In August, we celebrated National Back to School Month with parents and providers through our Back to School Blog Series and daily back to school tips. With the end of August comes the beginning of hurricane season, and with it Hurricane Harvey and Hurricane Irma. Our emergency preparedness team has been hard at work, connecting with parents and child care providers and providing support, tools, and resources to those impacted by these storms. See the breaking news section below for information on our hurricane emergency response efforts. September is also National Preparedness Month, and we will be sharing more general emergency preparedness resources with parents and providers throughout the month.

On Memorial Day weekend of 2008, an EF3 tornado struck Hugo, Minnesota, a commuter town north of downtown St. Paul. Winds ranged from 136-165 mph, and the tornado’s path was six miles long and one-eighth mile wide. Since it was a holiday weekend, Christine, a family child care provider, was not caring for children at the time that the tornado touched down, but her child care business took a direct hit.

Vroom materials have been a wonderful resource to integrate into our existing programs. When parents call requesting a child care search, we engage in conversation about child development and reaffirm to each parent the special role they play as being their child’s first and most important teacher.

It’s hard to believe that July is coming to a close, and with it the imminent start to a new school year! August is National Back to School Month and we are celebrating with parents and providers through our Back to School Blog Series and daily back to school tips. July was another busy month, which included the release of our 2017 State Fact Sheets. We also continue planning around the 2017 Leadership Institute in October and our culmination 30^th anniversary celebration at 2018 Symposium in April.

Help for families struggling to pay for quality child care, such as the federal Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG), is, pivotal to supporting quality child care in the nation. Strategically, states are already investing CCDBG funds in raising the quality of child care programs, as well as in efforts to improve affordability of and access to child care that support workforce participation throughout the economy. We need data from states to understand the child care landscape and help guide state and community-level decision-makers, policymakers, child care advocates, and program administrators in their push for accessible, affordable, quality child care.

One year ago, I stepped into my new role as Editor-in-Chief of Exchange, a magazine for early childhood leaders. I was to fill the biggest shoes imaginable—those of a founding editor who had helmed the magazine since its inception 38 years ago. Although I’m a mother of two young boys, I was new(ish) to the field of early childhood. I’d previously edited a university alumni magazine, but taking over a bi-monthly 96-page professional publication offered me a learning curve as steep as Space Mountain.