From Corrine Hendrickson

New Glarus

To the Editor:

I am writing to endorse Jenna Jacobson for AD 50. She has been crisscrossing the newly mapped district; attending local municipality meetings, community events, door knocking, and talking with business owners no matter how small or large. I have attended some of these events and she really listens and asks meaningful questions to learn about the priorities of the residents. One of the issues that keeps coming up in these conversations is the lack of affordable, high quality childcare, and its impact on the availability of employees and the cost to our broader economy and community’s well-being. Parents of young children are frequently forced out of the workforce since they cannot find or afford childcare that meets their needs. This, in turn, impacts the availability of health care, police, fire, roadwork, home construction, k-12 teachers, retail, restaurants, and farms to ensure we live in strong communities. A recent study put out by the Institute on Research and Poverty about childcare availability underscores the need for public investment to grow the workforce that cares for and educates our youngest and most vulnerable so that their parents can have access to high quality, affordable care and she voted seven times to finally allocate state funding to do so. Unlike neighboring states, Wisconsin includes zero state dollars in the budget for childcare. She also voted against harmful bills as “solutions” that included more children per teacher and that teacher could be as young as 16 without direct adult supervision.