Dear Parents, 

We are so grateful that you are a part of the Common Ground Community. Your support has made Common Ground feel like a safe little island in the storm that is the pandemic. Our community is strong because of each and every member – parents, teachers, and children – we are all so appreciative of every single one of you!

As you may or may not know, traditionally Common Ground has raised tuition yearly between 2-4%. The last time that we raised our tuition was in September of 2018. This fall, the board passed a 5% tuition increase that was set to go into effect in January of 2021. Due to additional pandemic funding, we have been able to delay that increase for currently enrolled families until June.

As of June 1, The tuition changes are below:

The board also passed an additional sibling discount at our last meeting. It keeps the 10% discount in place for your oldest child, and adds a 5% discount for your middle child when you have three enrolled in our center. That additional discount will go into effect in May.

Common Ground is amazing because of the incredible teachers that we have. It’s their commitment to quality early childhood education that has made Common Ground a successful pillar of the community over 49 years. That commitment shows in the fact that we have an unprecedented staff retention rate. The average length of service for our staff is 12 years. Even prior to the pandemic, we never saw much attrition from our staff because the Common Ground Board has always prioritized taking care of our employees. 

While we have always paid well above the averages for the industry, offered excellent health, retirement, PTO and childcare benefits, Common Ground has not been the exception to the rule that early childhood educators are vastly underpaid. Only 25% of our staff made the livable wage for a single person with no children in Fairfax County, until now.

This tuition increase, along with careful budget reallocation and aggressive pursuit of non-tuition grant funding, has allowed us to put into action the things that we have been advocating for nationally: pay parity for early childhood educators with their k-12 counterparts.

At the beginning of April, we gave compensation increases to all of our teachers that move our lead teachers to or above the livable wage and have a plan in place to have all staff making a livable wage within three years. With these raises, we were able to go from 25% up to 58% of our staff up to at least the livable wage, with those who fall under still getting, on average, a 13% increase. This is the first increase in compensation for our teachers since the fall of 2018.

We know that our community fully supports our teachers being well compensated, but we also understand that responsibility cannot fall completely on our families. That is why Common Ground has added our voice to the national advocacy being done by NAEYC in asking that our government pass legislation to fund child care as infrastructure. Specifically, we have asked our Senators and Representatives to support the recently passed American Rescue Plan, to reintroduce the Child Care for Working Families Act, and to support the latest infrastructure bill presented by President Biden.

Our eggs are not completely in the basket of federal funding though! We have been spending a lot of time and energy applying for grants to support Common Ground. Through these grants, we are able to make some incredible playground improvements this spring, (We look forward to announcing them and the time line shortly!) increase the access to education for our staff, and add a new curriculum program in the preschool and upcoming kindergarten this fall.

We hope that you appreciate this good news and update. If you have any questions, please feel free to reach out to me.

Sincerely, 

Liz

liz@commongroundchildcare.org