Parents know getting child care is a challenge, even as Virginia takes steps to improve the system. And while accessibility and quality have both increased thanks to record state spending, the two candidates for governor have their own ideas to meet persisting challenges.
“We listen to our friends talk about how much they’re paying for child care and it's an extra mortgage," Tamisha Williams told Radio IQ as she balanced her baby daughter on her lap. "So, we just pause.”
Williams is a Richmond-area consultant who works from home. Her wife is a schoolteacher. They currently rely on Williams' mother to look after their 15-month-old when they’ve got work. It’s a solution, one they don’t love but they’re making do.
“I’d be looking for the option that would allow us to have enough money to try and save,” she said. “We’re just trying to ride the wave and pray.”
Williams is far from alone. According to state data, there are about 12,000 families on the child care subsidy wait list; those are parents who need child care and could qualify for state funding to access it. That number is likely much higher when you add in parents looking for spots in the private system thanks to staffing shortages across the industry.
Pre-pandemic Virginia took early steps to address the growing demand for child care, with then-governor Ralph Northam pushing numerous reforms. Since then, bipartisan efforts saw some radical changes, including moving the state system under the Department of Education, away from the Department of Social Services, $462 million in new state investments under Governor Glenn Youngkin and the development of a new Quality Measurement system, the VQB5.
For more on that system I stopped by a Sprout School, part of the Richmond YWCA, in southside Richmond.
“That dynamic conversation, this interactive play, while It looks like just a lot of fun, so dang cute, there’s a lot of brain development happening here,” Rupa Murthy, who runs the Sprout Centers in Richmond, said, describing the interactions teachers are having with the kids they care for.
It’s sing-along-time in the infant room where three teachers are overseeing five infants. This is between diaper changes and feedings, all of which are reported as part of the state’s new quality measures.
One Sprout teacher, Terri Robinson, has worked in the child care space for 30 years. She remembered the older state child care regime and said, despite the increased reporting required through under VQB5, the changes are for the best.
“It gives parents peace, ‘I might not be able to be there, but I know what’s going on with my child,’” she said.
The data Robinson enters ends up in a state database which is available to parents and the public. Jenna Conway, Deputy Superintendent for the Virginia Department of Education’s Division of Early Childhood, said it’s a valuable resource for parents and the future of child care across the state.
“It establishes a measurement and improvement system that helps tell the story to our elected officials, to help convince them to invest in the program for two reasons,” she said. “One: they know its quality. And two: they know more parents than ever want to put their children in this system.”
And these quality improvements matter. Down in Virginia’s Southwest corner, Ballad health has worked to improve child care access for both its employees and the communities it serves where a kind of child care desert persists.
“There’s this strong correlation, one of the strongest correlations to health, to educational outcomes, economic outcomes and health outcomes,” Ballad's Todd Norris told Radio IQ about why they’re investing funds and effort into local child care options.
They’ve opened both teacher training facilities and pre-K school programs locally in the hopes of improving lives for new generations by creating stability early.
“The family can work to support their family,” Norris said, suggesting quality child care is often the difference between being in poverty and getting out of poverty. And it, “increases the workforce… it has this virtuous cycle associated with it.”
But quality improvements don’t mean much if supply can’t meet demand. Pandemic-era staffing losses are among hurdles that persist.
“We created substantial new capacity that didn’t exist before,” Norris said of local successes. “But the availability of funds doesn't match up to the need right now.”
According to the Virginia Department of Education, the turnover rate for child care teachers is about 40% a year, meaning four out of 10 teachers are brand new. And the average salary, $17 an hour, is on par with fast food jobs in many parts of the state; and there are no diapers needing to be changed when you work at Chipotle.
Sprout’s Richmond locations are currently down 15 teachers, and that’s after a recent job fair led to five new hires. Every open gig means fewer open child care slots and Murthy said their waitlist is already 700 families long.
Two people who could address those problems are Virginia’s candidates for governor.
Democrat Abigail Spanberger said affordability is the biggest challenge.
“I would make sure my administration is working with the general assembly to invest in the type of workforce development and training development programs, particularly early childhood education,” Spanberger told Radio IQ. “And work to incentivize those students to perhaps choose careers in that space.”
Winsome Earle-Sears, the Republican, has a plan called Winsome CARES - Clear the child care waitlist, Attract and Retain educators and Expand public/private partnerships. It includes a $200 million investment in state funds across the industry.
She hopes it will not only beef up the industry, but also attract job creators who, “will not only have workforce talent, but their employees won't worry about what’s happening to their children while they’re at work.”
Money is the biggest demand for child care advocacy groups; among them is Allison Gilbreath Voices for Virginia’s Children. Her group said at least $100 million is needed on top of the nearly half a billion Governor Youngkin poured into the system in recent years.
Gilbreath said current funds don't meet what she called the “true cost of quality,” and what remains is a cost families cannot afford. And that all trickles down, via low salaries and attempts to keep costs low, into the revolving door of new employees and shuttering or hard-to-open providers that currently exist.
“That leaves child care development centers at razor thin margins,” Gilbreath said. “If they lose five kids, they’re out of business."
"Investment has to think about the entire infrastructure of child care,” she added.
There are also some regulatory fixes some legislators and providers would like to see.
“How do we, through regulation, make it easier for them to get started?” Delegate Carrie Coyner said at a recent event in Hopewell. She said she’s had new providers reach out to her office and ask for help navigating the early process of creating new facilities.
She hopes the next governor can address the issue while also providing options for parents.
"Ensuring we’re providing opportunities to make sure families can make those decisions themselves," the Delegate added. "Parents are at the forefront so [the government] is not picking and choosing who they have access to."
And back at Sprout School, Murthy said minor regulatory changes could speed up onboarding for new hires.
“When someone's tuberculosis test takes weeks to get through the Virginia Department of Health, or new hires have to pay out of pocket for testing, that’s a barrier,” she said, clarifying they don’t want such illnesses in their schools, but minor fixes could make things smoother.
For now, parents like Williams are making do with what they’ve got, and finding ways to make the best of it.
“We have a system that’s working… there is a flow we’ve been able to maintain,” she said, noting she grew up in family-linked child care and she turned out just fine.
“This is a beautiful thing I'll never get back, to be able to present in her life in this way,” she said of the time she gets to spend with her daughter. “But right now my business is going to look different because of it.”
This report, provided by Virginia Public Radio, was made possible with support from the Virginia Education Association.
