Holly Spivey Chooses to GEER Up Without Child Care Again and Again

We thought after the most recent EPIC FAIL of SECAC in the implementation of its  ‘Family Based Unified and Integrated Early Childhood System,’ (which is the Standard and Comprehensive Child Care Center application), SECAC members including Holly Spivey would be too embarrassed to continue to exclude and snub recognized child care leadership in the coordination of all programs providing early care and learning in Mississippi.

No kidding y’all. If I had been a complicit member in the better than usual dysfunction of the State Early Childhood Advisory Council that allegedly participated in allegedly spending all or part of $10.6 million in federal seed money by taking or traveling with Head Start organizations and those seeking SECAC’s Comprehensive ratings down to the coast for what amounted to an all expenses paid, spouses included, fabulous vacation (with a speaker each morning and an alleged final pay out program participation “bonus”) in order to allegedly spend up the ten or so million because the final grant to be submitted or carried out by Mississippi didn’t quite get finished, I don’t think I would be posturing my position to trump the legislative accomplishments of recognized child care leadership any time soon. LOL! (Please click here to read the announcement of the $10,6 million award.)

(Suffice it to say the SECAC Comprehensive model and the work of SECAC focus groups – requiring Masters degrees for CCDF child care providers- LOL – was a bust. Due to the lack of transparency, some of these widespread allegations and facts may need further clarification and trust me when I say I will be happy to publish this story again if anyone has anything more to add and share! A PEER review or audit of SECAC’s 20018 -2020 activities and expenses and 2018 – 2020 Mississippi Head Start re-competes would be greatly welcomed. LOL!)

Nothing has changed. No lessons have been learned. They know not what they know not.. They know not that they need our help.

In any case, Mississippi deserves our help!

At least, that is what we thought when our child care organizations worked tirelessly to lobby and secure strong representation from our organizations to the SECAC council.in Mississippi’s PreK Collaborative Act.

We believed and still believe that providers who have worked in isolation or not participated in our efforts may not understand the history, the detailed issues, the contempt at SECAC for providers serving low-income children, or understand the state actor role defined for child care participation on SECAC which is to smile, enjoy the recognition they have given you by selecting you and speak when spoken to. LOL!

Colleagues, Capitol participants, friends: you should not be surprised that our organizations will not have representation on SECAC…once again Holly Spivey, formally of the Governor’s Office on Head Start, and Nita Thompson, the state Head Start Liaison, are gearing up to seat child care providers of their choice, without input from us…just like Laurie Smith did.

I am disappointed to report that Head Start representatives are selecting the child care representation to serve on SECAC. I wasn’t even suppose to know that or be able to report that to you, for the memo announcing the child care appointments were sent out only to Head Start organizations. So, there we are.

We will continue our advocacy, nevertheless so do not be discouraged. Enjoy the show! Those providers will soon learn that for those of us who made it possible for them to have that seat, our experiences with SECAC have been like sitting on an iceberg – but we will continue to place our comments upon the deaf ears of SECAC nobility from the gallery… in our coats! (We are still working to redress this injustice. Don’t forget to call John Hines. We miss Toby Barker. He is now the proud mayor of Hattiesburg and is doing good work there.)

As for GEER funding, like so many of you, many Delta Licensed Providers members wished to apply and asked Carol Burnett of MILICCI to develop a grant for us to help fund the virtual education classrooms open child care facilities are providing in the absence of public school and Head Start in person learning – mostly unavailable since the start of the pandemic. The notice provided by Holly Spivey allowed one week to submit a letter of intent and one week to submit the completed grant application. When Carol submitted the letter of intent, however, the response came back from Rachel Canter of Mississippi First. We went no further. (Click here to read of our experiences with Rachel Canter – the public school PreK advocate.) We believed few, if any child care providers would be receiving funding from her and realized that the short notice to us likely meant the true award of grants had already been decided. I am sorry for you and all the hard work you put in and sorry to report that we know of no child care programs who received GEER funding but for one legislator’s church.

We were so right in our assumption, in fact, the recent announcement of round two GEER grant applications didn’t even provide notice to the child care industry. LOL!

So let me say this. You are wonderful to serve school aged children in virtual classrooms at your centers and to do it for part time child care fees. Thank you for the donation of your services to low-income families and to Mississippi’s workforce support system during this time of crisis.

As Mr. Rogers told us to do, look for the helpers!

The Governor has appointed a good man with a missionary’s heart as the Executive Director of the Mississippi Department of Human Services! Mr. Bob Anderson, Chad, Vicky, Laura, Angela and Lydia will take care of us and support us in every way possible! (Dr. Cathy Grace, Carol Burnett and Andrea Sanders have also been wonderful to us during this pandemic and will help us all they can!) They have demonstrated that they do not hate low-income child care providers! Lend your support to them!

Thanks for reading and stay safe.

We will be meeting very soon.

Debbie

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