Dr. Iheoma Iruka is a professor and researcher at University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. She serves as a Fellow at UNC’s Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute (FPG), where she is the Founding Director of the Equity Research Action Coalition. Dr. Iruka has authored numerous articles as well as a book, “Don’t Look Away: Embracing the Anti-Bias Classroom,” published in April 2020 by Gryphon House. She has spent seven years in service to Durham PreK, first in 2016 on the Preschool Task Force and then as a founding member and first chair of Durham PreK’s Governance Committee. Dr. Iruka has seen Durham PreK through all stages, from idea to implementation and through continuous improvements. 

Dr. Iruka, with your support and leadership, Durham PreK has moved from 90 locally funded seats in its initial year, 2019-2020, to 653 locally funded seats in the current year, 2023-2024. Did you imagine in the program’s first year that it would see sevenfold growth in locally funded seats by its fifth year of operation? To what do you attribute that extraordinary growth? 

Wow. You know, you don’t put it together that way, but that's actually huge, especially because in the midst of a global pandemic, that was extraordinarily difficult for the early child care community. I feel like a lot of it was that there was a vision, that no matter what, it was going to happen. The attention to the provider community, the workforce, [was important] because we understood that they were the linchpin between having the program be what we want it to be and also children getting a high quality program. 

I think the support of the County Commissioners and the partners – from CCSA to Durham’s [Public School] Pre-K, to Head Start (now Families & Communities Rising), to Durham’s Partnership for Children – when you have the core folks in the early childhood community in Durham [who] may not all agree on everything; may not have the same funding, governance, and auspices; but [who] are committed, to me, that can only happen because you have a vision. You have the community, the structure’s there, you focus on those who matter the most, which is really the educators and the providers, and you have the voices of the providers in the room. We had a luxury in some ways, being able to have actual providers’ voices there to help sharpen and shape some of the intense decisions we had to make. I think that's the only way it could have happened, so I’ve got to applaud everybody who made this possible. 

In the 2018 planning year, and even at the start of the first year of implementation, no one could have foreseen the COVID-19 pandemic. Right out of the gate, Durham PreK, and all of early education, was faced with the challenge of responding to a public health emergency. Recovery for the field, I think everyone agrees, is going to take a long time. What did you feel like you learned about the program’s resilience, and what challenges continue to linger in terms of recovery? 

We know that the issue that Durham was trying to [address] was just to make sure that [Durham PreK] was, in essence, a universal program. Because NC Pre-K is restricted by income, they wanted to create what I would say is a more robust system [while] ensuring that children who live in poverty are not only going to poor schools or that there's more economic integration. I feel like that's an important part to flag. There are things to build off of that – the providers and the workforce and the alignment between the pay for the early educators and Durham Public Schools. I think that really matters, that there's that alignment – at least the salary, not necessarily the benefits. I think that would be one of the things I’d flag in terms of areas to continue to contend with. But I think [salary] alone is really helpful. You're doing the same job, in essence, and you just happen to have this significant difference in pay based on the setting you're in? That's a huge one – that pay parity was really quite significant, and I think that is one that will continue to move forward. 

I think that continued engagement between Durham Public Schools, Durham’s Partnership for Children, Families & Communities Rising, and a lot of other providers is still really important to continue so that you still have this robust group of system leaders that are always at the table, in good and bad times. And of course, the issue of advocacy – I think Durham PreK was an example to other places in the state around how to go from 90 to 653 in a matter of a few years. They were an example of how to do that through commitment from your city officials, but also the providers. The advocacy community was, I think, pretty strong, and building off of that, as well, would be really important. I think making sure that when the stabilization grants came in, when any dollar that came in went right to the workforce at some time or another, whether it's through the provider increase, whether through bonus pay, it means the money was put where it was always needed. 

With that said, that's going to be the continuing struggle – that you have a workforce that is still held up by women, particularly black and brown women, women of color, who often struggle with making a similar income as their male counterparts and white people counterparts. So, you're still going to have that [question] of whether parity is enough to withstand what people are experiencing, and in particular the benefits – health benefits and health care and other kinds of retirement benefits – because we are seeing the aging of the workforce. The people who might have been coming in are like, “This is not a job for me because I'm going to have to work 80 hours a week, be underpaid, undersupported, undervalued, and not be treated respectfully.” 

I think Durham has done a remarkable job and they really do what they can, but there’s still both the state and how much they've contributed to early childhood education funding, and then also society writ large. I think we still have to contend with the national ecosystem of early childhood and how the lack of funding and infrastructure is still going to be there. I think the cost is going to be a contention. With inflation, and providers not being able to pay more for things than they already do, the cost of it, I think, is going to be insurmountable. Those who don't have any or don’t have a lot of money are going to have to suffer. I think you're going to have this supply and demand issue, especially with the recent sunset of the Federal [emergency childcare funding] in October. There's just some of those headwinds - without more money from the state, with potentially the new rate improvement system standards, and there's all these other reforms happening – without more significant dollars coming into the state and then eventually the local, there may be some hard decisions that have to be made in terms of whether we can sustain the parity of payments, the access to families. How [many teachers] will come into the system and stay? I think the whole entire pathway of recruitment and retention is going to still be a significant challenge. I would still say that Durham, including the County Commissioners, continue to show that they're willing to put their money where their mouth is in many regards, and I think that's what we can lean on.

In our last interview in February 2022, you said of Durham PreK that the “central goal is to make sure we have a strong, well-qualified, well compensated workforce, because we believe that's what's going to get us eventually to a universal model.” What are some strides made and yet to come in supporting teachers’ professional development and compensation?

Honestly, I think that there has been a continued focus on making sure that the whole entire early childhood system, regardless of where you teach, whether it's a Head Start program, a school system or community based program, I think there have been strides making sure that there's at least some level of professional development overall. CCSA, I think, just did a great job making sure that that's happening in many regards. I feel like there's been a lot of focus on that – how to make sure that teachers get the CLASS (Classroom Assessment Scoring System®) training that they need, how to actually use their assessments to improve. I think that's an important piece that we can continue to lean on. 

However, I will say that you can’t only PD (professional development) your way out of the issue. If you want people to get more education, you want them to have all the credentials, they have to see the payment on the other side. That, I think, is just the tension that we're in. I also wonder if the PD system needs to be so intense and so much if we actually paid people at a high level [to] go get the degrees and be adequately compensated. That's not where we are now. You have people go get the degrees, and they're not able to actually pay for the loans that they use, so it doesn't actually connect or align, so your degree isn’t commensurate with what you make. How do you continue to support PD and [degree attainment] when you still don't really compensate them fairly? I think that is the tension we're in. 

For example, with the North Carolina Child Care Commission, there is this attention to whether we at least give credit for training and experience. Of course, having a degree is important - being able to be trained on innovative, cutting edge, culturally responsive practice is really important, but at the same time, you can't have all these expectations and not pay. We don't see that with other industries. We don't see it that much with K-12, for example. So, I think we're going to have to figure out how much more we can ask and where there is room to do that in the midst of a lot of educators and children and families with mental health challenges, among other economic and social challenges. I feel like we can't PD our way out of a practical need to be paid adequately, fair market, for what [teachers] provide and do for children in the most critical years of their development. We want the state and federal government to do more, but that tension has been there for a long time, and I think it's going to continue to come to a head as we see the reduction of providers and affordable, available, high quality programming for our children. 

Sounds like a really delicate balance between the expectations placed on child care providers and educators and the investment the state and federal government is willing to put behind their efforts.

We're busy trying to hold educators accountable. We're busy trying to hold providers accountable. But the arrow doesn't point the other way. Who's holding the state accountable? You want all these things from a provider, from an educator? Great. But you haven't created the conditions for [them] to get there. So, to me, what we haven't done a lot is say, before you ask for these expectations, we have to make sure that the system is held accountable for providing the resources needed and making sure that the conditions are right for all the things that we want [from] providers and educators in the classroom. I think that's the part we haven't actually done, held the system itself and the officials who are in power accountable. The advocacy part, I think that's the opportunity. 

In recent months, there was an approval both to implement an increased provider reimbursement rate and to incorporate a pre-service payment to providers that equates to 15% of their annual financial allotment, intended to help them prepare over the summer when they don't have income from the program. That seems like an innovation. Can you talk about that decision and how it came to be?

I feel like this is part of the joy of having such a diverse and really inclusive Governance, because you have all the various partners, you have researchers, but you also have the provider community giving deep insight. They were showing the condition of “we’re already maxed out, and when we’re already in the red when the year starts, and you want all this stuff to happen, we don't have a lot of money in the budget.” It was just a combination of “do we basically pay forever based on enrollment versus actual attendance?” We were paying, during the height of the pandemic, based on enrollment numbers, and the sustainability for that was just not possible with the dollars that we have. So, [the question became] how we balance making sure that there's a level of stability for the providers to get started so they could then wait to be paid based on attendance. 

I feel like that did not come about without the provider community coming together and working with CCSA and other partners to demonstrate and really explain why this is important and how to address some of that challenge on the economic side of waiting to get payment after weeks and months of serving children and families. I think knowing that you're going to get something beforehand is partly like a sign-on. This is the standard in other fields that we think of as high value, so to me, it's also another example of Durham PreK [sayin], this is a professional, high caliber, critical discipline and field. So, we have to give all the opportunities to be sustainable but also leverage what we've learned from other industries. And the provider community can say, “Here’s our struggle. We don't want to close our doors, but we can't literally be bankrupt. We're still a business.” That came from the years and years of conversation and the provider community being really blunt and open.

A lot of times we say, let’s be more inclusive; let's bring the voice of those most affected back inside the room. And a lot of times we bring them in, but we never really act on it or really go deeper. I think the provider community really being part of Governance since the beginning [was important] and knowing that we have our vision and priority and principles, and we are going to focus first on the provider community, the educators, and do what we can where possible as the first priority before anything else. I think it really came about from years of engagement, but also from them seeing how the Governance Committee has really sought to recommend things to the County to both ensure that we maintain quality, but we also recognize the power and the change agent in educators and providers. 

I think it’s a potential model to really show our commitment to the provider community. I think that's Durham saying, “we are committed to what we started in 2018 and to continue to see it forward even under hard and challenging conditions.”

It seems like provider voice is a real thread through all of the successes and developments and growth that the program has had. 

That's right. I think it’s their voice and it’s also that the other people want to hear. To really have your voice be fully held front and center, to have it be at the table and really be fully part of the conversation and be centered in many decisions, it takes years for that to happen. That was part of the commitment, and I think they've seen that happen, so I think that's how we got to this point over time. 

Even in states and localities that have committed preschool programs, universal pre-k is still the exception. In your view, are there ways in which Durham PreK is innovating or setting the pace as a local universal pre-k model not only for communities in North Carolina but nationally? 

Yeah, I think it’s in some of the decisions we've made, like paying based on enrollment versus attendance, pre-service payments, even how we set up the Governance Committees. I think having a group like CCSA is really helpful because they not only see local but also statewide and national. I think because they are such an important player in the national space – they've been part of T.E.A.C.H.® and WAGE$ – to me having a partner and their staff really leading a lot of the effort, I think we can't undersell what it means to have such a deep bench – somebody like Linda [Chappel], who has been in the Triangle and seen so much and been part of so much. I've talked about the leadership from the county and the other large, local early childhood partners. But I think it’s also CCSA being there and ready, like, “what do the numbers tell us?” and being able to gather data in such a quick way for the Governance Committee to make decisions. Having somebody like CCSA really manage it because of the depth of their knowledge across the board, I think is really important – how they engage with the community colleges, for example, is important. Just having them leading a lot of this helps to create that innovation, because they probably have seen or thought about this before. Now they can lay out the potential opportunities, really inform the members of the Task Force or the Governance Committee. We have people who come from different spaces and places and have different thoughts, and being able to give information to them in ways they can really comprehend, really engage with it, really ask questions, I have to give them a lot of credit for making sure all of us are prepared to make some really hard decisions and be able to stand by them. 

And I think of course it’s the communication and the relationship with the county, and the county saying, “This is really your thing. And we're just helping to guide it.” I think that ownership at the county level helps to make that possible. They see the vision and were already committed to the vision. I look at New York City now, and the mayor is having to make some decisions around “the migrant crisis.” And of course, one of the big things they cut was early childhood. They cut it by over $500 million. We've had some challenges and issues, [and asked] “what do we cut?” But we have seen that early education and Durham PreK has not been cut. I think you have to have that level of ownership of the program and knowing that it has value to the community. 

I think another part of it is that the county commissioners understand who is really affected. I think they see it in much more detail than I think other leaders may see. They hear from providers; they hear from families. So, I think they're able to get a little bit closer to make decisions more for the long term rather than some of the short term decisions often made for public education. I definitely think the innovation is both in the infrastructure, but also in who is the manager of it, because it's a really complex braiding of a lot of funding. You need somebody who really is a good steward of both the money but also how to best use it and also communicate in a way that's going to meet the vision of the program. 

I'm hearing a lot of focus on relationships and communication and depth of knowledge and ability to move information back and forth.

And there are different audiences, the Durham PreK Governance Committee and then the County Commissioners, all different people with different ideas. Being able to weave a story takes a depth, for them to see the vision and see how all their decisions have created what they're trying to get to is phenomenal. And having community leaders that are open to engaging in a long term vision is basically an investment in the future, and they see that on many levels.

After 5 years as Durham PreK Governance Committee Chair, you are stepping down. What advice do you have for future Chairs as the program continues to grow? 

Well, first, I just want to say it's been an honor. There’s so much support from the staff, and there's so much engagement from the Governance Committee, so to me, you don’t have to pull teeth to either have people engaged or come to meetings. I was honored and humbled to be a chair, but really, there was so much support. 

For me, a lesson learned is being able to listen to the community that you're most trying to impact. I think that was really important, to listen, but also to know your own expertise. The next chair coming in has deep expertise in workforce engagement and development. I think it's every chair having their own expertise, but also really ensuring that they're hearing from the majority of the committee, but especially from those who are going to be most affected by the policies, which are really our provider community, but of course, eventually, our children and families. Being able to have a family representative on the committee, we were able to get that, and I think that’s a huge one, because you can really hear from across sectors of the community that are going to both benefit from and be impacted by any decision that's made by the Governance Committee. 

To me, those are the lessons. How do we listen? How do we lean into some of those hard conversations and also the hard decisions? As chair, you’re trying to make sure you don’t overtake a meeting but you want to make sure, at least, that your thoughts are heard and you guide some clear decision making. The Committee is such a rich, thoughtful, insightful group of people, and so I would say, as a chair, you just lean into that insight. Ask questions when needed. Call for clarifications to make sure everybody has as much information to make a good decision as possible and to make a good vote. 

To me, that's the best you can do, and always being appreciative of their time, their energy, and their resources, because nobody's paid. We always have to be grateful for those who are investing their time because at the end of it, they're committed to the vision and committed to Durham and the children and families and educators who make up the county of Durham. That's really the role of the chair, to make sure that we hear all those voices and really stay committed to the vision. 

Each time I have spoken with you, you’ve made a point of thanking the people around you and lifting up their contributions. I know Linda and others appreciate your leadership so much. 

Well, I appreciate them on so many levels. You don't do this by yourself. Nobody does. Of course, I'm the chair, but there's so much work happening before you even enter the meeting, so I'm always grateful, and I'm glad I’m going to still be a part of the Governance Committee as a regular member. I look forward to continuing to engage. [The Committee is] an example of what can be done in a space during the most difficult time. I think there's always things to improve on and to learn from our past decisions. To me, it’s to continue to move forward so that we see progress even in the midst of many economic and social challenges. It’s been such a joy and a pleasure, and I'm glad to have been part of it and will continue to be part of it and share across the state and across the country.