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Community members rally together at State of the Child breakfast

2024 State of the Child Breakfast
Aaleah McConnell
/
WHQR
New Hanover County Commissioner Rob Zapple and NH School Board Member Stephanie Walker (center) at The New Hanover County Resiliency Task Force and NC Child, a policy advocacy group, held their annual State of the Child Breakfast to unveil the 2024 NC Data Card.

On Wednesday morning, The New Hanover County Resiliency Task Force and NC Child, a policy advocacy group, held their annual State of the Child Breakfast to unveil the 2024 NC Data Card.

County officials, advocates, and educators gathered to learn how children in New Hanover County fare in Early childhood development, economic security, education, and health.

The data card reports on the prevailing issues affecting children in New Hanover County the most, compared to the total population of children in North Carolina.

And some of the statistics were shocking.

The research director for NC Child, Neil Harrington, presented some of the organization's findings. A couple of stats that stuck out to the crowd the most were the increase in child death rates and the exorbitant cost of childcare.

According to the data card, the New Hanover child death rate was about 53 deaths per 100,000 children in 2022 — the highest it's been since 2016.

In the area of health and wellness, the data showed that 7.2% of children in New Hanover County were without health insurance in 2022, a rate slightly higher than that of Brunswick County, which is 5.8%.

Harrington said the cost of childcare is more than the in-state tuition at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. (In-state students at NC-Chapel Hill run into a price tag of about $8,998 for tuition, and parents in North Carolina pay an average of $9,480 for childcare.)

“This lack of childcare access really kind of limits parents' choices,” Harrington said. “And leaves many to scramble and kind of figure out something else so they can work and provide for their families. And many don't figure this out and have to end up quitting their jobs and to care for their kids.”

New Hanover County school board member Stephanie Walker said she was shocked to see that just over half of third-grade students in the county scored proficient in reading and that the graduation rate of high school students decreased from 2022.

“Everybody wants to look at academics. This emerging conversation on ACEs and trauma, the root causes of problems, they have to be addressed.” Walker said. “And that includes early childhood education … because I think if we can address the root cause, then all these principles will change.”

Walker, who is campaigning as a Democrat for a seat on the New Hanover County Board of Commissioner, said that it’s important to “pay attention during election time too, because we need pro-children people in office… it's a big way to get things changed.”

Many stated that one economic factor that could likely help parents afford childcare, and achieve a higher-quality life in general, is access to affordable housing.

New Hanover County Commissioner Rob Zapple spoke to this, saying that the data does not lie.

“You can argue about a lot of different things, policy-wise, but you can't argue the data when it's put forward like this,” Zapple said. “I would encourage [NC Child] to add another column that deals with housing and the issue of affordable housing. Which is not only here, but also nationwide as well.”

“Because I think every one of your columns here reflects back on ‘if you don't know where you're going to put your head at night,’” Zapple added.

Another attendee, David Hand, a social worker for Laney High School, argued that schools need more funding not only to tackle overcrowding, but to make resources more accessible to students who experience homelessness as well.

Hand included an apparent reference to the $1.3-billion New Hanover Community Endowment in his comments.

“We're failing our children and our families in so many ways. I see it every day, playing out," Hand said. "We've got a multi-million dollar foundation that's dishing out millions of dollars left, right, and center — for good causes. But where's our schools?”

The executive director of NC Child, Erica Palmer Smith, said the data card is a great way to ignite community dialogue and develop a better understanding of the issues.

However, one of the organization’s biggest imperatives is making sure policies that alleviate these issues are actively moving forward, she said.

“We're having to really make sure that the policy agenda that we walk into 2025 with is reflective of the needs of all of the kids in our state,” Smith said. “And we want [the community’s] help with that.”

2024 North Carolina Card by amcconnell on Scribd