This story was reported and written by our media partner the Virginia Mercury.
Parents of nearly 10,000 children in Virginia are seeking early childhood care and education services primarily in the south and central regions, according to data collected by the Department of Education as of Oct. 1.
Industry experts say the challenge is balancing capacity and demand as the state focuses on preparing children and supporting families.
Virginia faces unmet parental demand for all three state-funded child care programs.
The state-funded programs are the Child Care Subsidy Program, which provides subsidies to eligible families; the Mixed Delivery program, which offers funding to private, community-based preschools to serve children at risk of entering school without the necessary skills, and the Virginia Preschool Initiative program, which is provided for free, for four-year-old children.
“Unmet parent demand for child care is essentially a loss or a leak in our workforce pipeline,” said Del. Carrie Coyner, R-Chesterfield, at the Oct. 9 Commission on Early Childhood and Education meeting.
Del. David Bulova, D- Fairfax, added that while the commission is off to a great start, there is still a long way to go.
“We’ve built up a system that I think is gathering a great reputation, and so it’s not surprising that people are taking notice and they want to participate in that,” Bulova said. “This is really a very important part of our economy, it’s an important part of our workforce development and it’s also just a really great way to help families become self-sufficient and successful in the long term.”
The wait list
According to data collected by VDOE, 9,657 children, including infants, toddlers, and school-age children, are on the Child Care Subsidy Program waitlist based on information collected from 93 of the 120 localities.
Jenna Conway, deputy superintendent at VDOE, said at the commission meeting that the remaining localities either have enough attrition or are seeing a different level of demand. The agency did not provide data on the enrollment changes for the Mixed Delivery or Virginia Preschool Initiative programs.
The Chesapeake Bay region has the most significant demand for services at 24%, followed by the Central and North Central regions at 22%.
(Photo courtesy of the Virginia Department of Education)
A total of 4,100 infants and toddlers comprise most of the children on the waitlist.
Conway said that excluding any policy changes, $112.7 million in additional funds would be needed to fully cover the 9,657 children on the waitlist. Excluding school-age children would cost $94.1 million.
She added that about two-thirds of families seek options in the private sector because they have infants and toddlers or need a full-day or full-year option. A third of families are seeking options through public school.
According to the agency, Virginia families contribute an average of 2% of gross income.
The current average copayment is $77 per month. Changing the current copayment policy for any of the three state-funded programs requires a change to Virginia’s biennial budget, completed in May.
Improving child care services
With the progress made to identify the need and demand for child care services, the commission celebrated the state’s release of 3,121 profiles of publicly funded early childhood sites across the commonwealth detailing each program’s health, safety and learning information.
The data was published on Oct. 8.
The profiles stem from the Unified Virginia Quality Birth to Five system, or VQB5, focused on improving children’s school readiness and expanding access to parents and support providers. The system is also a tool to help gauge the effectiveness of Virginia’s early childhood education programs.
Bulova said earlier that more than half of child care programs, approximately 75%, that received public funding previously did not participate in the state’s voluntary quality measures. His 2020 legislation, which he co-patroned, led to all publicly funded providers being required to participate.
Coyner said she was anxious to begin reviewing the data as the commission seeks to support families with access, costs and quality of services.
“For our families to work, attend job training, get more education and pursue greater self-sufficiency, which is our goal, while putting their children on track for success in school, we need to ensure that eligible families have access,” Coyner told the panel at the meeting. “And again, that comes back to our task with finance, right? Access and quality equates to our ability to finance the system.”
The commission will conclude its review and recommend updates to the current copayment schedule, parental work requirements, and attendance expectations applicable to the Child Care Subsidy Program and Mixed Delivery Grant Program by Dec. 1, according to language in the biennium budget. The commission was tasked with considering “leveraging state general funds to minimize the fiscal cliff as family income increases beyond the program eligibility” and using “reasonable copayments to minimize the need for additional general funds.”
The VQB5 Online Portal includes information on health, safety, and learning in early childhood programs in every city and county in Virginia. (Courtesy of the Virginia Department of Education)
