Designing and Implementing the DC Early Childhood Educator Pay Equity Fund | From Vision to Reality - Photovoice

After our first gathering I began to think about what my family gained [from the Fund] and, well, as a single parent widowed early after my second child I had to do what I could to make sure my granddaughter had better – this was not it…

After the Pay Equity Fund I ran from what was supposed to be affordable housing to what the Pay Equity Fund made me able to move into and it is still clean! So I keep praying, keep thanking God for moving us to [someplace] better.

The Pay Equity Fund has helped my life by me being able to save money. I show two different banks and I have money in both, something that I had not had before. Me, receiving the funds has changed my life. Now I am able to pay overdue bills because I have savings.

I migrated from El Salvador in 1994; since then, I have been working arduously and always had a dream. My dream was to own a single-family home, complete my studies equivalent to High School, and attend a university to obtain a superior education. As a child, I did not have the opportunity to work on the mentioned goals because I had to work hard and take care of myself and my siblings back in El Salvador. However, since receiving this monetary support, I have accomplished two of those dreams: I purchased the house of my dreams, obtained my High School Equivalent diploma, and am in  my 10th month of college. The financial stability has not only allowed me to achieve these goals but has also relieved the constant stress of making ends meet.  Thanks to this money, my life has changed completely;  something that I  thought  was impossible is reality. This opportunity is a miracle because the impossible is possible. Nothing can stop me now; I carry that motivation to the early child development center. The photo represents my dreams [becoming] a reality.

That’s a photo from a day my family and I went to Florida, I can say the Fund has helped me in many ways, such as: financially, emotionally, given me stability; when I say emotional, I mean that when we’re financially stable our emotions improve because it’s all a circle and everything’s connected. If our financial situation is not well or we don’t make enough money to pay our bills, we’re always worried and we don’t have the means to go on a weekend getaway to get some rest, a little vacation, and with the Fund I was able to take a much-needed short vacation.

When I see this photo, I think of the hope the Pay Equity Fund brought to my life and to my family, knowing that by having a higher income our quality of life would be better, because by having a better salary, bonuses from my job, I would be able to change or dream for a more comfortable place for my family.

This represents an accomplishment of having been able to get an apartment with my family and it represents an effort thanks to the support given by the Fund.

I had the opportunity to buy more food for my family.

The support I’ve gotten from the Pay Equity Fund has changed my life, giving me the opportunity to buy a home because the amounts shown regarding my salary allowed an opportunity for higher bank loans; it also allowed me to put in the petition to bring my children to the US legally, demonstrating that through my work, I’m financially stable to provide them with what they need in this country, by getting paid for my work as a teacher!

In this photo I’m paying all the rent I owed. It represents a huge relief because I couldn’t even eat thinking of my debt. My life turned around when I heard about this help. This became my way out of so much debt acquired during COVID. I said, “Thank you God for this blessing; with this support I’ll be able to get out of debt and solve many problems”!

My life has changed a lot with the support from the equity fund. The change has been great because I was able to get out of an 18-year relationship with domestic violence with four children and thanks to this help I made the decision to be independent, seek professional help, and finally live in peace with my children. I give my testimony that the Pay Equity Fund came as a blessing for me and my family, thank you so much.

“Scatter” – Teaching with a lack of resources and funds leaves teachers in chaotic mental and environmental (in some extremes) spaces. If teachers lack resources, children lack resources. When teachers are unappreciated, it is more strenuous to perform in environments where children need us the most.

Continued Education: The High Standards of the District of Columbia. Keeping up with the high demands higher education can become challenging. Work, life and simply keeping it all together to be the best educator our little ones deserve.

The most difficult challenge is dealing with parents.

Trying to get parents more involved.

It feels like a never-ending battle.

It never ends.

This photo represents my frustration as a mother of a child with special needs and as an early childhood educator; it’s one of the challenges most educators face, when we have children with special needs we don’t have the training, materials for training, and the appropriate staff to support these children with their development and learning. These children are capable of learning and thriving when they are given the appropriate support and accommodations.

As an Early Childhood Education (ECE) educator in DC, it’s crucial for others to grasp the challenges we encounter. From ensuring access to quality education for every child to grappling with limited funding and complex regulations, we face significant hurdles daily. Meeting diverse needs demands constant adaptation and resources. It’s disheartening that we must protest for fair treatment while others, like council members, receive their pay without question. We believe in advocating for policy changes, increased funding, and ongoing support to ensure the best outcomes for the children in our care, and it’s our hope that our efforts will lead to a more equitable and respected profession.

This picture represents the challenges such as managing a diverse classroom with varying learning abilities, addressing individual student’s needs, maintaining student engagement, dealing with behavioral issues, collaborating with parents and colleagues, and balancing workload demands.

This photo represents overwork. There is still a huge shortage in finding teachers. This photo is a picture of me working at home on lesson plans because I can’t get it done during the day because of the lack of staff. This photo represents no work life balance. The biggest challenge of childcare is the lack of time that teachers have for their families.

The accounting of what we make at the end of the year, and the support they’re giving us, it hurts our benefits as early childhood educators, because we can lose our health benefits, and the support might only be temporary.

What do we see in the photograph?

To answer the first question, we see a book in English with the title “Follow Your Dreams Little One”, we also see color blocks and a wooden box.

What do they represent?

They represent the different challenges I face day to day; the blocks are the people; the book is the language, and the wooden box represents society. To answer the research question, I’m originally from Honduras, I’ve been living in the USA for one year and I have been working with children for one year; my greatest challenge is to be able to adapt to the different cultures here and to be able to express myself with people because I don’t speak English, but I make an effort to learn every single day so that I can communicate with parents and other people I know; I want to reach my dreams and goals but the road is hard in comparison, the day to day, getting used to a country that opened its doors so I could succeed in life, leaves me with the challenge of the language.

The last 4 years have been filled with memories, laughter, tears, learning, sincere hugs and special moments I’ve shared with the children, since I started working as an early childhood educator. Being the teacher’s assistant allows me every day to learn from the children and it’s a privilege to support their development along with their families. However, also during this time, I’ve considered changing my place of work and professional development because even though it’s a great work full of joy, it’s also full of challenges that have made me think that being in a place of higher education could provide me with more physical, emotional, financial and professional peace of mind. It is challenge to want to provide early childhood support but there aren’t enough benefits to make this work be compensated the right way.

What are my hopes in the future for ECE educators in DC?  RESPECT! For our profession to really, finally be respected not only by the families of the children we nurture, care, and teach but the administrators, congressmen, and our Mayor! It starts at the top…

My hope in the future for ECE educators is to have stability. What I am conveying in this photo is a person who is standing strong and is stable standing on their own two feet. We received something that was needed for educators and in one way or another helped us have somewhat a better life, so why try to take it away and have us all wondering what’s going to happen next?

In the future, I envision a society that recognizes the crucial role of educators. We are not just teachers, but also the architects of our future leaders, preparing them for the challenges they will face in life. As educators, we bear immense responsibilities, and we deserve better wages and benefits. Our children are the future, and they deserve the best education possible. This can only be achieved by investing in the education and quality of life of educators. I hope for a future where this is not just a dream, but a reality. The picture represents a bright future for both the educators and their children.

What are your hopes for the future as an early childhood educator in DC?

This photography reflects my hope that we can be guided for better early childhood education, that we can continue preparing ourselves to be seen as teachers and that we are doing an important job.

Hope that we can have a voice and be heard, respected and valued as educators.

1. My hopes are that we’ll be valued as the educators that we are.

2. That we may have a fair salary.

3. That the government and OSSE give priority to early childhood, which is a fundamental stage in the lives of our children.

4. That parents/families value all the effort we put as educators to educate/guide their children, to the point where sometimes we miss our own kids’ events/celebrations so that we can be in the classroom educating their children.

5. That employers do not exploit or overburden us with duties that do not correspond to us, and understand that we are people, not robots.

My hope for the future for all early childhood educators in DC is that all educators have a fair salary and an equitable distribution of the pay equity, both for educators at childcare centers and educators that are home based.

That we may have access to higher education, that we’re considered in DC society and organizations, that we may participate in political processes in our district, have access to labor rights, and language rights.

My hope for the future is seeing empowered educators stable with a strong support system that includes education, health, basic food supplies, an adequate salary, and with a support network capable to meet all the teacher’s needs!

That all early childhood educators have a better salary and growth opportunities within the work environment.

It’s wonderful to water a tree because we know that after doing this the fruit will come next. To observe it when it’s reaching its peak moment is quite a contemplation. But we must remember that once this tree was a seed that someone took care of with delicately, watered it throughout many periods with patience, and while at the time it seemed an uncertain process, under the ground the roots were growing to turn into what it is today.

Well, the children we care for and share every day are like that, we accompany them in the process of the transformation of that seed. This is the reason why I wish for our work as teachers in centers to be highly valued, so that it can be seen with the same importance as that of elementary, middle and higher education teachers.

1. A lonely park.

2. Represents that we need more places where children can play.

3. My hope for the future as an early childhood educator in DC, to have better parks and places so the child can have a better childhood development.