society should subsidize people to go into education, like grease those skids. Right. And then my next question is, is why is that supplemental education? How is that not standard curriculum? And or how can we make that gap removed systematic?
beth unverzagt 20:55
Well, it seems to me that part of the problem is that what we value what we value we test. Okay. So we test math, and we test reading. We don’t do very good on either one of those. And we never test science. That’s a huge issue.
keevin bybee 21:16
We’ve seen it in the recent elections. Hmm.
beth unverzagt 21:19
I mean, we guess we have when I was growing up from 66, this year, when I was growing up, we had the Iowa Test of Basic skills across the country, millions and billions of dollars spent on the Iowa Test of Basic skills. So you have a student take it, and they, people didn’t know how to read it, they didn’t know what it meant. It was just something that we did. And now, you know, Oregon’s tried several different things. I’ve been through some major, you know, trying to overhaul education in Oregon. And it seems like to me that if it’s if we can find a way to value the family, keep children at the center, and look at, you know, providing opportunities for authentic engagement, both with teachers and with families, you know, and there’s some real, there are some real tricks to that. But you have to be willing. And I think there’s a sense of openness that has to happen at will
keevin bybee 22:31
and patience, because you’re not chasing a reduced number, you’re cultivating a garden so that those skills will grow in that rather than trying to force it in a narrow context. Right?
beth unverzagt 22:45
Right. Well, in something within the structure of schools, I’ll find it I have this research report on time. And there’s something about the structure of schools that makes it so much a box, it’s like a box, and you have to fit inside that box. And if you don’t fit inside that box, I don’t think we’re teaching children how to learn. You know, and I watched this with my own children, as they and I say that they survived public school. But when they came out of public school, there was a well, somebody needs to tell me what to do. As opposed to, I am thinking creatively, and I’m thinking and I’m problem solving. And I’m communicating and I’m being I’m learning to work on a team, and I’ve, you know, and then I’m engaged in my own learning. So the experience of the engagement in your own learning is really critical. And you have to have hope, you have to, you know, and so if I’m a low income student, and I’ve gone through a series of traumatic events, having hope is probably the most one of the more important things. There’s a wonderful superintendent out in Eastern Oregon, Heidi sight. And when she talks and she talks about a very low income community in the middle of nowhere in Oregon, and she she has built a sense of community and supports with the kids. She has 600 Kids and after school, she’s just, you know, it’s like, it is a 24/7 it’s a How can I do things to make a difference for my kids. She has a brilliant child, she helps make sure they get into a good university. She does. I mean, just amazing. So there are some really fabulous, amazing educators. We just have to find ways for young teachers to be supportive. I have two young teachers It worked for me. And they were only taught for five years.
keevin bybee 25:04
Learning is what the human brain does. And you’re right. It’s not confined to quote school. And we put things in boxes. I mentioned his name a lot. But an educational theorist named Zack sign talks about how education and civilization are both the intergenerational transmission of information. And unless we put education and learning as line one, for any reason that we do something, we’re going to miss the mark. And, you know, you talked about how the, you know, embedded learning in a community with a purpose in mind, you know, is something that will anchor a learner’s engagement, so that they will be more motivated to take on the skill of learning or math to meet the end goal of whatever project they’re doing. And if it’s embedded in the community, something that community needs, then they see the purpose, which gives them hope.
beth unverzagt 26:03
Right, exactly. So you have to have youth Child and Youth Engagement. Like I have to, I have to be into it, I have to, I have to really engage and there’s like an emotional engagement that happens when you’re really excited about learning. So I remember my little kindergartener when she was going off to school, and she has a wait, I have to go. And she’s running around the house, picking things up that she had to take to school, because they were going to learn about time. And her engagement in that process itself, and going to kindergarten to do that. It basically got taken away from her through the process of education. So we have to change the box. And we can do it. And we have to change systems, and we can do it. And then through dialogue, and through conversations around what we value, you know, and so the child care issue is, do we value our children?
keevin bybee 27:16
Well, if we value them paying our Medicare insurance, then it only behooves us to do so. Right? If I want, if I want my kids to pay my social security check, should I better take care of them? I mean, more than that, I only say that kind of in a sarcastic joke, but also, it’s part of what’s important, right?
beth unverzagt 27:38
Well, and it’s part of the world that we’re living in right now. I mean, we, we have made choices in our society, about what we value. Making Money isn’t the only thing. You know, being a capitalistic society is not a bad thing. But it’s also not the end all be all. So there is a balance that we’ve we’ve gotten too out of balance, I think, you know, our earth is out of balance, our society is out of balance. I look at what’s happening in Ukraine, and I think to myself, in 2022, we still think this is acceptable. And that’s heartbreaking to me.
keevin bybee 28:21
Yeah, I feel you. It’s an interesting kind of frustrating when we have the technology. In some sense, we have the material resources, to food, clothes, shelter, and educate seven and a half billion people, but we just have a hard time telling ourselves stories that share the value, whatever that might be. Do you have any thoughts on how we can start to generate that shared value from somebody who might be a little bit in apparent opposition? Any words of wisdom there?
beth unverzagt 29:01
Well, I think it starts with, you know, the, the circles around you. Right? So you, you start with a circle around you. And you also have to, I believe you have to have a dream. Right? So I always consider myself a dreamer, right? And I dream the dream. And it’s, it’s my dream to begin with, but then it becomes other people’s dreams. So how do we feel how do we change public? Well, how do we say this is what we value? And it’s through dialogue, and it’s through conversation, and it’s through just doing exactly what you’re doing? Having a podcast and saying, Why, why can it not be different and it can be different?
keevin bybee 29:50
Indeed, and finding the language to get people to share that dream can be a challenge, but I’m optimistic that we can do it. I mean, the fact that Something like social emotional learning is a thing. Now, we could hope that it gets more widespread, but it certainly wasn’t a thing when I was growing up. And so I have tremendous optimism for the generation of kids who are going to have a vocabulary that’s going to make it easier to make common ground.
beth unverzagt 30:20
And social and social emotional learning isn’t something separate, it is not something to be taught, it starts right here with who I am, and how I perceive the world. And how I do that. And then how I listened to the children around me.
keevin bybee 30:40
Yeah, the irony that we have to call it social emotional learning as a separate thing at all, because we had somehow I don’t know if ignore is the right word, but it wasn’t at the forefront for the intuitive, just learning concept, right?
beth unverzagt 31:01
Absolutely. So you have to do systems, you’ve got to change systems, and you do it incrementally. And you recognize that systems are important. And that there are our society is made up of many, many different people, we have to value all people, we have to be grateful to all of them, that they are participating in the dialogue, you know, we have a system of government that is, you know, I think as a woman, I think, well, you know, in 1942, I couldn’t have owned my own home. I couldn’t have gotten a credit card. And and so I’m incredibly grateful that I live in a society and at a particular time, when as a woman, I have independence, to have a full time job and to do what I love and to and to care for children. It’s the passion of my life, to care for children, I
keevin bybee 31:57
can’t thank you enough for for doing it, I do what little I can, as a family doc and I am in awe of people who are more on the front lines, I still feel like I’m playing catch up. And so
beth unverzagt 32:13
you’re thinking about it. And that’s what’s important.
keevin bybee 32:16
Well, and then, you know, I’m forced to because I families come to me when a child is having behavior issues. And my you know, I’m a hammer, and I have I treat the world like a nail and I am trying to be more nuanced about and surgically precise about the use of me as a hammer. But, you know, the last thing I want to do is put a kid on Ritalin, when in fact, he just needs a little bit more help a little bit more physical activity. And the structure that would other if the structures were changed, parents wouldn’t be bringing their kids to me for for Ritalin, and I’m not blaming the parents, and I’m not blaming the teachers, certainly I don’t want to throw anybody under the bus. They’re under the direct of stuff like No Child Left Behind, which is kind of forcing their hand. And so just, you know, I can what I guess I’m getting at is the connection between how something like No Child Left Behind forces me to put a kid on Ritalin. And it’s all costing us more in the long run. And so how just how many voices can we get to agree that maybe we could, like you said, put that money somewhere else, like after school programs that run hours that families and children need?
beth unverzagt 33:35
Well, and what what stresses? I mean, children have you know, the biological I think people think well, that’s a quick fix. Oh, you know, my kid will go on Ritalin teacher said my kid needs this teacher has no idea.
keevin bybee 33:52
No, she’s, she’s constrained and she’s got 30 kids, and it’s not appropriate for one person to monitor 37 year olds.
beth unverzagt 34:04
Absolutely. Absolutely. So you know, putting teachers in difficult situations where they have expectations that are not not appropriate. So and I think the biological, what happens to a child and their brain when they’re on Ritalin? You know, there are things there are ways to help people understand that taking a drug isn’t the answer. The American Dream, though? Well, it’s a conforming it’s a fit into my box. Correct.
keevin bybee 34:35
And so again, one of those social and individual beliefs that I think are holding us back rather than thinking that there’s a box we need to put somebody into recognizing that any box is a category meant by us to help manipulate the world but not necessarily a box that nature put there for us. And so then we get hopefully that would give some flexibility about the boxes we create as they’re useful. And we modify them as circumstances change, rather than saying no, this is the box that nature put in place.
beth unverzagt 35:12
Oh, no fluid box.
keevin bybee 35:15
Correct. Exactly little silicone ball that molds depending on what we’re putting into it and what surface it’s resting on.
beth unverzagt 35:24
But I mean, I think I think in, you know, in our circle in the world, you know, there are things that we can do and say, and when we see something that we feel is unjust, we have to speak it. And we don’t have to do it in an angry way or in a defensive way or just that. Well, I see why you made this decision. I don’t agree with it.
keevin bybee 35:50
Using a little bit of a relationship advice, I’m having a feeling based on what I see can go a long way towards making everybody else a little bit less reactive. In at large, maybe.
beth unverzagt 36:03
Yeah, so And no, there is no right or wrong. Really.
keevin bybee 36:08
Yeah, those there’s things that have differential consequences. And they are things that will make people feel both individually or collectively, and not that it’s right or wrong, but we just have to acknowledge how somebody might feel because of the way we do things. And then do we want people to feel that way or slightly different, right?
beth unverzagt 36:29
Well, and we and we need the institution of school, you know, last year, when two years ago now, when the pandemic happened, and suddenly schools were closed, there was this aha moment that government had around the needs for childcare. You know, and no family childcare will not take care of, you know, 10,000 kids. So I think that we’ve learned a lot from the last two years, and that it would benefit us to take the time to think differently about how we solve problems,
keevin bybee 37:13
very much. So I’m, I am interested in the meta project of you know, how we formulate problems, because I think this is me speaking as a solution hammer, I like to solve problems, and I’m banging my own head up against a brick wall, realizing that what we really need is the way to think about problems. And so hopefully, we can move, like you mentioned incrementally in that direction, together.
beth unverzagt 37:45
Systems, and I keep going back to systems and structures, and alignment.
keevin bybee 37:51
Indeed, we’re bumping up on 40 minutes, and it’s a beautiful afternoon. And you mentioned you hadn’t been outside yet, I’ve really liked where we’re where this is going. And I think we could wax philosophic for for quite a while. Rather than do that now. I’ll let you have your evening. And maybe we could schedule around to I really appreciated your voice and thoughts, any closing comments or anything that would be helpful for our learners to know or listeners to know about today?
beth unverzagt 38:25
I think that it’s you have to really look at your own thinking. And you have to if we believe that we’re going to create a world that works for everyone. I want a world that works for everyone. That means there are not winners or losers. That means that I have to be proactive in my own thinking, and in my own process. And when I step into that, then I can dream a dream that, you know is a shared dream with other people. Indeed,
keevin bybee 39:02
well let’s let’s keep sharing that dream. I feel like ours overlap quite a bit. So appreciate what you’re doing and let’s be in touch.
beth unverzagt 39:13
Okay, you take care. Thanks so much.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai