BATON ROUGE, La. (BRPROUD) — Inside the Kidz Karousel Early Childhood Developmental Center, state and business leaders attend ‘Baton Rouge Early Ed Day’ event to learn about early education in Baton Rouge. The mission of the event is to shine a light on what is being done in the state as Louisiana early education month wraps up.

Conversations on funding were also discussed, like the $87 million in Gov. Landry’s executive and state budget.

“Governor Landry and his executive budget, he maintained the $87 million that has been in the state budget to make sure that young families and their children have access to quality, early care and education. So, for a new governor to come in right at the bat and to say we’re going to make sure that we maintain this $87 million in our state budget is huge,” said executive director of Louisiana Policy Institute for Children, Libbie Sonnier.

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“Maintaining that money in the budget means that children won’t have to lose access to service,” said Sonnier to the audience in the event.

Trey Godfrey, senior vice president of policy, in the Baton Rouge Area Chamber, even said early education services are helping the economy.

“The capital region has its largest labor force participation rate ever in this entire region. Why is that enabled? Folks have opportunities to put their children in high quality early care in education environments,” Godfrey said.

Tessa Holloway, owner of Kidz Karousel, agrees and said funding for early education is essential and should be a top priority.

“We need them like this will change the trajectory of the entire state, the economy, the juvenile justice reform. They’re trying to do everything. This would change everything. Having the children with a solid foundation,” said Holloway.

Sonnier also emphasized that those in support of early education must do their part and urged them to call state representatives.

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“We need you to call them. We need to say thank you for working with Gov. Landry to maintain that $87 million in the state budget,” Sonnier said.

Other people who participated in this event were Capital Area United Way, the Baton Rouge Area Chamber, the East Baton Rouge Early Childhood Coalition, the Louisiana Policy Institute for Children, the Louisiana Early Childhood Business Roundtable, and the Louisiana Association of United Ways.

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