Morning Report: Should Public Schools Replace Private Childcare? SDUSD Trustee Thinks So

By Voice of San Diego, the Voice of San Diego

December 22, 2022

The rollout of California’s universal transitional kindergarten program — which essentially opened up a grade to an entirely new age group — has had a devastating effect on local private childcare providers.

Four-year-olds, the age group UTK siphoned off from private childcare providers, require fewer adults, which makes them more profitable for providers. The draining of that age group from private providers has stretched the already struggling industry thin.

San Diego Unified school board member Richard Barrera believes the solution to that problem is for public schools to replace private providers. Barrera believes it would not only benefit parents who struggle from the high costs of childcare, but workers in the industry who are chronically underpaid.

This would be a herculean feat, not only because of the significant leg work required to build up a properly certified workforce, but because of the monumental cost of such an expansion.

Read the full story here.

San Diego Leaders’ Homelessness Resolutions for 2023

San Diego’s surging homelessness crisis appears likely to get worse in 2023. So what are local leaders going to do about it?

Our Lisa Halverstadt asked local leaders to share their plans to combat homelessness in the new year.

At least for now, local officials told Halverstadt they aren’t making drastic new commitments à la new Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass’s plan to move large numbers of unsheltered people into hotels. Instead, they described how they hope to ramp up efforts to prevent homelessness, deliver a wider array of service options for unhoused people and continue work they have already started.

San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria and City Council President Sean Elo-Rivera, for example, noted their plan to push for more tenant protections in the city in 2023 while Chula Vista Mayor John McCann described the city’s plan to open a new 66-unit shelter in the city in January.

Read more about local leaders’ 2023 plans here.

VOSD Podcast: Chris Cate Bids Farewell

VOSD Podcast host Scott Lewis sat down with now-former San Diego City Councilman Chris Cate in an exit-interview style podcast. Cate was the last Republican elected official in City Hall.

The two discuss lessons learned from Cate’s two terms and get into some of the biggest challenges ahead for the new City Council. They also discussed the future of the GOP.

Listen to the episode here.

In Other News

• San Diego police are continuing to cite and arrest unhoused San Diegans for violations associated with homelessness. But as inewsource reports, the City Attorney’s Office rarely prosecutes these cases and hasn’t secured any convictions in ones it has pursued. VOSD also dug into the impact of a city crackdown on homeless camps earlier this year.
• California is putting pressure on Coronado to zone for more affordable housing. (KPBS)
• The Union-Tribune reports that President Joe Biden nominated San Diego Superior Court Judge Marion Gaston to a seat on San Diego’s federal bench. She’s one of a string of public defenders Biden has nominated for federal district courts.
• Transportation officials are trying to determine the cost of renovating an aging railway line that runs from Tecate in Mexico to Plaster City in imperial County so that it can resume freight operations. (Union-Tribune)

The Morning Report was written by Lisa Halverstadt, Jakob McWhinney and Jesse Marx. It was edited by Andrea Lopez-Villafaña.

Voice of San Diego is a nonprofit news organization supported by our members. We reveal why things are the way they are and expose facts that people in power might not want out there and explain complex local public policy issues so you can be engaged and make good decisions. Sign up for our newsletters at voiceofsandiego.org/newsletters/.