SMITHFIELD, R.I. — Child care worker Marci Then, 32, looked over at two 4-year-olds in her care who were wrangling over a toy plate in a model kitchen. “Shall we share?” she asked them gently. They both let go.
Then works at Little Learners Academy daycare near Providence, Rhode Island. Her daughter, Mila, 4, is enrolled there, so Then can keep a watchful eye on her and about a dozen other 4-year-olds. Mila calls her mother “Miss Marci” at school, but “Mom” at home.
Most of the time, Mila is in another room with another staff member at the center and has to abide by the rules that do not allow caring parents to care for their own children in a licensed facility. But today, Mila is with her mother for a while to show a reporter around.
Mila proudly announces her age and then helps to tidy up the toys so that the children can sit quietly in a circle.
Then said she wouldn’t have been able to afford the $315 a week for Mila to attend Little Learners without facilitate, but she’s taking advantage of a year-long state pilot program that allows the apply of federal funds to pay for early childhood professionals’ care for their children.
“It’s changed my life,” said Then, a single mother who is also responsible for a disabled juvenile adult she adopted. Without that facilitate, “I would have to reorganize my life.”
In 2022, Kentucky lawmakers changed the Employer Child Care Assistance program to specifically include child care workers of all income levels who work at least 20 hours per week. Other states, including Rhode Island, have since implemented programs modeled after Kentucky’s program. Kentucky’s program was set to end Sept. 30, but Stephanie French, spokeswoman for the state Cabinet for Health and Family Services, wrote in an email that the state will apply a combination of federal and state funds to continue the program.
At least half a dozen states now have similar programs or are considering introducing such programs. accordingly EdSurge, a news site covering education issues.
Supporters, including Republicans and Democrats, see retaining child care workers as a benefit not only for workers and centers suffering from staff shortages, but also for the states’ economies. For many people, the lack of affordable child care is a barrier to entering the workforce.
Charlene Barbieri, founder and owner of four Little Learners Academy locations in Rhode Island, said in an interview that it is complex to hire and retain qualified employees. The child care subsidy program helps, she said.
“Early learning is very expensive here, as we know, isn’t it?” Barbieri said. “That’s why any supplementary programs, whether financial or otherwise, are extremely useful.”
“Many teachers came to us and said that without this program, we could not afford to send our children to daycare and still help our families with additional income,” she said.
Rhode Island lawmakers included the child care subsidy in the 2025 budget this spring, moving the program out of the “pilot program” category. Democratic Gov. Dan McKee is expected to sign the budget this week.
“It’s a good program and we’ve had great results with it,” said Rhode Island House Speaker Joseph Shekarchi, a Democrat, in an interview. “We have a labor shortage across the labor market. So by [caregivers] Free childcare allows them to return to work and look after other children, which in turn enables more people to enter the workforce.”
Other states that have launched or are considering programs include Arizona, Colorado, Indiana, Iowa and Nebraska, according to EdSurge.
The Center for the Study of Child Care Employment, a research center at the University of California, Berkeley, estimates that about 234,000 workers with children under the age of six could benefit if all states followed Kentucky’s example.
“For us, this is a no-brainer,” said Anna Powell, the center’s senior research and policy fellow who co-authored a report on the program. “The educators are parents – why shouldn’t they be at the forefront? Every time an educator stays in the field, it benefits a lot of parents.”
Budget challenges
In some states, however, budgetary issues pose a challenge for lawmakers seeking to make their pilot programs lasting.
Arizona had a one-year educational scholarship program that helped public school educators and teachers pay for child care for their own children, but that program was funded with federal pandemic funds and ends June 30. Due to state budget deficits, an extension is unlikely.
Child care workers who receive that assistance now would instead have to apply for facilitate through the state’s comprehensive child care program. That program, administered by the Arizona Department of Economic Security, is based on income level, Tasya Peterson, a spokeswoman for the department, wrote in an email to Stateline.
Barbie Prinster, executive director of the Arizona Early Childhood Education Association, a nonprofit that represents child care centers, said 3,541 children received child care subsidies through the early childhood education program this year. About three-quarters of those were from families with a child care worker. The rest were from the families of teachers.
She predicted that hundreds of workers would have to quit if the subsidies were not extended.
“I believe that because of this subsidy, providers will hire more mothers with young children,” she said.
In Nebraska, Democratic Senator John Fredrickson, father of a five-year-old son, introduced a bill this session that would have guaranteed free child care to employees of state-approved child care programs, whether in-home or in a child care center, who work at least 20 hours per week.
He estimated that the potential subsidy, which he modeled on Kentucky, could have attracted 2,175 parents as caregivers. If each worker cared for eight children, there would be 16,000 children in care and at least that many parents would be working, he estimated.
Fredrickson said the original budget estimate for the bill was about $20 million, which turned out to be too much, so he cut the amount in half to $10 million. But even that was too much, he said, and the effort failed. He plans to reintroduce his bill next year.
Iowa Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds on May 1 approved a bill that would extend for two years a pilot program to provide child care subsidies to early childhood educators and caregivers regardless of income. The cost will be covered by $10.2 million from the state’s Childcare Development Fund.
Colorado agreed to continue a program for child care workers with children ages 6 weeks to 13 years that provides them with full child care benefits regardless of the worker’s income.
And Indiana agreed to study the issue of compensation for child care workers and educators.
“Good for Rhode Island”
Sitting together in a hearing room just off the Rhode Island House of Representatives earlier this month, Democratic Reps. Mary Ann Shallcross Smith and Grace Diaz said they knew firsthand how critical child care is. Both are mothers, though their children are now grown, and both are experienced child care directors.
Shallcross Smith remembers putting up flyers in the local pharmacy to promote her home care service. Today, she owns 15 centres. When the question arose this year about whether childcare workers should pay school fees for their own children, she was all for it and took her case to House Speaker Shekarchi.
“First of all, it’s good for Rhode Island,” she said, adding that it’s good for business as well.
Diaz, a mother of five, said she also spoke with the speaker. But perhaps the most critical reason the program was included in the state budget, as she recalls it, was the day they brought a group of juvenile children from various child care facilities to the Capitol to be a living example of the need.
“When they saw the little kids at the State House, they all wanted a photo,” Diaz said.
Back at the Little Learners playground, caregiver Kayla Champagne, 39, of Lincoln, Rhode Island, smiled up at her 3-year-old son, Jaxson, who was peeking over a jungle gym. Champagne, who has three other children, ages 18, 14 and 8, is relieved to be able to take advantage of a program that helps her pay for Jaxson’s care.
She previously worked at another daycare but could only afford to send Jaxson there a few days a week, she said. At Little Learners, staff helped her apply for the government subsidy.
“That’s one of the reasons I gave up my other childcare job to come here,” she said. “Now I can work full time and have four children at the same time.”
Rhode Island Current reporter Nancy Lavin contributed to this report.
