Fiscal Note
No fiscal impact.
Title
Congratulating Lorna Aaronson on her retirement after 23 years with the City of Madison.
Body
Whereas Lorna Aaronson has worked as a child care specialist for the City of Madison since October 10, 1983; and
Whereas Lorna has consistently provided exceptional support and guidance to the child care programs assigned to her, leading them to meet and exceed standards; and
Whereas child care directors have cited innumerable positive changes that they have made as a result of working with her; and
Whereas Lorna's success comes in part from the respect and gratitude that she consistently shows for the people who do this challenging work with young children every day; and
Whereas Lorna has been identified as "the cruel inspector" by at least one 3 year old in a center she was observing, thus demonstrating that she is no pushover; and
Whereas Lorna has made outstanding contributions to the City Accreditation process, including conducting a comparative analysis of City and National accreditation; and
Whereas as a result of Lorna's analysis City accredited child care centers receive a 10% bonus for quality under the State Child Care Assistance program, which resulted in thousands of additional dollars for city programs over the years; and
Whereas Lorna dedicated herself to achieving endorsement in 1991 as a High/Scope Trainer and went on to craft countless training experiences for Madison's child care professionals that raised their level of professional competence and improved quality of early care and education; and
Whereas Lorna is a founding member of the very effective collaborative training program "Launching into Literacy and Math," which has increased the effectiveness of child care staff in providing critical literacy and math experiences for preschoolers; and
Whereas Lorna has rewritten the family child care standards for the City of Madison, involving providers and system personnel so as to create a consensus around the very high expectations in the standards; and
Whereas Lorna has never failed to come up with a joke when the budget or other bad news came in; and
Whereas Lorna has decided to spend more time with her grandchildren, and pursue her bookmaking and other artistic talents with more leisure.
Now therefore be it resolved that the Common Council recognize and congratulate Lorna Aaronson on her retirement from 23 years of work for the City of Madison.