Recently passed legislation will bring more funds to San Mateo County early childhood learning programs, though child care facilities are not yet sure how the funds will be distributed.

Gov. Gavin Newson signed Assembly Bill 131 into law in July, which increases rates, provides rate parity for all child care providers, and sets the stage for broad rate reform. It ensures 200,000 more child care slots over the next five years and provides $250 million to retrofit, upgrade or expand child care facilities.

Newsom also signed SB 130 on July 9, which makes transitional kindergarten free for all 4-year-olds in California.

"In my district, these moves would increase rates by a projected 30% a strong step toward the professional wage rate care providers deserve," said state Sen. Josh Becker, D-Menlo Park, in a statement. Becker called the increased funding "truly historic."

"It's easy to get lost in the terminology of rate reform or childcare slots, but at the end of the day there are kids that are going to be served (because of this legislation)," he said. "Women and men who are going to get back to work. ... Child care work force pay is so low; everybody knows this is a critical time at brain development."

Karen Pace, who manages strategic development for All Five preschool in Menlo Park's Belle Haven neighborhood, said in an email that the increased funding helps all state-supported early childhood programs in a meaningful way.

"Sen. Becker's efforts to improve the education of young children and the lives of their families is truly remarkable," she said.

She said she's most hopeful that the funding increases will allow All Five to serve more children and families who are in urgent need of infant, toddler, and preschool education and care. The bill unquestionably will positively impact its early childhood education model, she said.

The state's 2021 budget also allocated $1 million to the county's The Big Lift early learning initiative, a San Mateo County initiative that has served 10,000 children since 2012 and is dedicated to improving literacy among county children. According to the county, the funds will go toward a five-week summer learning program with full-day STEAM (science, technology, engineering, art and mathematics) and literacy enrichment for 1,200 low-income kindergarten through third grade students The funds will also support the implementation of a literacy program for the 2021-22 school year for 720 low-income preschool students.

Dayna Chung, co-founder and executive director of the Community Equity Collaborative (CEC), a Menlo Park-based nonprofit that was formed in 2017 to help solve educational inequities, said that it seems as if legislators have succeeded in pushing for sizable investments in early care and education.

"At CEC, we have been saying for over a year that there is no recovery without child care; this desperately needed funding is a very good start to providing short-term relief coupled with foundations for systemic change, including rate increases and expanded access," she said. "In order for every child to have access to high-quality care and education and every educator to have a livable wage unparalleled investments like the one legislators agreed to (recently) must become the norm. At CEC, we are eager to see how local, state and federal resources can be used to support workforce development initiatives that are essential to addressing educator shortages and low wages. Child care is infrastructure."

She noted proposals in Washington, D.C., for free community college and efforts here in San Mateo County to launch apprenticeships along with other career pathways are key to growing and equipping early educators to provide high-quality care in a variety of settings.