SMITHFIELD, R.I. — Babysitter Marci Then, 32, looked at the two four-year-olds in her care who were struggling over a plate of toys in a model kitchen set. “Are we sharing?” – she asked them gently. They both gave up.
He then works at the Little Learners Academy child care center near Providence, Rhode Island. Her daughter, Mila, 4, is enrolled there, so Non can keep an eye on her, as can a dozen other 4-year-olds. Mila calls her mother “Miss Marci” at school and “Mom” at home.
Most of the time, Mila stays in another room with another center employee and follows rules that do not allow custodial parents to care for their own children in licensed facilities. But for today, Mila is near her mother for a moment to show the reporter around.
Mila proudly chirps her age and then helps put away the toys so the children can gather quietly and spend time in a circle.
She then said that without aid she wouldn’t be able to pay the $315 a week for Mila to come to Little Learners. But it takes advantage of a one-year state pilot program that allows federal funds to be used to pay for child care for early education workers.
“It changed my life,” said Then, a single mother who is also responsible for an adopted newborn adult with disabilities. Without it, “I would have to reorganize my life.”
In 2022, Kentucky lawmakers amended the Child Care Employer Assistance Program to specifically include child care workers of all income levels who work at least 20 hours a week. Other states, including Rhode Island, have launched programs modeled after Kentucky’s. Kentucky’s program was scheduled to end on Sept. 30, but Stephanie French, spokeswoman for the state Cabinet of Health and Family Services, wrote in an email that the state will exploit a combination of federal and state funds to continue the program.
At least six states currently have similar programs or are considering legislation to launch them, According to EdSurge, a news site dedicated to education-related issues.
Supporters, including Republicans and Democrats, see retaining child care workers as a benefit not only to workers and centers struggling with staff shortages, but also to state economies. For many people, the lack of affordable childcare is a barrier to entering the labor market.
Charlene Barbieri, founder and owner of four Little Learners Academy locations in Rhode Island, said in an interview that it is arduous to hire and retain qualified employees. The child care subsidy program is helpful, she said.
“As we know, early learning is very expensive here, right?” – said Barbieri. “Therefore, any additional programs, monetary or otherwise, are extremely beneficial.
“Many teachers have come to us and said that if it weren’t for this program, we wouldn’t be able to afford to send our children to child care and still help our families by providing additional income,” she said.
This spring, Rhode Island lawmakers added a child care subsidy to the fiscal 2025 budget, moving the program out of the “pilot” category. Democratic Gov. Dan McKee is expected to sign the budget this week.
“It’s a good program and we’ve seen great results from it,” Rhode Island House Speaker Joseph Shekarchi, a Democrat, said in an interview. “Labor shortages exist across the labor market. So giving [caregivers] free childcare, they will be able to return home and look after other children, enabling more people to enter the labor market.”
Other states that have launched or are considering implementing programs include Arizona, Colorado, Indiana, Iowa and Nebraska, according to EdSurge.
The Center for Child Care Employment Research, a research center at the University of California, Berkeley, estimated that if every state followed Kentucky’s example, about 234,000 workers with children under 6 would benefit.
“We take it for granted,” said Anna Powell, a senior research and policy fellow at the center who co-authored a report on the program. “Parents are educators – why shouldn’t they be at the front of the line? Every time an educator stays in the field, it benefits many parents.”
Budget challenges
But in some states, budget concerns pose a challenge for lawmakers who want to make their pilot program lasting.
Arizona had a one-year Education Workforce Scholarship program that helped child care workers and public school teachers pay for the care of their own children, but that program was funded with federal pandemic dollars and ends on June 30. It is unlikely to be extended due to state budget shortfalls.
Child care workers who currently receive this assistance would instead have to apply for assistance through the state’s broad child care assistance program. The program, administered by the Arizona Department of Economic Security, is income-based, department spokeswoman Tasya Peterson wrote in an email to Stateline.
Barbie Prinster, executive director of the Arizona Early Childhood Education Association, a nonprofit organization representing child care centers, said 3,541 children qualified for child care subsidies through the early childhood education program this year, about three-quarters of whom were from families employing a caregiver. . The rest are teachers’ families.
She predicted that if the subsidy was not extended, hundreds of workers might have to leave.
“I think with this grant, providers are hiring more mothers with young children,” she said.
In Nebraska, state senator John Fredrickson, a Democrat and father of a 5-year-old son, introduced a bill this session that would provide free child care to employees of state-licensed child care programs, regardless of whether… home care or center-based care who work at least 20 hours a week.
He estimated that the potential grant, which he modeled after Kentucky’s idea, could cover 2,175 parent providers. He estimated that if each employee took care of eight children, 16,000 children would be cared for, and at least the same number of parents would work, he said.
Fredrickson said the bill’s initial budget estimate was around $20 million, which turned out to be a lot, so he cut it in half to $10 million. But even that proved too much, he said, and the effort failed. He plans to reintroduce the bill next year.
Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds, a Republican, approved a bill on May 1 to extend for two years a pilot child care subsidy program for early childhood caregivers and teachers regardless of income, at a cost of $10.2 million from the state Child Care Development Fund.
Colorado has agreed to continue its program for caregivers of children ages 6 weeks to 13 years, providing them with full child care benefits regardless of the employee’s income.
Indiana has agreed to study the issue of pay for child care providers and early childhood educators.
“Good for Rhode Island”
Democratic state Reps. Mary Ann Shallcross Smith and Grace Diaz, sitting together in a hearing room just outside the Rhode Island House chamber, said they understood the child welfare issue firsthand. Both are mothers, although their children are now adults, and both are experienced owners of child care centers.
Shallcross Smith remembers putting up fliers at the local pharmacy advertising her home care services. Currently, it owns 15 centers. When the issue of paying child care workers to teach their own children came up this year, she was all for it and took her arguments to House Speaker Shekarchi.
“NO. 1, it’s good for Rhode Island,” she said, adding that it’s also good for business.
Diaz, a mother of five, said she, too, spoke to the speaker. But she recalled that perhaps the most essential factor in getting the program into the state budget was the day a group of newborn children from various child care facilities were brought to Capitol Hill to become living examples of the need.
“When they saw the little kids in the House of Representatives, they all wanted a photo,” Diaz said.
Returning to the Little Learners playground, Kayla Champagne, 39, of Lincoln, Rhode Island, smiled at her 3-year-old son, Jaxson, who peered out from the top of the climbing structure. 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 cover the costs of Jaxson’s care.
She used to work at another day care center, but could only afford to send Jaxson there a few days a week, she added. At Little Learners, staff helped her apply for a state grant.
“That’s one of the reasons I gave up caring for my second child and came here,” she said. “Now I can work full time with four kids.”
Rhode Island current reporter Nancy Lavin contributed to this report.
