Hunt Institute discusses registered apprenticeships in early childhood education
The Hunt Institute recently hosted a panel discussion about how registered apprenticeships have the power to transform the early childhood education (ECE) workforce.
The panel was made up of four leaders in the field of early childhood policy: N.C. Rep. Gloristine Brown, D-Pitt; Founder and CEO of the Early Education Career Institute Shawntel Green; Director of Strategic Initiatives at Midwest Urban Strategies Marjorie Cohen; and Technical Assistance Liaison at the Early Childhood Workforce Connector Marian Grant-Whitlock. Their discussion was moderated by Dogwood Health Trust Vice President of Education Ereka Williams. The panelists surfaced several benefits of registered apprenticeships.
The early childhood education workforce is critical to supporting the people and economy of North Carolina as well as the entire country, but there has been a significant loss of educators in this field. North Carolina has lost about 12% of licensed childcare providers in the last seven years, with most of that loss being in rural areas.
Registered apprenticeships present a solution to those losses, especially because “apprenticeship pathways are, right now, at about 88% retention rates across the nation,” according to Green.
Read more about North Carolina’s ECE workforce
What is a registered apprenticeship?
Grant-Whitlock said the word registered means the apprenticeship is “formally approved and recognized by a government oversight.”
She explained that registered apprentices are a different, more standardized program than what most people conceptualize as an earn-while-you-learn model of workforce training.
The main criteria that distinguish a registered apprenticeship are:
- Oversight: There are a recognized set of standards that guide the program, which it is held accountable to by a formal body.
- Mentorship: It combines paid work with required learning while under supervision.
- Education: The program requires instruction like competency-based learning or classroom work.
- Pay: As the apprentice gains skills, their pay increases.
- Licensure: Students earn a nationally recognized non-expiring credential once the registered apprenticeship is completed.
The mentorship component of registered apprenticeships integrates seamlessly into the existing early childhood education training model, Green said, because there are usually two employees in each classroom already.
“On a day-to-day basis, an individual will be getting ongoing coaching development organically in our industry,” Green said. “We are a coaching industry.”
Furthermore, Green explained that all ECE registered apprentices must be W-2 employees. She said there is currently no standard increase in pay for credentialed employees, but she emphasized that organizations should be paying employees a living wage for their area.
“We need to respect that they are credentialed and pay them fair wages for their particular credential and the work that they’ve achieved in this credential process,” added Green.
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Existing resources for ECE registered apprenticeships
When organizations are looking to start a registered apprenticeship program, they “typically want help translating what they already do into an apprenticeship framework,” Grant-Whitlock said. She explained that guides do exist to aid in the implementation process, highlighting her organization’s public-facing toolkit that provides technical assistance to groups.
“Good technical assistance helps (partners) move from ‘this sounds promising’ to ‘we’re ready to implement it,'” Grant-Whitlock said. “We meet partners where they are in the process, and we walk alongside them. We make sure that what goals that they have — they are sustainable, they’re intentional, and they’re going to change the field for the better.”
Support for establishing a registered apprenticeship program can also come from government partners like an apprenticeship agency. However, according to Cohen, the push for more registered apprenticeships by the federal and state governments has not yet reached the ECE workforce. Currently much of that momentum has focused on industries that are high-skill, high-demand, and high-wage.
“Early childhood registered apprenticeship is a high-demand industry. Educators are high-demand occupations,” said Cohen. “However, they are not high-wage.”
While government support is an option, financial and technical support for establishing an apprenticeship might have to come through other avenues. Many ECE organizations simply do not have the infrastructure or capacity to support an apprenticeship program. However, according to Cohen, the 2024 Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) can be used to support early childhood apprenticeships no matter what a community’s needs look like.
“WIOA governs what a workforce board is and does. WIOA outlines, actually, services that are offered by local workforce boards to employers, workers, adults, and youth,” said Cohen. “And these services can include education, skill building, career counseling, and supportive services.”
The workforce board can even serve as a registered apprenticeship program sponsor if the local organizations cannot.
However, Green emphasized the importance of understanding who can actually make impactful decisions because often times there is “dictated responsibility, but no authority. And responsibility without authority does not support the individual who is trying their best to receive the funding if they can’t get their credential criteria met.”
Solutions from the state legislature
Major progress has been made in supporting early childhood education in the state, especially with the recent $97 million investment to establish a childcare subsidy program in the new state budget. But there is still work to be done, especially in expanding the early childhood registered apprenticeship pipeline.
In North Carolina, Rep. Brown has sponsored House Bill 316, or the Child Care Act. It deals with “everything from the child tax credit to NC Pre-K expansion to childcare subsidies,” Williams explained. The bill is currently stalled in committee, with little hope of it going to a vote and becoming a law.
“We heard some comments from the western part of the state, people coming in and and telling us their stories and letting us know,” Brown said when describing why she wanted to sponsor this bill, “and it hurt my heart to hear how so many childcare centers have to close their doors or have to limit because of the workforce.”
Another part of the bill appropriates funds for public childcare provided by community colleges. Brown emphasized that having childcare available for community college students removes barriers to credential attainment.
“It goes back to our workforce development,” Brown said. “We have, not just the older members of the community, but also younger members of the community that have children. Having this funding going to the community colleges, that is one way of helping with the retention at our community colleges.”
Moving toward implementation
Growing registered apprenticeships in North Carolina, Brown believes, could help businesses and educators alike. However, the panelists emphasized that implementing these programs is no easy feat and will take a tremendous amount of organizing and planning.
The panelists identified several action items that audience members could take right now to move their organizations toward successful, sustainable implementation of a registered apprenticeship program.
Cohen emphasized that before starting the implementation process, employers need to understand what problem they are trying to solve by starting a registered apprenticeship program at their organization.
“Is it that you have a lot of turnover? Is it that it’s hard to recruit new folks? Is it that there’s maybe not a really great articulated career pathway within your organization?” Cohen asked. “I would caution that apprenticeship is not the answer for everything. It is a solution. It is not the solution.”
Green suggested that employers make use of informational resources, like apprenticeship.gov. These resources are also beneficial to individuals who are interested in entering a registered apprenticeship themselves. Learning what options you have that are specific to your industry will help your decision making going forward.
Finally, Grant-Whitlock encouraged audience members to “take the leap forward” and “be the change” that they want.
Editor’s note: The Dogwood Health Trust supports the work of EdNC.