During the recent Future Ready Columbus Board of Directors meeting, members unanimously approved appointing Franklin County Board of Commissioner President Erica Crawley to the board.
Most of Crawley’s career has been in early childhood education with over 17 years of experience working on birth to age-five initiatives. She has assisted early childhood centers receive accreditation through the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) and has worked as a family recruiter and health coordinator for the largest early Head Start program in the state of Georgia.
As a State Representative for the 26th House District, she served as ranking member of the finance committee and advocated to increase child care eligibility from 130 percent to 142 percent. She fought to protect the Step Up to Quality child care rating system and decrease the infant mortality rate throughout the state.
“Throughout my life, I have advocated for the needs of children and worked within the early childhood education space, even before my service as an elected official,” said Franklin County Board of Commissioner President Erica C. Crawley. “That is why I am so honored to join the Future Ready Columbus Board. We know providing thoughtful and significant investments early in a child’s life, creates a path for them to succeed. Helping all our children achieve kindergarten readiness takes a community effort, and I’m excited to uphold Franklin County’s dedication and focus on this goal.”
The Franklin County Board of Commissioners have committed over $4 million to provide free training to publicly funded child care centers and partnered with the City of Columbus to administer $7.7 million in financial assistance to child care programs impacted by the pandemic in 2020.
We are pleased to have Commissioner Crawley join the Future Ready Columbus Board of Directors and work with the FRC team and community members to implement the Future Ready by 5 kindergarten readiness plan to ensure all children in Franklin County enter kindergarten ready and have access to a high-quality early childhood education regardless of their zip code.