Georgia
Georgia's early child care educators to receive $500 annual bonuses
Georgia’s early child care programs bonuses
Teachers and staff working in Georgia’s early child care programs are now eligible to receive a big thank you in the form of cash. A new state initiative recognized their hard work with a bonus.
ATLANTA – Teachers and staff working in Georgia’s early child care programs are now eligible to receive a big thank you in the form of a cash bonus.
What we know:
The bonuses are $500.
State officials say it is not just about recognizing teachers, but they also hope it helps recruit more people into the industry and retain the talent they already have.
The Georgia Department of Early Care and Learning, known as DECAL, is giving the annual bonuses to teachers and support staff across the state.
The new initiative which was launched this year is for staffers at Quality Rated Child Care facilities. Those are providers who exceed minimum standards. DECAL says the program is among the first of its kind in the nation.
The $17-million being used for this comes from a grant.
Thousands of childcare workers are eligible for this statewide.
The plan is to do these bonuses every year and Amy Jacobs, the DECAL commissioner, says if things go well they could look at increasing the bonuses in the future.
What they’re saying:
Cierra Scott has a job she loves at Little Linguists International Preschool in DeKalb County.
“I love coming back to the kids and them just showing me love, showing them love and just knowing that I am a big part of their life,” she said.
Scott started working at the school as an intern and is now full-time. Georgia early child care educators like her are now eligible for that bonus.
“It’s amazing, it feels good and it’s also great to know that the state has our back and that they see our hard work,” she said.
DECAL says it is all about reward hard workers.
“We’ve heard over and over again they’re not paid well; they make between $12 and $14 an hour on average throughout Georgia,” Jacobs said. “There are definitely recruitment and retention issues, and we want to do anything we can to help recruit and retain teachers to our industry.”
Jacobs is hopeful the recognition helps the educators.
“I hope that teachers realize that we value them, we want them to stay in our industry and continue to provide this high quality care,” Jacobs said.
Scott was one of the first to get the bonus and she’s thankful for the recognition.
“It just felt like a blessing, honestly, the timing of it like it was the perfect timing,” Scott said.
What you can do:
For more information on the new Quality Rated Workforce Bonuses, please visit https://decalqrpayments.com/quality-rated-workforce-bonus/. You can also contact Care Solutions at support@decalqrpayments.com or 770-642-6722 ext. 613. For general Quality Rated information, please contact the QR Provider Help Desk at 1-855-800-7747 or email QualityRated@decal.ga.gov.
The Source: FOX 5’s Tyler Fingert spoke with child care workers for this article.
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USA Today Network
Kirk Fordice-like Rick Jackson is sounding a whole lot like Daniel Kirkwood Fordice as he tries to be elected Georgia’s next governor.
Fordice came out of nowhere — actually, Vicksburg is somewhere but you know what I mean — in 1991 to become a two-term Mississippi governor.
He had money but nothing like Jackson, a billionaire businessman who’s also trying to emerge from nowhere politically to win Georgia’s top office.
“The establishment hated Trump, because they couldn’t control him. They are going to hate me,” Jackson says in an ad for Georgia’s Republican Primary on May 19, sounding like one of my favorite Mississippi governors — Fordice, because of his unpredictable personality (he could vilify or charm you, all in one sentence), not his politics. He died in 2004 of cancer.
I stood by a cafe entrance one morning, waiting to cover a Fordice speech. When he appeared, I stuck out my hand to shake his. “I’m not shaking your damn hand. You’re part of the problem down there (referring to the newspaper),” he told me, smiling and moving on.
Jackson rose to become one of economic giant-Georgia’s wealthiest people. He came from Atlanta’s rough midtown area, ending up in the foster care system. He left college due to poor financial circumstances.
The 71-year-old Jackson wormed his way into the dynamic city’s business scene in the late 1970s, mostly of the healthcare variety with mixed success before starting a workforce staffing and services company and later an antibiotics manufacturing plant. He turned those businesses into billion-dollar enterprises.
“It’s God’s money,” he said in rural Blakely, and he’s been charitable with it.
Jackson doesn’t try to hide his vast wealth. His family lives in a 48,000-square-foot mansion at Cumming, a place of nearly 100,000 people near Atlanta in Forsyth County, which once promoted its almost all-white population as a virtue.
Atlanta Journal-Constitution columnist Bill Torpy recently wrote that Jackson will spend a ton of his own money in seeking another mansion, the one occupied by Georgia’s governor. Torpy noted that present Lt. Gov. Burt Jones was once heavily favored to win the primary race, but he’s fallen behind Jackson’s bold money bid.
“The one-time front-runner in the Republican primary (Jones) has been relegated to No. 2, the result of a $100 million Mack truck running him over.
Rick Jackson, a billionaire healthcare tycoon, a man with a sly smile and reptilian gaze, is the guy driving that truck,” Torpy wrote.
The GOP field includes Secretary of State Brad Raffensberger, who spurned Trump’s demand to find 11,780 votes that would’ve allowed him to win Georgia in 2020.
Fordice was effective with some bombastic rhetoric during his run for governor, but I don’t remember it reaching the histrionic level employed by Jackson. In a major ad blitz, often referencing (Georgia college student) Laken Riley’s murderer, Jackson promises that unauthorized immigrants committing violent crimes will be “deported or departed … any questions?”
In another ad, Jackson growled, “Like President Trump, I don’t owe anybody anything, and like you, I’m sick of career politicians.”
Fordice spent only $1 million to get himself elected Mississippi’s governor. He somewhat sneaked up on the establishment, riding no escalator to the first floor of his Vicksburg concrete river mats-contracting office to declare his intentions. Who could ever forget his announcement seeking the governorship that ran on page 5 of the Clarion Ledger?
Recent polling ahead of Georgia’s May primaries for governor shows the eventual Republican nominee faces a strong Democrat in the November general election, most likely former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms. That’ll require another whole pot of money.
— Mac Gordon, a native of McComb, is a retired Mississippi newspaperman. He can be reached at macmarygordon@gmail.com.
Gulfstream recently announced a $5 million investment in Georgia education, welcoming students and leaders to its Savannah headquarters.
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