Category: Featured

“If you don’t have the child care in order for people to go to work, they don’t have the income to pay for housing; it’s this vicious cycle,” said Melanie Shaver, superintendent of Hyde County Schools in North Carolina. “So how can we break that cycle at the root cause?” Shaver is leading her district’s attempt to answer that question. Hyde County Schools is now offering universal pre-k to both 3- and 4-year-olds districtwide, at the Ocracoke School on the island and the Mattamuskeet School on the mainland, with the goal of expanding to include early care and learning for children from birth to age 2 in years to come. And the revived Hyde County Education Foundation — chaired by Shaver — is buying two sites to build workforce housing for teachers and other essential workers.