By Dana Wormald | Editor
Good morning, New Hampshire, and welcome to Wednesday. Today, Maya Mitchell reports on the struggle for childcare providers to implement quality programs and why the challenges are mounting. Also, Molly Rains reports on a climate resiliency effort on the New Hampshire coast. And, from Stateline’s Amanda Watford, violent crime in the United States continues to decline. Thank you for reading, and enjoy the day. — Dana
The playground at the White Birch Center Childcare and Early Learning Building in Henniker. Childcare programs in the state’s continuous quality program, Granite Steps for Quality, are facing issues on their quest for improvement. (Photo by Maya Mitchell/New Hampshire Bulletin)
By Maya Mitchell
Granite Steps for Quality is a state-run, nationally recognized, continuous quality improvement program available to New Hampshire’s childcare providers. It focuses on elevating a program, its teachers, and its classrooms through training, leadership and professional development, coaching, and assessments. Directors whose childcare programs are in GSQ say they see improvements through that involvement. Their teachers learn skills for working with children with different needs, and their classrooms become more catered to what is best for child development. But they also say the program’s problems are many — and mounting.
Meadow Pond, in Hampton, viewed from Gentian Road. The tidal estuary regularly floods during very high tides, spilling over into nearby neighborhoods. While the town of Hampton has worked on engineering solutions to that flooding, which is worsened by climate change, scientists are working on rehabilitating the marsh itself. (Photo by Molly Rains/New Hampshire Bulletin)
By Molly Rains
At first glance, the upgrades that Tom Bassett and his Hampton neighbors on Gentian Road, Meadow Pond Road, and nearby streets spent more than two decades advocating for don’t look like much. A layer of new asphalt on the road hints at the network of new drainage pipes underneath, while an existing pump station in the heart of the neighborhood has been repurposed. Tucked behind Bassett’s home, at the edge of the marsh, a bobber swings at an automated water-level reading station. Yet these changes, funded with a mixture of local, state, and federal dollars totaling about $4.3 million, have had a big impact on the neighborhood.
By Amanda Watford
Violent crime in the United States fell by an estimated 9.3% in 2025, marking the largest year-to-year decline in the national violent crime rate since the FBI began estimating crime in 1936, according to new national data.
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