“We’re recovering, but we’re recovering slowly,” said Lee Bryant, PCTA President.

Bryant is the new president of the Pinellas Classroom Teachers Association, but this is his first year outside of the classroom after teaching high school for 28 years.

He saw firsthand how the COVID-19 pandemic affected teachers and students.

“I had no idea how to teach on Teams. Then we went away for Spring Break, and they said, ‘you’re not coming back.’ And I was like, ok, let’s figure this out. So there was a loss on the part of the teachers,” said Bryant.

He said learning loss wasn’t created by the pandemic but made it much worse.

“Learning loss has been a problem in the inner city, in poor areas, in places where there are parents who have two or three jobs quite often where they are not able to interact with their children. And it got amplified with the pandemic,” said Bryant.

“I think the pandemic presented a lot of challenges for students who were struggling to stay engaged and continue learning and making progress,” said Karen Boggess, JWB’s Chief Program Officer.

Newly released statewide test scores from the Florida Department of Education show that 50% of students in 3rd-10th grade tested on grade level or above in English Language Arts.

While 56% of 3rd-8th graders tested on grade level or above in math.

School officials said this shows that they are making improvements from pandemic-era learning, but not enough.

“And it still hasn’t caught up,” said Bryant.

Groups like the Juvenile Welfare Board of Pinellas County have been working around the clock through different programs to make sure students are catching up.

“It is extremely critical and important because we want all children in Pinellas to be successful and to be academically on track,” said Boggess.

As the start of the new school year looms, teachers want students and families to start getting ready now, fearing the summer slide will make it that much more difficult to learn when students return.

“Having children read on a regular basis every single day so they don’t get out of that pattern,” said Boggess.

They recommend dedicating about 30 minutes or more to reading every day to make the transition easier when school starts.

“They need to start preparing themselves by doing some of the mental gymnastics it will take when they go into school,” said Bryant.

“As parents get back into a structure with our kids, having them go to bed in a timely manner so that they are ready to go to school is also important,” said Boggess.

Read the article and watch the news segment with on-camera interviews at https://www.abcactionnews.com/news/region-pinellas/students-continue-to-battle-learning-loss-teachers-encourage-them-to-start-preparing-for-the-school-year-now

The Summer Book Bus is on the road in Pinellas County, working to combat learning loss through free books.

The bus makes an average of 70 stops across the county every summer and gives away nearly 10,000 free books in underserved neighborhoods.

“If a child is to pick their own book, they’re more likely to love it, enjoy it and read it,” said Joanna Maniscalco with the Juvenile Welfare Board.

The stops include libraries, communication recreation centers, family centers, childcare centers, schools and more.

Kids are invited onto the bus to pick two books to take home.

The bus is sponsored by the Juvenile Welfare Board in partnership with the school district. It’s part of JWB’s Early Readers, Future Leaders Grade-Level Reading Campaign.

The mission is to help curb summer slide, but this year there’s an extra need to get books to children who just graduated 3rd grade–those that were in kindergarten when the pandemic hit.

“Their last quarter of kindergarten, that’s when they ended up going home, basically, and not really having much schooling for nine weeks, and that really is when most of our kindergartners become readers,” explained Melissa Babanats, Principal of Lewis Elementary School in Hillsborough County.

While last years grades won’t be released until the fall in Florida, she said they’ve seen the rough numbers.

“We definitely saw a decline in our third grade this year, without a doubt,” Babanats said.

While the book bus will end soon, educators said parents and family members can help with reading loss.

“Read, read read. So one of the things I mean, as a parent myself, you know, no matter what your kids are reading have them read… from cereal boxes, to comic strips, it’s that whole practice makes perfect,” Babanats exclaimed.

See the remaining stops at https://www.jwbpinellas.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/2023-JWB-Summer-Book-Bus-Schedule.pdf

Read the UPDATED article and view the news segment with on-camera interviews at https://www.abcactionnews.com/news/region-pinellas/summer-book-bus-delivers-thousands-of-free-books-across-pinellas-county

The Summer Book Bus is on the road in Pinellas County, working to combat learning loss through free books.

The bus makes an average of 70 stops across the county every summer and gives away nearly 10,000 free books in underserved neighborhoods.

The stops include libraries, communication recreation centers, family centers, childcare centers, schools and more.

Kids are invited onto the bus to pick two books to take home.

The bus is sponsored by the Juvenile Welfare Board in partnership with the school district. It’s part of JWB’s Early Readers, Future Leaders Grade-Level Reading Campaign.

See the remaining stops at https://www.jwbpinellas.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/2023-JWB-Summer-Book-Bus-Schedule.pdf

Read the article as originally published at https://www.abcactionnews.com/news/region-pinellas/summer-book-bus-delivers-thousands-of-free-books-across-pinellas-county

Some Tampa Bay parents are struggling to not only find child care but also afford the cost as it outpaces the price of housing for some families, according to a report by Child Care Aware of America.

“We got kicked off the waitlist for three different home daycares before Ellowynne was even born, so yes, very stressful part of my unplanned pregnancy,” said Pinellas County mother Morgan Nelson. “I was on six different waiting lists of the only six places I could find that would take zero to one (year old.) I had no idea how I was going to go back to work at all.”

Nelson said she kept calling the learning center next to her work in Clearwater that had a capped closed waitlist of 45 families. She eventually got in.

“I am beyond thankful every day that I dropped my daughter off there because it is just literally the only solution,” she exclaimed. But that solution is still $385 a week.

According to Child Care Aware of America (CCAoA), the cost of child care in the U.S. averaged about $11,000 a year in 2022. That’s 10% of a married couple’s salary and 33% of a single parent’s salary for one child.

Nelson’s yearly bill is closer to $20,000.

CCAoA also found the price of care for two children exceeded average housing costs in the Midwest, the Northeast and the South. It also exceeds annual in-state tuition across the country.

With people moving to Tampa Bay at record rates, the rise in the cost of child care is a reflection of demand and inflation. The Early Learning Center of Pinellas County adds that many centers are also short-staffed and have to leave children on the waitlist.

The childcare crisis is why it’s a day of celebration in St. Petersburg at the grand opening of the newly renovated Happy Workers R’club Early Learning Academy, now big enough for nearly 150 children with eligibility for scholarships.

“We received $350,000 from the legislature. We have received donations from private funders, and we have received Juvenile Welfare Board funding as well,” said Debra Ballinger, Executive Director R’Club Child Care.

The early education center’s focus is on ages zero to five, with emphasis on two months to three years old.

“One of the greatest needs is for the Zero to Three population,” Ballinger explained. “We find that families are desperately seeking quality education for their younger children and the costs that’s involved with zero to three with the lower ratios and all of the mandates sometimes is very prohibiting for certain families.”

St Petersburg mother Brittany Dillard has three children enrolled at the Happy Day R’Club center.

“Having childcare… is honestly on the same level as having a mortgage,” she exclaimed. “Having your children in school and especially in a place like happy workers where they can receive a quality education, you know that they’re being educated for the amount that you’re paying is definitely a really big deal.”

“Eighty percent of the brain is developed in the first three years and yet there are not enough high-quality early learning institutions in places in Pinellas County or elsewhere,” said Beth Houghton, CEO/Juvenile Welfare Board of Pinellas County. “So our funding is about a million dollars towards this project on an annual basis not just to assure that it is here and it provides the care that you would find in other places, but that it is a higher level of care.”

The Florida legislature recently approved an additional million dollars into the state’s school readiness program to help parents afford child care, but most working families don’t qualify.

“The Early Learning Center of Pinellas County has partnered with the Juvenile Welfare Board to create an additional expanded scholarship program to help some of those families to start meeting those needs and reach, but there’s more that needs to be done,” said Lindsay Carson, with the Early Learning Coalition of Pinellas County.

The Economic Policy Institute recommends state childcare reform that caps families’ childcare expenses at 7% of their income.

They said this would, in turn, allow more than 75,000 parents to enter the labor force and generate $7.6 billion for the economy.

“The Child Care and Development Block Grant Act (CCDBG) is a law that authorizes the Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF) program. CCDF is administered by states, territories and tribes and outlines how federal funds will be used to provide financial assistance to low-income families to access child care. This hub page provides information on CCDBG and the CCDF state plans, which states are currently in the process of developing for years 2022-2024.”

Read more about the block grant plan here.

View the article, with video interviews–including JWB CEO Beth A. Houghton–as originally published at https://www.abcactionnews.com/news/in-depth/most-families-now-pay-more-for-child-care-than-housing

April Putzulu, director of strategic communications at the Juvenile Welfare Board, has been honored with the “Spirit of Community” award by the Florida Commission on the Status of Women.

Putzulu is the only Tampa Bay honoree of 11 women across the state who were recognized by the commission during a June 28 ceremony in Orlando.

The Commission’s award spotlights Putzulu’s 36 years of service to Florida’s children and families and her passion for developing creative prevention programs and campaigns—many of which remain in existence today, according to a press release.

Putzulu’s career has centered on children and youth; first as a probation officer with the Department of Juvenile Justice and later with Operation PAR leading substance prevention programs, which resulted in two National Safe & Drug Free Schools designations. She led efforts to create the Heart Gallery of Pinellas and Pasco, and partnered with the media on feature stories, including the viral piece by Tampa Bay Times’ Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Lane DeGregory about 16-year-old Davion who wanted “someone, anyone” to adopt him.

Putzulu is currently leading a new birth-to-three campaign, Turbo Babies, fueled by JWB, to support parents and caregivers as their child’s first and best teachers. Turbo Babies represents the rapid pace at which children birth to three develop and grow and shares everyday activities caregivers can use to encourage early connections and nurture a baby’s drive to learn.

View the article as originally published at https://www.tbnweekly.com/pinellas_county/article_8d36dbca-2017-11ee-8402-1b9bd5e2c8c3.html

They were fireworks with a purpose.

Tuesday evening, on a warm but clear evening, the fireworks that illuminated the sky over Raymond H. Neri Community Park marked the first community Fourth of July celebration ever hosted in Lealman, a community of roughly 30,000 residents just north of St. Petersburg.

“I think this is great for the community,” said Raelynn Tamura, who took in the fireworks with her family.

And the festival wasn’t just about fireworks. There were games, food trucks, and free hot dogs.

To Nicole Bartlett — who watched the fireworks alongside Tamura — the event represented a special moment in Lealman’s history.

“Everybody seems to be coming together,” she said.

As Jim Millican can attest, that wasn’t always the case.

“When you drove through here many years ago, it was very run down, very poor looking, things weren’t taken care of,” said Millican, the Division Chief of Lealman Fire District, who’s lived in Lealman since 1988. “We had a lot of problem areas where we had a lot of drugs going on, a lot of drug overdoses, a lot of spouse abuse.”

In 2016, Pinellas County commissioners adopted a plan — with nine main objectives — to redevelop Lealman through both public and private investment. Lealman was designated a Community Redevelopment Area (CRA).

“Guided by the community and supported by data and analysis, the plan will lay the foundation for the county, property owners, and developers setting forth specific expectations, roles, relationships, and participation (guidelines, standards, roles) by the public and private sector to ensure the successful redevelopment of the Lealman CRA,” the plan explained.

Just a few years later, Millican has noticed results.

“The revitalization has changed the look of Lealman,” he said. “Revitalizing and rebuilding homes, putting in new homes, new housing, new apartment complexes — really a much nicer community.”

The work, however, isn’t done. The county wants to lure more economic development and affordable housing to Lealman. According to Tom Almonte, the Assistant County Administrator for Pinellas County, several affordable housing developments are in the works.

“You’re going to see at least between 150 and 200 new homes that are going to be available to the community, and that’s significant,” he said.

The redevelopment plan for Lealman also calls for more “community pride” and identity, and that’s the reason behind this first-ever Fourth of July festival.

More events will likely follow as Lealman continues to transform.

“I look forward to seeing what the next five years brings,” said Bartlett.

View the video and read the article as originally published at https://www.abcactionnews.com/news/region-pinellas/embracing-a-new-identity-lealman-holds-first-ever-july-4th-celebration