What’s Right With Our Schools: Tyner Academy Early Learning Center

CHATTANOOGA, TN (WDEF) – Tyner’s new Early Learning Center officially opened with the new school year. It provides affordable childcare for faculty and staff and a career pathway for students looking to get into the childcare field. That’s a far-reaching example of “What’s Right With Our Schools.”

“It is a childcare facility for our faculty and staff here at the school.  In addition to that, it is a work based learning site for all of our students who are not early learning, One Chattanooga early learning pathway that is a part of our UTC Institute of Teaching Lead and Learning.  One of the things that I was interviewing for teacher positions this year, several teachers said, I heard you have a daycare.  I said, I do. And one of the benefits of our daycare is it is essentially half of the market price. So where as it cost $400 at some off-site daycare, here is our teachers is paying less than half of that. Uhm to be a part of this leading early learning center,” said Rashaad Williams, Executive Principal at Tyner Middle High Academy.

“The Tyner Early Learning Center here at Tyner Academy is very unique but actually a community gem in that it’s one the only early learning center site for staff.  But it also provides a learning opportunity for the students here at the future ready at Tyner, that is following under the early childhood education pathway, which is the One Chattanooga Early Learning pathway through.  The city of Chattanooga is working it through the school and having it right here on site allows access.  So a lot of times they’re barriers to access for our students.  If they were going off site to work, they may not have transportation, they may not have a means to get there.  They may not have the ability to get there. But right here, they can come to school, get their education and also attain work opportunities while doing that; right here on site,” said Karitsa Mosley-Jones, an administrator at the Chattanooga Department of Early Learning.

“It’s so much more convenient. Um, they’ve been in childcare and that, the the teacher there has been phenomenal. But to be be able to have them here with me. They can come to school with me. I can already lunch packed. They can go home with me. It’s just it’s making much smoother for me,” said Dr. Katrich Hale, Assistant Principal at Tyner Middle High Academy.

“They have an opportunity to have their child here in the building while they work. So they can focus on what they need to focus on in reference to deliver an instruction.
But other piece of that is, ensuring we’re building a workforce to continue this work. We train our students to become the next teachers, to become the next child care workers, child care owners. And in that pathway, we believe in hands-on training. And so this is a training site for our students who are in their pathway, but also their
pay to work in their pathway,” said Williams.

“So, Chambliss Center for Children has partnered with Hamilton County Schools for over 20 years to do on-site childcare for the children of teachers. So it’s a recruitment and retention strategy for the school system that we have long been a partner with them in. So we will actually be operating the childcare center here at Tyner Academy. So it falls under our purview. We have to make sure everything’s licensed under our liability insurance all those things,” said Katie Harbison, President and CEO of Chambliss Center for Children.

“The other piece of that is, ensuring we’re building a workforce to continue this work in teaching early childhood education; all those pieces. So we have a path-way to Institute here at Tyner Middle High that does that. We’re going cradle to career over here in the Tyner community with this partnership with the best, so the best teachers are able to do it. We’re looking at cradle to career,” said Williams.