NEWPORT NEWS, Va. — Newport News city leaders have a new way to fill the state’s critical teacher shortage and address the need for affordable pre-k and childcare options.
They partnered with a nonprofit childcare agency and a community college to launch the “Newport News Early Childhood Center.”
Dr. Towuanna Porter Brannon, president of Virginia Peninsula Community College, explained it’s not your average daycare.
“This is very new in the Commonwealth, a partnership like this," she said. "I do not believe it exists anywhere else in the Commonwealth. Across the nation, you may see a few examples. But is definitely something that’s new and innovative.”
The center’s goal is two-fold: it will be an affordable pre-K center that prepares children for school, and it will also be a place to train future teachers.
Dr. Porter Brannon said students at the college will use the center as a “learning lab” and gain hands-on experience working with kids.
“Working hands-on with the little ones who are actually attending the early childhood education center," Dr. Porter Brannon said. “So the goal is to recruit students from the City of Newport News into our early childhood education program to try and train them at the early childhood education center and then hopefully retain them in the community to continue teaching the students that they met when they were students at the college.”
Dr. Jennifer Parish of Hampton’s Peake Childhood Center explained: children at the center will receive care and early education in literacy and math and college students will be trained to fill the state’s “overwhelming” teacher shortage.
“I think this is a really unique partnership. The fact that a local government is providing the support to work with a nonprofit, as well as a community college, is a new model,” Dr. Parish said. “We’ll be developing our own workforce. So community members that want to come in and become early childhood teachers are going to have a place to do that as they take classes with the community college.”
It’s part of a wider multi-million-dollar plan by city leaders to revitalize the city’s southeast community.
Newport News mayor Dr. McKinley Price said city leaders are transforming Newport News’ Marshall-Ridley neighborhood by building new housing and developing strategic plans for local businesses to thrive.
“This is the center of our CNI grant: a $30 million grant we got in 2019," Dr. Price said. "It’s not just new housing but new futures, trying to transform a neighborhood, and part of that is building the foundation and our children are our foundation for the future.”
The Newport News Early Childhood Center is expected to open summer of 2024.
The Peake Childhood Center will be responsible for its daily operations, while the Virginia Peninsula Community College will base its Early Childhood Learning and Development center at the facility.