Grantee Spotlight: Q&A with BY5

Over a decade ago, Muncie’s business, school, and nonprofit leaders came together to rally around the opportunity to better prepare our community’s youngest learners for kindergarten—and beyond. With the support of local funders and other donors—including Ball Brothers Foundation—BY5 was created. While the organization continues to evolve to meet changing needs, its commitment to providing a strong foundation for early learning remains unchanged. 

Check out our Q&A with Missy Modesitt, Muncie BY5 Executive Director

Missy Modesitt

• Ten years ago when BY5 was established, what concerns were community leaders voicing and what opportunities did they see?

  Muncie BY5 was born out of the Muncie Action Plan after the group began looking at the local workforce and sought to find ways to strengthen our economy via a better prepared workforce. Kindergarten readiness is closely related to school success and later in life success. Research shows that children who are ready for kindergarten have experienced high-quality care and education during the first five years of life, a time when the brain and its neural connections are growing at an astronomical rate.   

  When BY5 was first established, there was a general lack of awareness of the importance of what happens during the early years and how that has an effect later in life. BY5’s initial impetus was to create this awareness and seek to make sure all children had access to high quality care. 

• One of BY5’s early efforts was focused on addressing the need for more childcare availability. What progress has been made on this and what are the biggest needs that remain?

  Delaware County has one of the highest concentrations of high-quality childcares in the state. We have more than tripled the number of high-quality providers over the past ten years. Average pay has increased from $11 to $14 per hour over the past few years, but this is still not enough pay for the importance of the work involved. We need to figure out how to raise the pay for professionals while decreasing the cost of care for families. Many families pay as much, or more than, college tuition to send their children to high quality care. 

• How did the pandemic impact our community’s youngest learners, and how are impacts still being felt today?

  The pandemic had a huge effect on our youngest learners; socially, emotionally, and academically. As we all experienced quarantine, childcare programs were also closed causing a disruption in the routines of our children. They were no longer able to be in a structured high-quality childcare setting as many were home with parents who were trying to work remotely or were not working at all.   

  As a result, we are now seeing children with delayed speech and language, and poor or no social skills. Children are exhibiting more severe emotional and behavioral issues as they were unable to be with peers in a high-quality social setting during critical brain development stages.   

  The work in the classroom is harder on the early childhood professionals and many have left the field as a result. Many of our programs have classrooms that are empty because they do not have enough staff. Some of our programs have even had to close because of lack of staff. Programs are coming to BY5 to learn how to handle these behavioral and developmental delays. We are addressing this through our Professional Learning Institute. 

• BY5 works closely with childcare centers throughout Delaware County, including large childcare centers, childcare ministries, and in-home providers. What are the top concerns you hear today from childcare providers in our county?

  Staffing is always a concern, the work is hard, and the pay is low, average is about $14 per hour in Delaware County. There are few to no benefits in the field and most of our childcare workers make an income that is below the poverty level. As a result, it is very hard to find and keep employees.  

  Behavioral issues and developmental delays are another major concern. Staff simply have not been trained to deal with children who are aggressive or are without speech at the preschool stage. 

“We focus on building strong and trusting relationships with our providers and we make certain they know we are not regulatory in any manner ... We are there to support and guide from our experience.”

— Missy Modesitt

• Over the past several years, BY5 has created a “Professional Learning Institute” for childcare workers. Tell us a little about what led to the creation of the Institute and what needs it fulfills.

  The overarching goal of BY5 is to improve kindergarten readiness as measured by the Essential Skills Checklist. We were not seeing much movement in those scores, so we started taking a deeper look at the programs in our community and what they were doing, academically, to prepare kids for kindergarten. After surveys and direct communication with early childhood professionals, it became clear that programs were not implementing developmentally appropriate practices and curricula.

  The Professional Learning Institute (PLI) started as a means to better educate those in the classroom about child development and curricula implementation. We started with a handful of our highest quality programs, we purchased curricula, we hired a trainer, and we incentivized their attendance at a month-long training series. During our time with these educators, we had discussions with them about what they felt was important to help them provide high-quality care and education and overwhelmingly, they wanted more training that was in-person with their peers and relevant to their current work.   

  Early childhood care and education professionals are required to complete a certain number of training hours, most of which were online and not interactive prior to the formation of the PLI. Because we have open communication with our local providers, we know their training needs and because we have so many wonderful partners—including BSU, Ivy Tech, IU East, and IUBMH—we’re able to quickly pull together professionals who can lead in-person, relevant trainings on just about any topic. 

• What are some of the most popular courses in the Institute?

  One of the most popular trainings in the PLI is the fellowship program. Through this opportunity, programs sign up for wrap around training with their classroom staff. Each participant attends group training, is observed by one of the trainers several times, and receives one-on-one coaching. We are currently in our second cohort and have had 100% positive reviews.

  Behavioral training, classroom management and spotting developmental delays are some of our most popular trainings.

  We also offer a 10-session family home childcare business series that covers all of the components of running a childcare business in the home. This is a very popular series as many home providers have no business background when they start caring for children. We have seen great success from some of our participants. For example, one home provider started the series with only three children in her care. After implementing what she had learned about marketing, she soon had a waiting list, and now she is looking to open a second program. 

• BY5 also provides one-on-one coaching for childcare workers. Tell us more about this support and how it’s making a difference.

  One-on-one coaching is embedded in everything we offer through PLI, but it is a specific focus of the business series and the fellowship program. We focus on building strong and trusting relationships with our providers and we make certain they know we are not regulatory in any manner; we are not there to “catch” them doing something wrong. We are there to support and guide from our experience.   

  Having someone in their classroom to objectively observe and offer advice and confirmation on their practices is something many have not had before. Not only does it make them better teachers, it improves their job satisfaction which leads to less staff turnover. 

• Ten years into BY5’s work, what are the biggest “wins” your organization has seen to date?

  Our biggest “win” is the strong relationships we have been able to build with our local providers. We say we want to be their first call when they need something and for many, we are. Because we have intentionally built relationships with local and state agencies involved in childcare, we are easily able to guide our providers to the right source of information in a very complicated system of regulations.  

  The PLI has been a major “win” for us. Being able to participate in in-person, relevant training with their local peers is something they have never had. BY5 is one of few coalitions to be able to offer this type of support to our local professionals.  

  Another “win” is the strong and sustained financial support we have received over our tenure for the work that we are doing. It is heartening to know that we’ve built strong awareness of the importance of high-quality early learning and care, enough that our supporters continue to recognize its value and fund our mission.