Legislation on Learning

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SGA president and vice president elected

Feb. 21, the “Gassensmith & Lindstrand” ticket, comprised of presidential nominee Joseph Gassensmith and vice presidential nominee Monet Lindstrand, was elected as Ball State Student Government Association’s (SGA) 2023-24 president and vice president. They received 68 percent of the vote. The inauguration is April 19 at 3:15 p.m. in Cardinal Hall in the L.A. Pittenger Student Center.

National EPA takes control of Ohio rail disaster

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will require rail company Norfolk Southern to clean up the contamination and will take control of the response to the train crash, the agency’s head said Feb. 21. EPA administrator said Norfolk Southern will be required to clean the area using a plan approved by EPA instead of the voluntary cleanup its CEO had previously pledged.

International China mine collapse leaves at least two dead and 50 missing

An open pit mine collapsed Feb. 22 in China’s northern inner Mongolia region, state media reported. The official Xinhua News Agency said people were buried under debris at the mine in Alxa League. It said six people were rescued, and 53 are still marked as missing. Xinhua said more than 300 rescue workers operating 129 rescue vehicles were participating in the search.

Alex Bracken Visual Editor

Walking into the Mitchell Early Childhood and Family Center, visitors may notice a few things that are not typical of day cares. All the doors are propped open; walls and tables outside rooms are filled with art crafted from twigs, pinecones and rocks; children roam freely around the classroom; the playground is filled with logs and wooden spools.

Jennifer Young is an associate lecturer at Ball State University’s Department of Early Childhood, Youth and Family Studies and the campus liaison for the Mitchell Center. The center opened in 2019 at the former site of Mitchell Elementary School as a partnership between Ball State and the YMCA of Muncie.

The Mitchell Center’s unique approach to early learning, a style called the Reggio Emilia approach, is the source of many of those unique qualities.

“The Reggio Emilia style has an emphasis on respect for children,” Young said. “So children are really in charge of their own learning.” of an emotional impact that it would have on me,” Butcher said. “Just knowing that with these kids, you’re teaching them everything from scratch.”

Haley Butcher, fourth-year family and child major at Ball State, first learned about the Mitchell Center through an infant and toddler development course held at the center’s lab school. After the class ended, she decided to apply for a part-time job there. Through her experiences there, Butcher learned that even though working with young children can be rewarding, it can also be difficult.

One of the challenges Young faces is keeping staff energized and connecting staff members. She said they regularly plan pitch-in dinners, hold celebrations for big life events and give staff their birthdays off.

“It’s very draining, and when people get drained, they need the opportunity to be filled back up again,” Young said. “So this type of work is really work that needs multiple supports on a lot of different levels.”

In Indiana, participating child care providers are rated on the Paths to QUALITY scale, which assigns levels from one to four. Level one providers meet basic health and safety requirements, while level four providers are nationally accredited.

The Mitchell Center is rated level four under Indiana’s Paths to QUALITY program and accredited by the National Association for the Education of Young Children. These advanced accreditations have stricter requirements, which can make finding qualified staff more difficult.

“There was a time period where we just really didn’t have people who are qualified to work in this field,” Young said.

Because the Mitchell Center is a lab school, Young said they rely on students like Butcher from Ball State, Ivy Tech and the Muncie Area Career Center to volunteer at the center as part of their course work. During the beginning of COVID-19, when classes went online, the Mitchell Center lost that help. Young also said the pandemic was difficult for those who worked through it.

“This is hard work to be in this field, and you need people that are physically able, mentally able, socially able and emotionally able to work with young children and their families,” she said. “The mental, emotional and social toll of COVID[-19] has really impacted us.”

Child care providers aren’t the only ones who have been affected by staff shortages. For parents, it can make an already daunting search even more difficult.

Isaiah Kimp, second-year social studies teaching major at Ball State, called the Mitchell Center in March 2022 to add himself to their waitlist, just a month after he found out his girlfriend, Marisela Rodriguez, was pregnant.

Kimp’s son, Khepri, is now 7 months old and is still on the waitlist for the Mitchell Center. When the fall semester started in August 2022, Kimp had to scramble to find an opening at another provider, so he and his girlfriend could start the semester.

“It became very frustrating when we both started class,” Kimp said. “What’s upsetting is that Muncie has day cares, but every day care has a waitlist, and my biggest challenge was trying to figure out how long each waitlist was.”

Chances and Services for Youth (CASY) is the child care resource and referral center that serves 24 counties in Central Indiana, including Delaware County. Kristi Burkhart is the director of CASY’s child care resource and referral center, and Jennifer Lee is a community engagement specialist. Lee said staff shortages are one factor currently challenging child care providers in the area.

“Child care providers are needing staff. And because they are lacking staff, they are not able to fill the seats that they normally would — so the licensed capacity numbers are not being met right now,” she said.

Licensed capacity is an estimate of the amount of children each provider can care for while staying compliant with licensing standards. For example, there must be one caregiver for every four infants and no more than eight infants per classroom. According to the Indiana Business Research Center, the number of child care workers still has not recovered from the COVID-19 pandemic.

4See CHILD CARE, 14

Typical Household Expenses in Delaware County by Type

Source: MIT Living Wage Calculator