Late last year voters in Pitkin, Garfield, and Eagle county approved a measure to raise sales taxes by .0025% and form a new childcare district. Childcare in the Roaring Fork Valley from Aspen to Parachute is both expensive and somewhat sparse. According to data from the organization that introduced the bill, more than half of children under five in the Aspen to Parachute area lack access to a licensed childcare provider. Here is 7A proponent Rob Stein speaking with KDNK last fall.
"There's no more important time in the development of the human being than those first five years. That's when 90% of brain development happens. And children who have access to high quality early childhood education and c childcare are not only, um, more ready for kindergarten. They do better in school, they have better developed social emotional skills, things like, self-regulation, self-control, building healthy relationships. And those skills persist throughout the lifetime."
Now the Confluence Early Childhood Development Service District is fully launching. It's governed by a board of five elected directors who represent five distinct regions. The board holds regular public meetings on the second Thursday of every month in the Colorado Mountain College campus in Glenwood Springs.
The district recently received confirmation that anticipated funding will arrive in March rather than June as previously expected. Current efforts are focused on gathering community feedback and developing internal systems of governance and insight.
