Charlotte Leaders Tour Alliance Center for Education Amid Preschool Access Concerns – K104.7

Charlotte Leaders Tour Alliance Center for Education Amid Preschool Access Concerns  K104.7

The Alliance Center for Education, known as ACE, hosted a bus tour for city, county, and state leaders and showed them its preschool programs, according to WBTV. Charlotte ranks near the bottom nationally for preschool access, according to Beverly Research. North Carolina sits at 27th in the nation. The nonprofit called the trip its first bus ride. Community advocates and funding partners joined the elected leaders. They watched children learn and heard about the problems ACE faces every day. ACE leaders hope the visit brings more funding and new partners. Jared Keaton, ACE's CEO, said keeping teachers is the group's biggest struggle. "The greatest challenge for us is for us to continue to be able to retain high-quality educators," Keaton said.

The bus stopped at The Brightwalk Center, one of 12 Head Start and Pre-K centers ACE runs. The nonprofit has operated for more than 80 years and serves more than 800 families. Jennifer Metoyer has worked for the group for 35 years, and she runs the Brightwalk site. "We are a program that is for low-income families. We meet the needs of them from where they are. We provide services for children on a daily basis," Metoyer said. Those services cost money. "We would love more funding – funding helps our programs," Metoyer said. Support from donors and government