State Representative Erin Grall discussed the history and impacts of Florida House Bill 419, Early Learning and Early Grade Success, at a recent Childcare Resources event open to key stakeholders across the early education landscape.
House Bill 419, co-introduced by Representative Grall and State Representative Vance Aloupis, passed unanimously in the Florida House and Senate in May 2021. The bill creates a Division of Early Learning in the state’s Department of Education, aligns early childhood education with K-12 education, and revises the standards of the Gold Seal Quality Care program for early childhood education providers.
“It really should be about whether or not we view what happens from birth to five as education,” said Representative Grall, noting the fundamental shift in perception of the earliest years of life as she discussed the bill’s benefits with the event’s seventy-five attendees.
A former Board chair of Childcare Resources, Representative Grall credited her time spent in the organization’s leadership with her focus on quality early education, saying “Childcare Resources showed me the importance of this time in a child’s life.”
With more than twenty-five years of providing and promoting high-quality early education, Childcare Resources also collaborates with and informs the broader community, improving early childhood outcomes for all children in Indian River County.
“It is our intention to continue to educate ourselves on the best practices in the early learning community and all the efforts to affect change,” said Katy Block Healy, Chair of the Childcare Resources Advocacy Committee. “We have the opportunity to provide to the community how we can affect that positive change for the early learning community together.”