Rebecca MacKenzie

Dear Finance Committee Representatives, Please oppose HB1515 which repeals financing Early Childhood Education. Our pre-schoolers need quality and regulated Early Childhood Education to help them thrive in a world that is becoming increasingly complex and dangerous. We need to support them to have a healthy and robust start in life as possible to deal with the conflict and danger that they are entering into as they try to get quality education in NH because our legislators choose to not fund their public school systems adequately. This early start will get them off on the right foot to better manage the educational challenges ahead. Additionally, their parents may need to work multiple low-paying jobs to secure housing due to the high cost of housing in NH. I have neighbors who have three generations under one roof to be able to afford housing. Also, our big businesses who provide low-paying jobs need to depend on those parents to keep their doors open. Without a workforce, they would be forced to move out of state, and thereby, find other states who have fewer worker protections than NH. This would affect our economy in challenging ways. There are fewer and fewer good paying jobs in NH and we need to keep these big box stores to help pre-schoolers parents to stay employed. Thank you for opposing HB1515. Rebecca MacKenzie, LICSW