SARASOTA, Fla — An interactive dashboard is now live in Florida with all kinds of data spanning cradle to career. The Florida Chamber Foundation calls it the Florida Talent Center Data Hub. It's a place for anyone to see how well our state is doing when it comes to childcare access and how it impacts Florida's workforce.
WATCH full report by Heather Leigh
You can find metrics for things like the cost of childcare, how many kids are ready for kindergarten, the high school graduation rate, the top five majors for college students, and even the statewide unemployment rate, plus who's in our state's labor force.
The Florida Chamber Foundation thinks it will benefit not just organizations and businesses, but parents, too.
When you send your baby off to childcare, it's so hard. And when you think about their future, it's even more gut-wrenching.
“I think about that all the time, like the day that he leaves, I'm going to be a hot mess," said Stephanie Sparrow as she talked about her son Asher. "I'm trying not to think about that already.”
Sparrow is already dreaming of who her son will become.
“I feel like every parent wants their kid to be kind and happy. So those are like my two goals for him," she said. "But I mean, more so than that, like I want him to be able to be independent, be a leader, [and] show empathy towards others.”
For Asher, the work starts here at Baby Fox Academy in Sarasota.
“It's important, early literacy skills, early math skills. But for me, more so than that, it's like the social emotional part that you can't teach them at home," Sparrow said. "Especially cause my son is an only child, he doesn't get that interaction with children all day.”
Asher attends the Baby Fox Academy in zip code 34240—and according to metrics from the new Florida Talent Center Data Hub, he’s one of the 72.5% of 3–4-year-olds enrolled in early learning programs in that area.
“It is really designed to be a one-stop shop centralized location all the way from cradle to career," said Makayla Buchanan, the Director of Early Learning and Literacy at the Florida Chamber Foundation.
The Florida Chamber Foundation created and is running the four dashboards in partnership with Helios Education Foundation. You can see data from early learning, K-12, post-secondary, and the workforce.
“You truly can see what's the availability, the affordability of childcare, all the way through what is somebody earning one, five, maybe even 10 years after they graduate with a certain degree from a certain school or a technical program," Buchanan said. "Just as folks think about how they're going to plan their talent pipelines.”
She said it’s a great tool for businesses and organizations to figure out where to place resources in the community to build a better and more robust workforce for the future.
“Like, where will it make sense to partner in a middle school or high school level? Are there programs where college-age students are enrolling in certain technical programs, or is there a gap and a need from industry, but there's not really a clear career pathway for students from the same community to get to those careers?" Buchanan said.
From the early learning standpoint, she points out businesses can look at the data and decide if it’s beneficial for them to offer childcare options to their employees now so they can continue working and not quit to stay at home with the kids.
“It's a huge cost. I mean, we're lucky enough to have two working parents that are able to afford it, but I don't know how single parents or anybody on their own without help, or if not making enough, do it and make it every year or every month," Sparrow said.
If you have a childcare or early learning story you'd like to tell me about, e-mail me at Heather.Leigh@wfts.com.
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