Sen. Billy Hickman is a CPA by trade and has been a partner with Dabbs, Hickman, Hill & Cannon for more than 30 years in Statesboro. But now, a veteran of six General Assembly sessions in Atlanta, Hickman flatly states: “Literacy has become a priority for me in the Senate.”

On Monday, Hickman and his wife JoAnn were at Kids World Learning Center on Savannah Avenue reading to pre-K classrooms as part of Georgia Pre-K Week. Hickman has read to children at Kids World on several occasions and discussed with the center’s leader/owner Michelle Smith Lank the importance of early childhood education for not only literacy, but in creating a foundation for future success in school.

The Hickmans each read a children’s book co-authored by former University of Georgia football player Malcolm Mitchell — “The Magician’s Hat” and “Every Amazing Song.” Each pre-K child received their own copy of Every Amazing Song to take home, as well.

“It’s both inspiring and helpful to me to come to Kids World and see how a really good child care center helps these youngsters get started,” Hickman said. “We really are trying to do more in the Legislature and visits like today’s help me as I talk to other legislators.”

Susan Adams, Deputy Commissioner for Georgia’s Pre-K Program, also came to Kids World Monday and spoke about some of the legislative successes in the past few years that have helped pre-K education efforts.

“Teachers had a big win in the legislature two years ago when salary parity with K-12 was approved,” Adams said. “They are being paid the same amount from the state for a pre-K teacher as a high school physics teacher.”

Also, Adams said additional pre-K funding two years ago allowed class sizes to be reduced from 22 to 20 and paid for an additional 100 classes across the state.

Still, Adams said not-enough capacity remains an issue across the state, mainly in very rural, smaller communities and in heavily populated areas of metro Atlanta. However, in some areas there are pre-K seats available, including Bulloch County. Lank said she thought there were about 30 state-funded spots unused across Bulloch.

Adams estimate Monday that about 20 percent of eligible pre-k students across the state are not enrolled.

“This is the first year we've had spots open,” Adams said. “The surveys we’ve done indicate parents love pre-K. They say it's easy to register. But we're looking at that data. We're going to do some family focus groups to learn more how parents are choosing programs.

“We've never done a lot of marketing of the program but we are going to start some targeted marketing to families in certain areas to make sure all families know it's available, it's free of charge, it's high quality, that it's both for public and private.”

Adams had high praise for Kids World.

“When you think of high quality, Kids World is always going to come to the top,” she said. “Michelle (operates) a three-star quality program. She's nationally accredited. She's had a Georgia pre-K teacher of the year. She participates in any opportunity that the agency has to improve quality. Kids World's a great representative of what high-quality child care looks like.”

Lank has been affiliated with Kids World for more than 20 years. She currently is president of the Georgia Child Care Association and advocates to help improve centers across the state.

“Along with the successes, I see the struggles and challenges for child care programs,” she said. “During COVID, funding helped stabilize child care centers, but once that funding went away, a lot of the programs had to close due to higher insurance costs and rising property taxes.”

Lank suggested to Hickman the state might consider a property-tax break for fully-licensed child care centers.

Also, “there are a couple of different ways the state of Georgia could support and stabilize childcare in Georgia,” Lank said. “We're the workforce behind the workforce, and we're setting that foundation for education. (The state has) billions of dollars in reserve that if we took a small portion and earmarked the interest for early childcare, then parents could afford high-quality child care.”

Adams said she will visit 10 child care centers this week for Georgia Pre-K Week and she encourages “every state leader, local leaders, mayors, county commissioners, state agency heads, to visit a pre-K program in their own community.

“Children are learning the most between birth and 5. So, think about that investment. If we can invest earlier, then think how much more success the children will have in their school careers.”