Empowering Educators: Jessica Hiler Discusses Funding, Professional Development, and School Policy

Jessica Hiler, VP, Kentucky Education Association

Quote of the Podcast: 

"Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It's not" -The Lorax, Dr. Seuss

Introduction of Guest BIO – 

Taught Kindergarten at Deep Springs Elementary in Fayette County from 1999 - 2010. Served as the President of the Fayette County Education Association from 2010 - 2025. Began the term as the Vice President of Kentucky Education Association in June of 2025. Was appointed to the Early Childhood Task Force in 2008 by Governor Steve Beshear.

Interview

Agents of Change: Leaders/Innovators. 

• 30,000 Ft. View – Why so we, as a society invest in education?
• What drew you to education?
• Upcoming 2026 Legislative session and need for additional funding for public schools.
• What are the biggest challenges to you?
• What would you like decision makers to know?”

Transcript

Liza Holland [00:00:02]:
Welcome to Education Perspectives. I am your host, Liza Holland. This is a podcast that explores the role of education in our society from a variety of lenses. Education needs to evolve to meet the needs of today and the future. Solving such huge issues requires understanding. Join me as we begin to explore the many perspectives of education.

Jessica Hiler [00:00:28]:
Today we have with us Jessica Heiler. Jessica taught kindergarten at Deep Springs Elementary in Fayette County from 1999 to 2010. Then she served as president of the Fayette County Education Association from 2010 to 2025. She began her term as the vice president of the Kentucky Education Association in June of 2025. She was also appointed to the Early Childhood Task Force in 2008 by Governor Steve Beshear. So Jessica Heiler, welcome to Education Perspectives. So glad to have you.

Jessica Hiler [00:01:06]:
Thank you for having me.

Jessica Hiler [00:01:08]:
Well, I need to kick you off with the 30,000-foot question. Why do you think that we as a society should invest in education?

Jessica Hiler [00:01:17]:
Oh, wow. That's a, that is a 30,000-foot question. We should invest in education because the kids are our future, right? It's a very, it's Whitney Houston song, right? The children are our future. But ultimately, that's true. I mean, the children that we have now that we are charged with educating in public schools are who are going to take care of us one day when we're older, right? And we're all getting there. It's going to happen very soon. Those are the people that are going to grow up and be our attorneys and our doctors and take care of our roads and our firefighters and our police officers. And we want our community, our society to be well-educated.

Jessica Hiler [00:01:52]:
We all benefit when we live in an educated society. It does not benefit anyone to have people that are held down or not able to get an appropriate public education. What good does that do for anyone? It does no one any good. So we all deserve an education that is equal and we can succeed. We can provide as many resources as possible to our kids and different experiences to our kids that maybe they're not getting at home. Even as parents, even, you know, as parents, I have, you know, 2 children. I have a 12-year-old and a 22-year-old. Big age gap there.

Jessica Hiler [00:02:26]:
But I try to provide as much as possible to my kids and experiences, but I still can't provide everything that a public school can. I can't provide them experiences that they can get in the public school because they're exposed to all different kinds of people's opinions and perspectives. And that's really, really, really important to me, that all children are exposed to things that are different than them. We don't want to grow up in an echo chamber. Again, we want to see the differences and embrace them and see how beautiful everyone's differences are.

Jessica Hiler [00:02:57]:
That's lovely. Absolutely. So you have been in education for a long time. What drew you to education as your profession?

Jessica Hiler [00:03:06]:
Oh, wow. Well, so funny that I really did not intend to be a teacher. I started out wanting to be a journalist. So I started— I know you probably didn't know that about me. I went to school to get a degree in journalism back in the '90s. I went to college and was going to do print journalism. I loved that. I worked on my high school newspaper, loved print journalism.

Jessica Hiler [00:03:29]:
Got to EKU, started working on that, and wasn't really in love with it like I thought I was. And was kind of looking around and was taking some, you know, electives. And I was like, let me take this education course. Took an education course, had to do some observation time in a kindergarten classroom. And fell in love. And I was like, that's it. That's the thing that just lit my fires. Like, I want to do this.

Jessica Hiler [00:03:54]:
Um, and so I ended up actually teaching kindergarten at Deep Springs Elementary in Fayette County for 11 years. Taught in the same classroom the whole time, which was kind of unusual. Loved kindergarten kids. It's really the most— for me, I know people think I'm crazy, but for me, it was my thing. Because I loved seeing kids that came in that didn't know. They'd never been to school. Maybe they'd never been to preschool. Maybe they'd never been to daycare.

Jessica Hiler [00:04:20]:
They'd been home with mom or grandma or whoever, and they didn't know how to write their name. They didn't know a letter, a number, a color, nothing. And when they left me to go to first grade, they were reading. And I loved that. And so, yeah. And then I left to become president of the Fayette County Education Association and did that for 15 years.

Jessica Hiler [00:04:43]:
What caused you to do that? I mean, what was the— somebody interesting asked, or was, you know, that's a big leap, right?

Jessica Hiler [00:04:51]:
It was a big leap. I never intended to do that ever. In fact, I was really looking at getting my principal certification and going into educational leadership. And so I was not really involved with KEA or FCEA as my local. I was a member, always a member since I had joined in college. So I had always been a member, but I wasn't really involved. And my building rep, her name was Becky Wright, shout out to Becky Wright, came one day to me and she said, you need to go to our delegate assembly. And I was like, what is that? And she said, well, it's when we make decisions about the organization.

Jessica Hiler [00:05:22]:
Everybody from around the state gets together. You have to be elected to go and it's going to be great. And I was like, sure. And so I went. It's another experience, right, that I never thought I would get into that experience and fell in love with my union and just let me get more involved. Got involved at the local level and then just, it just happened. It was just the right time. Yeah.

Jessica Hiler [00:05:44]:
Well, you've done fabulous things for Fayette County and it's exciting. Now you are taking on a new role as vice president at the state level. How has that been for you so far? Feeling good? And what, what new skill sets are you feeling like you need to bring aboard to cover the whole state?

Jessica Hiler [00:05:59]:
Yeah, well, it's been great. I absolutely love being able to support our local leaders across the state. That's really, really a passion of mine is to get out and really support our locals. Because there's 120 counties. So there's a lot of place, a lot of ground to cover. But I really want to be out and about so that I can support our local leaders and support our members. So that's really fun for me. I think the skill set that I need to bring that I haven't quite figured out yet is, yeah, I mean, I know Kentucky.

Jessica Hiler [00:06:28]:
I wasn't born here, but I've lived here since I was 9. So pretty much there's a lot of ground to cover and a lot of places I didn't even know existed. Wow. And I was like, oh, this is a place I didn't know, or, you know, I've never been here. And it's just how beautiful this state is and how diverse it really, really is. And what people don't understand about the state, how much we have to offer. It's just a beautiful, beautiful place. Just everything about it is amazing.

Jessica Hiler [00:06:56]:
The people, the landscape. So yeah, still try. Thank God for GPS is all I can say.

Jessica Hiler [00:07:02]:
Yeah. Here you are.

Jessica Hiler [00:07:03]:
I would never get anywhere. Although me and the Western Kentucky Parkway are very well acquainted.

Jessica Hiler [00:07:08]:
Very good friends.

Jessica Hiler [00:07:09]:
Very good friends.

Jessica Hiler [00:07:10]:
Love it. So, you know, as a part of what you're doing, you are really bringing back and acting as the voice of teachers when it comes to talking to lawmakers. And we have a new session coming up here in 2026. Can you share with us what you're hearing from your constituents out in, you know, all across Kentucky now and what your message will be for legislators?

Jessica Hiler [00:07:36]:
Yeah, so that's another thing I really, really love about this job and have always loved this part of the job. When I was president of FCEA, loved being in Frankfurt during session. I know that sounds weird, but I really do love it. And again, I do think it's because of the people. Also sounds a little strange when you think about sometimes who are in those positions, but I love the people that I work with and getting to do this job. One of the things that our teachers have been talking about a lot really over the summer was Senate Bill 181, which passed in the '25 session, which was the communication bill that has restrictions on— yeah, that has restrictions on what educators, anyone working in a public school, how they can communicate with students. Senator Tishner was the sponsor of that bill. And so what I think I'm really, really proud of, this amazing team that we have around here really worked with Senator Tishner over the summer.

Jessica Hiler [00:08:30]:
We worked with our members to get as much feedback as we could, and she has is committed to making changes that I think will make it a better piece of legislation. We'll see what actually comes out because you really never know what's going to be filed. But I really, really, really appreciate her work and that she has trusted us and we have trusted her and that we can work together to make this better for our members because that's our goal, right? To make public education better for kids and to make the place where our members work the best place that they can be. And so this was really frustrating, I think, in the very beginning, and teachers and staff just did not know how this was going to work. I think it's kind of rolled out a little bit smoother than we thought it would, with some bumps, but there's lots of changes that we're hoping to see, I think, that will make it a better piece of legislation in 2026. So fingers crossed. And I think this is a really good example of how we have to work across party lines in order to make sure that public education in Kentucky is protected. Because sometimes we get in this echo chamber and we only hear our own opinions and we're like, oh, this party is bad or this party is good, or it cannot be that way when it comes to public education.

Jessica Hiler [00:09:48]:
And I know that certain parties, you know, we gravitate certain places because they believe what we believe, and that's fine. But in this role, you have to work across party lines to make it best for kids. And that has not always been easy. But again, I will shout out the amazing team at KEA that have worked super, super diligently to make sure we have good relationships on both sides of the aisle. And that's really making a difference for public education because we can have those really hard conversations. We may not always agree, but we can have the conversations.

Jessica Hiler [00:10:23]:
And, you know, that's what this great American experiment is all about, right, is being able to, to bring lots of different opinions together and be able to compromise and be able to talk to one another. And we're losing touch with that a little bit on our national level. But that's really exciting for me to hear because everybody's opinions and lived experiences have value, and we need to figure out how we can collaboratively You know, because that bill, I know in my heart that it came from a good place of someone just wanting to protect kids, right?

Jessica Hiler [00:10:56]:
Yes.

Jessica Hiler [00:10:56]:
But those people may not have really known what it's like to be in school and to have these lived experiences. And so they didn't realize what the unintended consequences would be. And that's the other magical part to me is here you guys are working with with the senator to be able to make the changes and make that law better. Right? So I think that's pretty magical. And I think that that bipartisan effort is such a fresh of breath air in a way, you know?

Jessica Hiler [00:11:28]:
Yeah.

Jessica Hiler [00:11:29]:
We all, it's not us against them. It's all of us want to have what's best for our kids in our schools.

Jessica Hiler [00:11:37]:
Yeah, absolutely. And I think we're working and I think maybe this is a good experience for maybe legislators who don't always do this, but I think Senator Tishner I'm not going to put words into her mouth at all, but I think she probably wishes she would have asked a few more questions of educators in the classroom. Just going to guess she probably does. And maybe now, maybe now some legislators that don't always ask for our opinion will in the future reach out to educators in the classroom and say, hey, how is this going to affect you? We try to catch everything. We have a pretty big team and it's still really difficult for the hundreds of bills that are filed every session. We try so hard to get to everything and look at everything and dissect every little piece of legislation, but it's hard. And it's very helpful when a legislator reaches out and says, hey, will you take a look at this and let me know? And that happens quite often, but it doesn't happen often enough because these legislators by far are not educators at all. There are only a handful.

Jessica Hiler [00:12:36]:
And so, or have been., and so they don't know what it's like. And even the ones that haven't been educators for 20 or 30 years, the classroom does not look like it did when you were there. I mean, the classroom doesn't look like it did when I was there, to be honest. And that's why I try to spend as much time in schools as I can and talking to teachers and being in classrooms so that I can make sure that I stay connected with what's happening right now. But legislators don't often have the opportunity to do that, so they need to reach out and not necessarily talk to me or my state president or people on the team. They need to talk to teachers in their districts, people at home.

Jessica Hiler [00:13:13]:
That's what—

Jessica Hiler [00:13:13]:
and we try to connect those dots so that people can have relationships with their legislators at home, because that's really the most valuable thing.

Jessica Hiler [00:13:21]:
You know, it is. And I have personal experience of talking to several legislators over time that literally did not have much of a background, you know, and you and I started out when I was the PTA president and you were president in Fayette County. And, you know, it was during that time that I would go meet with my legislators and what was supposed to be a 15-minute meeting in one case turned to be an hour and a half because this guy was like, "I had no idea all this kind of stuff was happening." And he was coming at it with one perspective. You know, he was talking about some legislation that came very much from a specific incident that he was upset about. And, you know, the more we talked about it and the more I told him about all the different things that teachers are faced with and whatnot, he was like, really? Oh, okay. Well, maybe. And I'm like, you know, yeah, go and talk to some teachers. I can tell you from my perspective, because I spent a lot of time in schools, but every single one of those legislators their expertise is not education.

Jessica Hiler [00:14:27]:
It really isn't. And so it's incumbent upon us as constituents to help to educate them as well and know that we can say, you know, for more detailed information, please contact KEA.

Jessica Hiler [00:14:40]:
Yes, all the time.

Jessica Hiler [00:14:41]:
But truly, you know, and developing those relationships with your individual legislators, I think, are incredibly valuable. And I know teachers have no time to do this stuff, but it's probably worth it.

Jessica Hiler [00:14:53]:
Yeah, and I mean, that's where we come in. We try to do the heavy lift and meet with the legislators as much as possible, look through the legislation, see what they need, what we need help with, what we need people to contact their legislators about and say, okay, there's this piece of legislation, I need you to contact this person. We try to do as much as we possibly can for our members, but at the same time, it is way more valuable when they hear from their former third grade teacher or their child's teacher or the teacher that they see in Kroger every day. It's just more impactful. So we really try hard to really cultivate those relationships.

Jessica Hiler [00:15:32]:
That's great. So this 2026 session, what is highest on your mind?

Jessica Hiler [00:15:40]:
Probably, of course, like I said, Senate Bill 181. We'll see what happens with that. But then really funding, you know, funding is a big deal. I mean, We are in a place where there's federal funds that are being cut, have been cut, probably will be cut more in the future. That's a whole thing. We could spend a couple of hours on that. But really, here in the state, we have a dire need for more funding for our schools. Our schools really, really, really need additional funding for services for our kids.

Jessica Hiler [00:16:10]:
And one of the things that we do at KEA is we work with the Protect Our Schools Kentucky Coalition. We're part of that coalition. I know, I know you know about that. And the Protect Our Schools Kentucky Coalition is going to be making an ask of the legislature. Actually, we've already made the ask for an additional $718 million in the budget. This is a budget session. $718 million, that sounds like a lot of money, but think about the amount of school districts. There's over 170 school districts in the state of Kentucky.

Jessica Hiler [00:16:39]:
That's counties and independents. So that doesn't go really very far. It really does not go very far. So we really need to be thinking about increasing the funding for our public schools so that we can make sure that our kids have the resources that we need. The SEEK formula, I know that legislators have talked about, which is the funding formula that we use, how we fund our schools. The SEEK formula was put into place with CARA that came after the Rose decision, and so that's been around for a while. The SEEK formula, I think, is going to to be looked at and maybe changed at some point. I do think it needs a look.

Jessica Hiler [00:17:16]:
It absolutely needs a look. It was really intended to kind of put school districts on an equal footing, and that was the intent because they were not. It is not that way anymore. There are so many districts like Lexington, like Fayette County, for example, that there is way more local effort. So there's more local tax dollars really going into the public schools than we're getting from in the state, and that is a function of the SEEK formula, and it's not really how it's intended, but it's how it was written in 1990. So this is how we're doing it. So legislators, I think, will be taking a look at that at some point in the future, looking to see if SEEK formula needs to be changed. But really talking about our funding is going to be the biggest ask for us.

Jessica Hiler [00:18:00]:
And that's what I've heard too, is that the SEEK formula actually might work well if it was fully funded, but we have been continually underfunding and cutting and cutting and cutting. And then we'd go through and, you know, gee, I know when I was advocating with the Pritchard Committee, it was just to get back to 2008 levels. And that was, you know, in the teens. And so, which was a great big thing.

Jessica Hiler [00:18:26]:
26% underfunded.

Jessica Hiler [00:18:27]:
Yeah, that's huge, huge numbers. And so all of a sudden that $700 million ask is not so big.

Jessica Hiler [00:18:36]:
It's not. And the state has not fully funded transportation either since 2004. Not funding professional development either for educators. Also problems because we still need professional development. We still need to get kids to school. So when we don't have state funds, then we have to pull them somewhere else. And you're pulling them from your local community, which I live in Lexington, and I am so grateful that our community always says yes. When the school board says we need to raise taxes or do the nickel tax or whatever that we're doing.

Jessica Hiler [00:19:09]:
We did a safety tax several years ago to fund a lot of safety improvements with the district, and the community's always said yes because we really can support it in Fayette County. But there comes a point really when the community's like, hold on, you know, like we can't keep doing this and the state has to step up.

Jessica Hiler [00:19:28]:
Well, and it's the state's job, right?

Jessica Hiler [00:19:31]:
It is their constitutional responsibility.

Jessica Hiler [00:19:34]:
That is their number one responsibility, and it is one of the largest parts of the state budget. Yeah. And I don't think people necessarily realize that, and they also don't realize that that SEEK formula is based upon, you know, a per-student type of amount of money, and they only get that money if the students show up at school. And so, you know, when parents are like, ah, it's not a big deal if my kid misses school, it's a big deal on multiple levels. It's, you know, taking that money away from your school and it's also really hurting your kids. Yeah.

Jessica Hiler [00:20:06]:
When you get these schools, a lot of schools will have— I think they may have just had high attendance day or it might be this way. I can't remember when high attendance day is, but people think, why are you doing that? You know, the general population, well, average daily attendance. If you hear anybody talk about ADA, the average daily attendance is a big deal. And if you don't, like you said, if you don't have kids in seats, you're not getting the money for that kid. So it is a big deal when your kids don't come to school. I get kids get sick. My kids get sick. Please don't send them when they're sick, but please don't keep them home for no reason just because you don't want to get up and get them ready or they don't want to go to school.

Jessica Hiler [00:20:39]:
I mean, Lord, I've had teenagers. I know how that is. But you have to send them to school. You know, it's really, really important because that school is not going to get the funds that they need. And I mean, if we get that $700 million, It's a big ask. It's a big ask.

Jessica Hiler [00:20:55]:
I get it.

Jessica Hiler [00:20:55]:
It's a big ask. And legislators are being asked for lots and lots and lots of things. So I completely understand that it's a difficult decision. But we could raise SEEK funding because remember, we're underfunded by 26%. We could raise SEEK funding by about 14% if we had that $700 million. So we could get—

Jessica Hiler [00:21:15]:
So it's not even fully funding it. Yeah.

Jessica Hiler [00:21:18]:
No, no, but, but we could get there.

Jessica Hiler [00:21:21]:
You know, it has to be put in context though. That's exciting.

Jessica Hiler [00:21:24]:
Yeah, it is.

Jessica Hiler [00:21:25]:
You know, opportunities.

Jessica Hiler [00:21:26]:
It really— yeah, we have, we have an option. We have an opportunity. We could get money back in the budget for professional development, textbooks, again, transportation. It would really— I think local districts would finally take a breath if they had this additional funding and say, okay, we're not having to make these hard decisions. Are we going to have to cut art? Are we going to have to cut? You know, nobody wants any of these things cut. If you are an educator and if the community ever thinks that we want to cut art or band, or— we do not. We never want to take those away from kids. We want kids to have as many diverse experiences as they possibly can.

Jessica Hiler [00:22:03]:
But when you look at the hard numbers and you look at how our kids are assessed and you have to make a decision, These are the decisions, really hard decisions, that school boards and site-based decision-making counselors are having to make because there just is not enough money, especially in some of these smaller districts, because they are depending upon the state funding almost exclusively.

Jessica Hiler [00:22:28]:
And, you know, extremely hard decisions being made. Absolutely.

Jessica Hiler [00:22:31]:
And when you have these small districts where in many, many cases in Kentucky, the public school system is the largest employer, in the county. In that case, we are not paying our educators enough. And with this $700 million, we could give all of our educators a significant raise that would bring everybody— that's money. I would get so frustrated by legislators when they get upset about teacher raises. I'm like, where do you think this money is going? Back into Kentucky's economy. Exactly. These people that were paying more for the work that they're doing to educate the next generation of Kentuckians are going to spend that money mostly in their local area. Yes.

Jessica Hiler [00:23:15]:
And all we're doing is growing the economy. If we want to talk about creating jobs and keeping people here, especially in the eastern part of the state where people are leaving, let's invest in those places so they can stay and have good-paying jobs. Teachers are highly educated. And are woefully underpaid based on their level of education. We are the 48th in the country for educator pay, for teacher pay.

Jessica Hiler [00:23:43]:
48th. I did not know it had gotten to that level.

Jessica Hiler [00:23:45]:
Geez Louise. 49th for staff support pay for anybody else. And it— I know. And our kids are performing. Our kids are doing well.

Jessica Hiler [00:23:55]:
We're doing remarkably well in education in Kentucky.

Jessica Hiler [00:23:58]:
And I get— it's another frustration. And I'm not trying to pick on legislators. I'm really not, because they really have a hard job., and I understand that because they cannot be experts in all the things. But when they say that our kids are failing, no, our kids and our schools are not failing. They are not. We are doing everything we can with the kids that come to us. And what we forget to talk about is the communities that surround our kids, the parents that support our kids, the extended family, the community in general. We are all responsible for those children.

Jessica Hiler [00:24:33]:
I'm not, I'm not blaming any of them. I'm just saying we all have to support our children and we all have to be there to provide the resources. If we see a child in our community that's not getting what they need, then we as the community, not just the public school, should help provide those. Because right now, I—

Jessica Hiler [00:24:49]:
there is a narrative that the public school should provide everything, and that's not feasible.

Jessica Hiler [00:24:53]:
No, we should provide education, food, healthcare, mental health support, and we actually do. Do all those things, but we are just stretched so thin that I don't— it's so hard to do it well. So the community, that's the missing piece, I think, in how schools can perform even better because they are performing very well, is for the community to wrap their arms around public schools and our kids and provide resources and support. That's the missing piece. And we all have to be committed as Kentuckians to do that. And I see places where we do that really, really well. And places where we're hands-off. We're gonna send our kid to school and, and hope they come back a fully formed human.

Jessica Hiler [00:25:36]:
It's all of our responsibilities to do that.

Jessica Hiler [00:25:38]:
It really is, especially since the pace of change in our own society is changing so fast. I mean, absolutely. Look at the advent of AI and so many of the jobs that are available today didn't even exist 5 to 10 years ago. We're preparing kids for a very different environment than the system was set up to, to do, and we're asking a lot more of our educators, which gets me to that professional development piece. It drives me insane when people complain about us spending money on professional development because what are we trying to do? We're trying to equip the teachers that are going to mold our students with the best, most recent information that is out there. And so you have to be a lifelong learner in this world today, right? Yeah, absolutely. For us not to give that to the teachers— of course the kids aren't going to get it if we don't give it to the teachers first.

Jessica Hiler [00:26:37]:
I know, it's— I hear about that in the community sometimes. Oh well, we're spending money sending teachers to this professional development or that professional development or this. Great, I am so glad that they're getting the opportunity to learn because school does not look like it did when I was in school over 30 years ago. I graduated from high school 31 years ago, and it does not look the same. Not even remotely the same. The building is still the same. Shout out to Lafayette High School. The building is still the same.

Jessica Hiler [00:27:10]:
Yes, yes. And has been for a very, very long time.

Jessica Hiler [00:27:12]:
I know. But school does not look like it did in 1994 when I walked out of Lafayette High School for the last time. It just does not look like that. And our teachers have to evolve and learn learn how to address the needs of our kids now. Our kids don't learn the same. They don't learn by sitting in a row and everybody is quiet and we're all going to sit here and listen to a lecture. That's how we learned. Yep.

Jessica Hiler [00:27:38]:
And that's how we were set up to learn, and we did fine. That was how we were made.

Jessica Hiler [00:27:43]:
But that's not the world today.

Jessica Hiler [00:27:44]:
No, no, they're not made that way. We have to be able to evolve, and our teachers have to learn that. It's not something they just innately know either. They have to learn. And yeah, being a great educator is always being a lifelong learner. You are learning every second of every day that you are a teacher because you do something with one kid, you're like, oof, that didn't work. And then you're like, okay, let me try this. Oh, that worked.

Jessica Hiler [00:28:07]:
You are learning every second you are in a classroom, every second. And so to be able to take everything you've learned and really synthesize it and figure out how to move forward and how to do better and how to provide better services for your kids have to be able to. So we want our doctors to be up to date on most recent surgical procedures and medications, our lawyers to be up to date on law changes. Like, why would we not want teachers to do that too? So it's frustrating. That's a big sigh.

Jessica Hiler [00:28:40]:
Yeah. But, you know, shout out, you talked about how there, a little bit earlier, about how there are really bright spots out there, and there are so many. So many. Neat and interesting and bright spots out there. We just need to figure out how we can replicate it. And the funding will go a long way to be able to try to make some of that stuff happen. You know, are there kids we're not serving as well? Absolutely. But we're constantly learning.

Jessica Hiler [00:29:05]:
You know, we're constantly learning. We're constantly finding new ways that work with populations that have been more of a challenge and whatnot. And, and that's what a lot of teachers are out there doing is finding the best ways to be able to maybe reach kids that we haven't been reaching yet.

Jessica Hiler [00:29:22]:
So yeah. Yeah, I would be remiss if I didn't say this. I was at a preschool in Christian County yesterday, the Martin Luther King Jr. Early Learning. So I think it was Early Learning. I hope I didn't botch the name of the school. I was there yesterday and it was an amazing partnership in pre-K and childcare, very innovative and really kind of, you know, they have talked a lot with the administration, with the Beshear administration, about Pre-K for All. And really, that is something that I, I hope that our legislators sincerely consider during this budget session.

Jessica Hiler [00:29:57]:
It would make a huge difference in what we are able to accomplish with our kids. As a kindergarten teacher, I could spot the kids who went to Pre-K a mile away from the kids who did not. They were socially prepared. That was the biggest thing. Even not as much academically, it did— that didn't matter to me as much. It was more being socially prepared and being ready to learn because that way I did not have to spend months teaching them how to be at school and learning how— that just takes a while. And you have to do all of that if kids aren't prepared. If we had universal pre-K, our kids would soar even greater than they are now.

Jessica Hiler [00:30:38]:
And I sincerely I sincerely hope legislators consider it. I know there's a lot of hurdles. It's expensive. The infrastructure I don't think is there for it yet. That doesn't mean we shouldn't get started because it's hard. Doesn't mean we shouldn't start. So let's get started. Let's put money back into our economy and put people back to work because moms and dads can go back to work because they have a place for their kids to go.

Jessica Hiler [00:31:03]:
And that is missing because we have childcare deserts all over the state and we have kids that are not being served because they don't meet the requirements now for Head Start, or in Fayette County we call it Early Start. So we need to provide services for our kids, for our 3- and 4-year-olds, and make it universal. I think every—

Jessica Hiler [00:31:23]:
I'm pretty—

Jessica Hiler [00:31:23]:
so I don't want to be wrong, but I think almost every state around us touching us has universal pre-K. Almost every state anyway.

Jessica Hiler [00:31:31]:
Yeah, the research really supports that if we can get kids when they're that young, they accelerate in their learning at such amazing rates. And I think that just a shout out to the childcare piece, because a lot of why pre-K that we have had here in Kentucky has not worked as much as we would like it to is because it was half day. And so, you know, the parents were at work, try to send their kids to pre-K, and then they didn't have anywhere to something set up to be able to do with them for the rest of the time that they're working. So more and more innovative partnerships like that to be able to make that work really makes a lot of sense. And it really will be— talk about an investment, because the return on investment for that early childhood learning is huge for our economies.

Jessica Hiler [00:32:23]:
It is. And I think something legislators should remember when it comes to the 2026 this 26th session is we fund what we value, right? And what do we value? We should value our children and their future. And if we want to invest in Kentucky, then we should invest in our kids. I hope they remember that.

Jessica Hiler [00:32:41]:
That is probably the best answer to my last question. But in case there's something else that you would like to add to that very, very nicely stated, uh, uh, piece, what else would you like decision makers to know?

Jessica Hiler [00:32:56]:
Oh, I would like them to know that educators want to be their partners. We want to partner in this together. We want to do this together. We want to move the Commonwealth forward together. So reach out to us, reach out to your local educators, your teachers, your custodians, bus drivers, everyone. See what they need. Talk to them. Ask them.

Jessica Hiler [00:33:16]:
They will give you the honest truth. They will give you— do not write a piece of legislation without running it by somebody in your district. That is a recipe for disaster. Why? Why? If you're not an educator, why? We're not doing this to the medical profession. We're not doing this to the—

Jessica Hiler [00:33:37]:
Oh, I don't know. Well, okay, we're even starting to do some of that, but still, overall, it is much worse with education. Absolutely.

Jessica Hiler [00:33:47]:
Education takes the brunt of a lot of bad legislation, and we can make it great. We can make this Commonwealth great. We can move our kids forward. We can move the state forward if we do it together. That's what I want them to know. We're willing to do that. KEA is always willing to do that. Come talk to us.

Jessica Hiler [00:34:03]:
We want to be your partner. We will work it out. We just want what's best for the Commonwealth and what's best for kids and what's best for teachers.

Jessica Hiler [00:34:11]:
Great way to end this really awesome podcast. Thank you so much, Jessica, for taking the time to be with us and to share some of this because I don't know Everybody doesn't have this on their radar, so I think it's really important to, you know, to kind of put that forward. And luckily, this should drop right just about in time.

Jessica Hiler [00:34:29]:
So, oh yeah, fun.

Jessica Hiler [00:34:33]:
That's exciting.

Jessica Hiler [00:34:34]:
Thank you so much.

Liza Holland [00:34:36]:
Thank you. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Education Perspectives. Feel free to share your thoughts on our Facebook page. Let us know which education perspectives you would like to hear or share.

Jessica Hiler [00:34:49]:
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