Tag: Child Care

  • ‘They Are Hunting Us:’ D.C. Child Care Workers Go Underground Amid ICE Crackdown – The 74

    ‘They Are Hunting Us:’ D.C. Child Care Workers Go Underground Amid ICE Crackdown – The 74


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    From her home-based day care in Washington, D.C., Alma peers out the door and down the sidewalks. If they’re clear and there are no ICE agents out, she’ll give her coworker a call letting her know it’s safe to head in for work.

    They have to be careful with the kids, too. Typically, she took the five children she cares for to the library on Wednesdays and out to parks throughout the week, but Alma — who, like her coworker, does not have permanent legal status — had to stop doing that in August, when President Donald Trump declared a “crime emergency” in the district. Now, two of the kids she cares for are being pulled out of the day care. The parents said it was because they weren’t going outside.

    Trump has deployed the National Guard and a wave of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents into the district. ICE arrests there have increased tenfold. The situation has thrust the Latinas who hold up the nation’s child care sector into a perpetual state of panic. Nationwide, about 1 in 5 child care workers are immigrants, but in D.C. it’s closer to 40 percent; about 7 percent nationally lack permanent legal status. Nearly all are women.

    Many are missing work, and others are risking it because they simply can’t afford to lose pay, providers told The 19th. All are afraid they’ll be next.

    “What kind of life is this?” said Alma, whose name The 19th has changed to protect her identity. “We are not delinquents, we are not bad people, we are here to work to support our family.”

    Alma has been running a home-based day care for the past decade. She’s been in the United States for 22 years, working in child care that entire time. With two kids being pulled, she will have to reduce her staffer’s hours as she tries to find children to fill those spots.

    Her four school-age children also depend on her. This month, she had to write out a signed document detailing what should happen to her kids if she were to be detained. Her wish is that they be brought to detention with her.

    “I can’t imagine my kids here without me,” she said.

    She said she understands the president’s approach of expelling immigrants with criminal convictions from the country, but teachers who are working with kids? Who haven’t committed any crime?

    By targeting them, she said, the administration is “destroying entire families.”

    The Multicultural Spanish Speaking Providers Association in D.C., which works with Latina child care providers, has seen this panic first hand for the past couple of weeks as more and more Latinas in child care have stopped coming into work. The center also helps workers obtain their associate’s degree in early childhood education, and since the semester started in mid-August, many teachers have asked for classes to be offered virtually so they don’t have to show up to campus at night.

    Latinas have flocked to the child care industry for multiple reasons: Families seeking care value access to language education, and Latinas have a lower language barrier to entry, said Blanca Huezo, the program coordinator at the Multicultural Spanish Speaking Providers Association.

    “In general, this industry offers them an opportunity for a fresh start professionally in their own language and without leaving behind their culture,” Huezo said.

    Though the number of child care workers without permanent legal status has historically been low, recent changes from the Trump administration to revoke or reduce legal protections have likely increased it. This year, the administration has narrowed opportunities for claiming asylum at the border, tried to bar certain groups from obtaining Temporary Protected Status and temporarily paused humanitarian protections for groups of migrants.

    The changes, coupled with increased enforcement, has fostered fear among Latinx people regardless of immigration status. That fear among workers is deepening a staffing crisis in an industry that already couldn’t afford additional losses, Huezo said.

    “There is a shortage — and now even more,” she said. “There are many centers where nearly 99 percent of teachers are of Hispanic origin.”

    Washington, D.C., has been a sanctuary city since 2020, where law enforcement cooperation with immigration officials was broadly prohibited. Earlier this year, however, Mayor Muriel Bowser proposed repealing that law and, in mid-August, Washington’s Metropolitan Police Department Police Chief Pamela Smith gave officers leeway to share information with ICE about individuals they arrested or stopped.

    “There was some peace that living in D.C. brought more security,” Huezo said. Now, “people don’t feel that freedom to walk through the streets.”

    Several child care workers are afraid to go to work in DC, now that President Trump has removed restrictions on ICE conducting enforcement at schools and daycares.
    (Getty Images)

    Child care centers are also no longer off limits for ICE raids. The centers were previously protected under a “sensitive locations” directive that advised ICE to not conduct enforcement in places like schools and day cares. But Trump removed that protection on his first day in office. While reports have not yet surfaced of raids in day cares, ICE presence near child care care centers, including in D.C., has been reported.

    A similar story of fear and surveillance has already played out in Los Angeles, where ICE conducted widespread raids earlier in the summer. Huezo said her organization has been in touch with child care providers in L.A. to learn about how they managed those months.

    In the meantime, the best the organization can do, she said, is connect workers with as many resources as possible, including legal clinics, but the ones that help immigrants are at their maximum caseload. The group has put child care workers who are not leaving their homes in touch with an organization called Food Justice DMV that is delivering meals to their doorsteps. Prior to last month, people who needed food could fill out a form and get it that same week. Now, the wait time is two to three weeks, Huezo said. For those in Maryland and Virginia, it’s closer to a month.

    Thalia, a teacher at a day care, said her coworkers have stopped coming to work. It’s all the staff talks about during their lunchtime conversations. When she rides the Metro into work, she looks over her shoulder for the ICE agents, their faces covered, who are often at the exits.

    “They are hunting us,” she said.

    Thalia, whose name has been changed because she does not have permanent legal status, has been living in the United States for nine years and working in child care that entire time. Like her, many of the Latina teachers she works with have earned certifications and degrees in early childhood education.

    “We are working, we are cooperating, paying taxes,” she said. “We are there all day so other families can benefit from the child care.”

    As a single mother, Thalia has also had to consider what would happen to her three children if she was detained. This past month, she retained a lawyer who could help them with their case in case anything were to happen. Her school-age kids know: Call the lawyer if mom is detained and get tickets to Guatemala to meet her there.

    This is what she lives with every day now: “The fear of leaving your family and letting them know, ‘If I don’t return, it’s not because I am abandoning you.’ ”

    This story was originally reported by Chabeli Carrazana of The 19th. Meet Chabeli and read more of her reporting on gender, politics and policy.


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  • After Hechinger story, Illinois passes law requiring hospitals to connect parents of premature infants with life-changing therapies

    After Hechinger story, Illinois passes law requiring hospitals to connect parents of premature infants with life-changing therapies

    Illinois hospital staff will soon be required by law to refer parents of severely premature infants to services that can help prevent years of intensive and expensive therapy later, when the children are older. The new law follows reporting from The Hechinger Report that exposed how hospitals often fail to connect many eligible parents to these opportunities for their children after they leave neonatal intensive care units.

    Earlier this year, Hechinger contributor Sarah Carr wrote about how, across the country, far too few parents are made aware of the kinds of therapies their babies are entitled to under federal law. Such early intervention services can ultimately reduce the need for these children to require costly special education support as schoolchildren. 

    Carr noted: “Federal law says children with developmental delays, including newborns with significant likelihood of a delay, can get early intervention from birth to age 3. States design their own programs and set their own funding levels, however. They also set some of the criteria for which newborns are automatically eligible, typically relying on qualifying conditions like Down syndrome or cerebral palsy, extreme prematurity or low birthweight. Nationally, far fewer infants and toddlers receive the therapies than should. The stats are particularly bleak for babies under the age of 1: Just 1 percent of these infants get help. Yet an estimated 13 percent of infants and toddlers likely qualify.”

    After the Hechinger Report story was published, Illinois state Rep. Janet Yang Rohr authored legislation to require that hospitals distribute materials informing parents of premature and low birth weight babies about their eligibility for early intervention therapies. The bill also required that hospitals make a nurse or physical therapist available to explain these rights to families.

    Related: Young children have unique needs and providing the right care can be a challenge. Our free early childhood education newsletter tracks the issues. 

    “The problem is that these families often don’t know about these services,” Yang Rohr said last spring, after her chamber passed the bill. “So this bill improves that early intervention process by requiring NICU staff to share information about these services and requires hospital staff to write a referral to these programs for families that are eligible.”

    Illinois Representative Janet Yang Rohr Credit: ILGA

    Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker signed that bill into law earlier this month. It takes effect in January. 

    Carr also wrote: “The stakes are high for these fragile, rapidly growing babies and their brains. Even a few months of additional therapy can reduce a child’s risk of complications and make it less likely that they will struggle with talking, moving and learning down the road. In Chicago and elsewhere, families, advocates and physicians say a lot of the failures boil down to overstretched hospital and early intervention delivery systems that are not always talking with families very effectively, or with each other hardly at all. ‘They really put the onus of helping your child get better outcomes on you,’ said Jaclyn Vasquez, an early childhood consultant who has had three babies of her own spend time in the NICU.”

    “Early intervention is life-changing for many families, as these programs provide critical services and therapies as children develop,” Illinois state Sen. Ram Villivalam said when the bill was sent to Pritzker. “But, these services can only benefit those they are able to reach, which means uplifting the program and expanding its outreach to those who need it is imperative.”

    Contact editor Nirvi Shah at 212-678-3445, securely on Signal at NirviShah.14 or via email at [email protected].

    This story about premature infants was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for the Hechinger newsletter.

    The Hechinger Report provides in-depth, fact-based, unbiased reporting on education that is free to all readers. But that doesn’t mean it’s free to produce. Our work keeps educators and the public informed about pressing issues at schools and on campuses throughout the country. We tell the whole story, even when the details are inconvenient. Help us keep doing that.

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  • Black fathers should not be perceived as a threat when they show up for their children

    Black fathers should not be perceived as a threat when they show up for their children

    Across the country, Black fathers are too often seen as a threat when they speak up and advocate for their children. And it’s not just in courtrooms and on sidewalks — it’s happening in classrooms, daycares and schools. 

    I’ve spent my career in education and equity leadership, and I know this is part of a larger, troubling pattern. When Black parents — especially men — assert themselves in spaces not designed for them, they are too often perceived as “aggressive.”  

    Their advocacy is sometimes interpreted as “rude,” and their presence is framed as disruption rather than partnership, something that has played out in my own experience as a proud Black father of three.  

    This isn’t about one parent or teacher or even one moment. It’s about what happens when systems designed to support children carry embedded racial assumptions. 

    Related: A lot goes on in classrooms from kindergarten to high school. Keep up with our free weekly newsletter on K-12 education. 

    I’ll never forget picking my kids up from daycare during a lice outbreak. My wife and I had no experience dealing with lice, and I asked a few questions — just trying to understand what to expect. Instead of getting reassurance or guidance, I was met with suspicion, even subtle blame.  

    Or the time I raised a safety concern about an emotional child in my son’s class who had a pattern of throwing chairs. Rather than treating my concern as legitimate, it was brushed off — as if I were overreacting.  

    In both cases, my presence and voice weren’t welcomed. They were managed. 

    In a society in which Black men are still fighting to be seen as full participants in their children’s lives, we cannot ignore the role that bias plays in shaping who gets welcomed, who gets questioned and who gets believed. Daycares, schools, courts and society at large must actively affirm and restore the voices of Black fathers, rather than dismiss them. 

    Too often, Black men are portrayed as threats or criminals — rather than as nurturers and protectors. These images become mentally entrenched, shaping public attitudes and institutional responses. This persistent framing contributes to a cultural blind spot that brings confusion to the presence of Black fathers and negatively affects how they are treated in schools, courts and communities. 

    Nationally, for example, Black families are disproportionately reported to child protective services, even when controlling for income or neighborhood factors.  

    Despite this anti-Black bias, Black fathers defy stereotypes every day. Black dads, on average, are actually more involved in daily caregiving than fathers of other racial backgrounds, the National Health Statistics Reports from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention notes. Yet media representation has not caught up with this reality.  

    As a student pursuing a doctorate in education leadership and policy, I study how identity shapes access to opportunity. And I know that bias against Black men starts early — when we are boys. A 2016 Yale Child Study Center report found that preschool teachers, regardless of race, were more likely to monitor Black boys for misbehavior — even when no misbehavior was apparent. 

    And in Indiana, studies highlight that nearly four out of every five Black children in the state will be investigated for suspected maltreatment. 

    Related: 7 realities for Black students in America, 70 years after Brown 

    These are not just statistical disparities — they’re stories of fractured trust between families and the institutions meant to serve them.  

    I have explored the concept of “mega-threats” introduced by researchers Angelica Leigh and Shimul Melwani — high-profile, identity-relevant events that trigger lasting psychological stress for people who share that identity. Though typically used to describe major public tragedies, these threats can be individual and personal, too. When a Black father sees himself reduced to a stereotype — his parenting undercut, his words distorted — it becomes an embodied threat, one that lingers and works to fulfill the myth that Black fathers are absent. These corrosive interactions run counter to the heroic influence and legacy that Black men have within their communities as warm demanders — men who emphatically build relationships and uphold high expectations. 

    If we want to support children, we must support their families. That means ensuring that early childhood professionals are trained not just in child development but in cultural competence and anti-bias practices. It means separating assumptions from observations when writing reports.  

    And it means reflecting on how language like “rude” or “aggressive” can carry racial undertones that reinforce long-standing stereotypes. 

    In my work as an educator, leader and former coach, I’ve partnered with countless families across race and class lines. What all parents want — especially those from marginalized communities — is the assurance that when they show up, they’ll be heard, not judged. That their questions will be met with respect, not suspicion. 

    If we truly believe in family engagement, we must be honest about the ways our systems still punish the very people we say we want more of. Black fathers are showing up.  

    The question is: are we ready to see them clearly? 

    Craig Jordan is an educator and doctoral student at Vanderbilt University’s Peabody College. A native of Gary, Indiana, he writes about equity, identity and systemic change in education. His work has been featured in IndyStar and Yahoo News. 

    Contact the opinion editor at [email protected]. 

    This story about Black fathers was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for Hechinger’s weekly newsletter.

    The Hechinger Report provides in-depth, fact-based, unbiased reporting on education that is free to all readers. But that doesn’t mean it’s free to produce. Our work keeps educators and the public informed about pressing issues at schools and on campuses throughout the country. We tell the whole story, even when the details are inconvenient. Help us keep doing that.

    Join us today.

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  • Flat Federal Funding Stymies Head Start as State Child Care Resources Diminish – The 74

    Flat Federal Funding Stymies Head Start as State Child Care Resources Diminish – The 74


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    Despite having some of the most resources and economic support, a recent national study ranked Indiana’s early education system 42nd in the country — and second-to-last when it came to accessibility.

    The WalletHub story, shared earlier this week, is simply the latest confirmation for Hoosier parents that Indiana’s child care market is struggling. Experts, business leaders and politicians agree that Indiana needs more child care, but can’t seem to agree on the best way to meet the moment.

    Facing budgetary pressures and depressed revenue forecasts, state leaders opted to trim funding and narrow eligibility for early learning and child care resources earlier this year. Seats for state-funded preschool, known as On My Way Pre-K, have been halved while vouchers for subsidized child care have more 21,000 children on a waitlist.

    One federal program, Head Start Indiana, hopes to help close the gap left by vanishing state funding, but faces its own challenges with flat federal funding.

    “We are the quietest, most successful 60-year old program in the federal government’s history,” boasted Rhett Cecil, the organization’s executive director. “… (our programs) are going to support their families and children. They’re allowing families to work or get job training or further education. And our services — that child care and early education — are free for those families.”

    Just under 13,000 families in all 92 counties utilize the program, which receives roughly $181 million in federal funding annually. That budget line was briefly threatened by the Trump administration, which walked back proposed cuts in favor of flat funding — which does mean services will be lost as inflation and other costs eat into the bottom line.

    The second-term president also eliminated the federal Head Start office covering Indiana back in April — though the federal Administration for Children and Families announced it would dedicate one-time funding to Head Start locations earlier this week explicitly for nutrition, but not for other programming costs.

    Additional federal support could allow it to expand to meet the need following state cuts, leaders hope, and continue employing almost 4,000 Hoosiers.

    “Let’s say, hypothetically, we get $100 million more dollars. How many more teachers and classrooms could be opened?” Cecil mused. “How many kids could we serve off that waitlist?”

    Importance of child care

    Participating in and access to child care resources reaps benefits for young Hoosiers, such as better school readiness skills. Some national research has found that early education may also decrease future crime and could generate $7.30 for every one dollar invested.

    In Indiana, the shortage of child care options costs the state an estimated $4.2 billion annually, over a quarter of which is linked to annual tax revenue lost.

    The 2024 study from the Indiana Chamber of Commerce emphasized the need to free up parents, mostly women, who’ve left the workforce “as a direct result of childcare-related issues.”

    “There’s some data out there that one in four Hoosier parents leave their job over child care gaps, and it really impacts talent and workforce,” said David Ober, the chamber’s vice president of taxation and public finance. “It’s hindering economic momentum in the state and so it is a huge deal for us.”

    For the last few years, tackling the state’s child care crisis has been a top legislative priority for the organization, which represents the interests of thousands of Hoosier employers. Ober said the chamber is working to plan a child care summit later this year to identify potential solutions.

    According to Brighter Futures Indiana, average full-time weekly care costs families $181 per week — with even higher prices for infants and toddlers. That doesn’t factor in type of care or quality, and prices vary by community.

    Families can spend more on their young children’s care than on a college education — if it’s even available in their communities. Rather than pay the price, many Hoosier parents simply drop out of the workforce at the same time that employers are scrambling to hire talent.

    Ober highlighted recent legislative efforts to expand child care, including one that expanded a tax credit for employers directly providing their employees with child care resources. Other bills have tweaked staffing ratios and created a pilot program for so-called microcenters.

    But workforce remains a challenge, even for Head Start centers, earning its own legislative study carveout. Over 20% of Indiana’s child care workers left the field during the pandemic — a shock that “has not really fully healed,” Ober said.

    “If you ask any provider in the state, workforce is the hardest problem,” Ober said. “… How do you get educators and keep them? There’s so much more work to be done there and it’s challenging.”

    Traditional market forces struggle to balance affordability for parents against costs for child care, a gap sometimes covered by government subsidies.

    But Ober insisted that “child care is infrastructure,” especially for the businesses reliant upon employees who are parents. Changing funding is “going to just exacerbate underlying problems,” he added.

    “Those numbers are pretty stark,” Ober said. “And then when you add in changes at the state and the federal level, it creates new problems that we all have to come together and work on,” he concluded.

    Indiana Capital Chronicle is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Indiana Capital Chronicle maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Niki Kelly for questions: [email protected].


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  • Child care centers often reject kids with disabilities. Ohio and other states are trying to change that

    Child care centers often reject kids with disabilities. Ohio and other states are trying to change that

    This story about children with disabilities was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for the Hechinger newsletter.

    COLUMBUS, Ohio — When Selina Likely became director of the Edwards Creative Learning Center six years ago, she knew there was one longstanding practice that she wanted to change. For as long as she had taught at the thriving child care center, it had turned away many children with disabilities such as autism and Down syndrome. The practice was even encoded in the center’s handbook as policy.

    Likely, the parent of a child with a disability, wanted to stop telling families no, but she knew that to do that she and her staff would need more support. “I said, ‘Let’s start getting training and see what we can do.’” 

    Not too long after, her effort received a big boost from a state-funded initiative in Ohio to strengthen child care teachers’ knowledge and confidence in working with young kids with disabilities and developmental delays. That program, Ohio PROMISE, offers free online training for child care workers in everything from the benefits of kids of all abilities learning and playing together to the kinds of classroom materials most helpful to have on hand. It also offers as-needed mentorship and support from trained coaches across the state.  

    Related: Young children have unique needs, and providing the right care can be a challenge. Our free early childhood education newsletter tracks the issues. 

    Child care providers across the country — including large, established centers and tiny home-based programs — struggle to meet the needs of children with disabilities, according to a 2024 report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office. More than a quarter of parents of children with disabilities said they had a lot of difficulty finding appropriate care for their kids. And even those who do find a spot regularly encounter challenges, like having their children excluded from extracurricular activities such as field trips and even academic instruction. 

    “It’s really hard to find child care for this population, we heard that loud and clear,” said Elizabeth Curda, a director on the GAO’s Education, Workforce and Income Security team and a coauthor of the report. Even the most well-resourced centers report that they struggle to meet the needs of children with disabilities, according to Curda. 

    There’s a lot of desire at the grassroots level to change that. Ohio PROMISE and a few other recent initiatives provide models for how to expand the capacity — and the will — of child care centers to serve the more than 2 million U.S. children age 5 or below who have a disability or developmental delay.

    Cards on the walls at Edwards Creative Learning Center display the signs for different letters so students — whether nonverbal or not — can all learn sign language. Credit: Sarah Carr/The Hechinger Report

    In Vermont, for instance, officials hope to soon unveil a free, on-demand training program aimed at helping child care teachers have more inclusive classrooms. And officials in Ohio’s Summit County, home to Akron, report growing interest from other counties in creating programs based on Summit’s more than decade-old model that provides in-person training for child care operators in inclusion of children with disabilities. 

    “We’re helping to create child care centers that feel they can handle whatever comes their way, especially when it comes to significant behavior concerns,” said Yolanda Mahoney, the early childhood center support supervisor for Summit County’s disabilities board.

    The federal government until recently encouraged the creation of such models. In 2023, the federal Department of Education and Department of Health and Human Services issued a joint statement urging states to take steps to support inclusion in early childhood settings, including strengthening training and accountability. 

    Also, a year-old provision of the Child Care and Development Fund, the primary federal funding source for child care, requires that states increase the availability of child care for children with disabilities as a prerequisite for receiving funds. (However, 43 states have received waivers allowing them to delay implementation of that provision.) 

    Under the current president, federal momentum on the issue has largely stalled. While the administration of President Donald Trump hasn’t directly attacked inclusion in the context of special education, the president has criticized the term more broadly — especially when it comes to diversity, equity and inclusion. That can create uncertainty and a chilling effect on advocates of inclusion efforts of all kinds.   

    Funding for some inclusion efforts is also in jeopardy. States rely on Medicaid, which faces nearly $1 trillion in cuts over the next decade, to pay for early intervention programs for children birth to age 3 with developmental delays and disabilities. Trump has also proposed eliminating Preschool Development Grants, which states such as Vermont and Illinois have used to expand support of young children with disabilities. 

    That means over the next few years, progress on inclusion in child care settings could hinge largely on state and local investment. It helps that there’s a “real desire” among providers to enroll more children with disabilities, said Kristen Jones, an assistant director on the GAO’s education, workforce and income security team, who also worked on the report. “But there’s also a concern that currently they can’t do that in a safe way” because of a lack of training and resources.

    Related: For kids with disabilities, child care options are worse than ever

    In Ohio, the idea for Ohio PROMISE came after an appeal in 2022 from Republican Gov. Mike DeWine. He reported that families were coming to him saying they couldn’t find child care for their kids with disabilities. 

    “He said, ‘Come to me with ideas to solve that problem,’” recalled Wendy Grove, a senior adviser in the Ohio Department of Children and Youth who spearheaded development of the program.

    Grove and her colleagues had already been working on a related effort. In 2020, Ohio won a federal grant that included help exploring how well — or not — children with disabilities were being included in child care and early education settings. DeWine liked the idea Grove’s team presented of morphing that work into a state-led effort to strengthen training and support for child care teachers. They also proposed more direct support to families, including the extension of child care vouchers to families with incomes above the poverty level, with a higher reimbursement rate for children with disabilities. 

    The training, which debuted about two years ago, is provided in three levels. Jada Cutchall, a preschool teacher at Imaginative Beginnings, an early learning center just outside of Toledo, recently completed the third tier, which for her included customized coaching. Cutchall’s coach helped her create communication tools for a largely nonverbal student, she said, including a board with pictures children can point to if, for example, they want to go to the bathroom or try a different playground activity. 

    As a result, Cutchall said, she has watched kids with disabilities, including those with speech impairments and autism, engage much more directly with their classmates. “They have the courage to ask their peers to play with them — or at least not distance themselves as much as they usually would,” she said. All of the children in the classroom have benefited, she added, noting that kids without disabilities have taken an interest in learning sign language, strengthening their own communication skills and fostering empathy. 

    Child care programs where one teacher and one administrator have completed some of the training earn a special designation from the state, which may eventually be tied to the opportunity to get extra funding to serve children with disabilities. In Ohio PROMISE’s first year, 1,001 child care centers — about 10 percent of the total number in Ohio — earned that designation, according to Grove.

    For the last six years, Selina Likely has overseen the Edwards Creative Learning Center, where she’s steadily tried to enroll more children with disabilities and developmental delays. Credit: Sarah Carr/The Hechinger Report

    The effort costs a little over $1 million in state dollars each year, with most of that paying for several regional support personnel who work directly with centers as mentors and advisers. Over the last two years, Ohio has seen a 38 percent increase in the number of children in publicly funded centers who qualify for the higher voucher reimbursement rate for children with disabilities, which can be double the size of the standard voucher.

    Grove hopes that ultimately the effort plays a role in narrowing a critical and stubborn gap in the state: about 27 percent of children without disabilities show readiness on state standards for kindergarten; only 14 percent of children with disabilities do. Since so few disabilities exhibited at that age are related to intellectual or cognitive functioning, “we shouldn’t see that gap,” said Grove. “There’s no real reason.”  

    One goal of the new efforts is to reduce the number of young children with disabilities who are expelled from or pushed out of care. Those children are frequently asked to leave for behaviors related to their disability, the GAO report found.

    Several years ago, a child care center in Columbus expelled Meagan Severance’s 18-month-old son for biting a staff member. The boy has several special needs, including some related to attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Severance brought him to Edwards Creative Learning Center, where not too long after Selina Likely shifted into the role of director. The boy also bit a staff member there — not uncommon behavior for toddlers, especially those with sensory sensitivities and communication challenges. 

    Likely was determined to work with the child, not expel him. “They put in time and effort,” said Severance. “The response wasn’t, ‘He bit someone, he’s gone.’” 

    Likely empathized. Decades earlier, her own daughter had been expelled from a child care center in her hometown of Mansfield, Ohio, for biting.

    “I was so angry and mad at the time — how are you going to kick out a 1-year-old?” she said. The center director didn’t think at all about how to help her child, Likely recalled, instead asking Likely what might be happening at home to make the child want to bite. She said she got no notice or grace period to find a new placement. “That left me in a disheartened place,” she said. “I was like, ‘I still have to go to work.”

    Seventeen years old at the time, she was inspired by the injustice of the situation to quit her job in a factory and apply to be an assistant in a child care program. She’s been in the industry ever since, gradually trying to make more space for children like her daughter, who was later diagnosed with autism.  

    Meagan Severance, a parent and teacher at the Edwards center, has worked in recent years to make her classroom more inclusive for children with all different abilities. Credit: Sarah Carr/The Hechinger Report

    As director, Likely displays the nameplate “chaos coordinator” on her desk. And she’s taken the stance that the center should at least try to work with every kid. She and some of her teachers have completed the first two tiers of the Ohio PROMISE training, as well as some related sessions available from the state. Likely estimates that about 10 percent of the children in her center have a diagnosed disability or developmental delay.

    Liasun Meadows, whose son has Down syndrome, chose Edwards several years ago for her then 1-year-old over another program better known for its work with children with disabilities. She has not been disappointed.

    Parents of kids with disabilities watch their children like a hawk, she said. “There are certain things you notice that you don’t expect others to notice, but they do at Edwards. They’ve been growing and learning alongside him.”  

    Severance, whose son is now 8, works at the center these days, leading the 3-year-old room, which includes two children who are largely nonverbal. She’s made the classroom more inclusive, adding fidget toys for children with sensory issues, rearranging the classroom to create calming areas, providing communication books to nonverbal children so they can more easily express needs and wants, and teaching everyone some sign language. 

    “For a while there was segregation in the classroom” between the kids with disabilities and those without, Severance said. But that’s lessened with the changes. “Inclusion has been good for the kids who are verbal — and nonverbal,” she said.

    Related: Where do kids with disabilities go for child care?  

    As in Ohio, state officials in Vermont turned to online training to help ensure young children with disabilities aren’t denied quality care. The state should soon debut the first parts of a new training program, focusing on outreach to child care administrators and support for neurodivergent children. The state wanted to focus on center leaders first because “directors that are comfortable with inclusion lead programs that are comfortable with inclusion,” said Dawn Rouse, the director of statewide systems in Vermont’s Child Development Division.   

    One tool for supporting and calming children with sensory issues is keeping a healthy supply of fidget toys and Pop-Its on hand. Credit: Sarah Carr/The Hechinger Report

    Vermont also pumped millions of dollars into a separate program, known as the Special Accommodations Grant, that supports young children with disabilities. Since 2009 the state has set aside $300,000 a year that child care centers can tap to provide services for individual children with disabilities. It might help buy specialized equipment for a child with cerebral palsy, for instance, or be used to hire a full- or part-time aide.

    The $300,000 has been maxed out every year, Rouse said. And after the pandemic, the need — and the number of applications — surged.

    As a result, the state allocated some federal American Rescue Plan and Preschool Development Grant dollars to increase spending on the program by about sevenfold — to between $2 million and $2.5 million annually — an amount Rouse still describes as a “Band-Aid.” Without access to the grants, “we see a lot of children being asked to leave programs,” Rouse said. “That’s not good for any child, but for children with specialized developmental needs it’s particularly bad.” 

    Over time, Likely hopes, her Ohio center can play a small role in reducing that instability, although the center hasn’t yet been able to work with all such children it wants to. Likely recalls one toddler with a severe disability who climbed up anything he could. There wasn’t enough money to pay for what the child really needed: a full-time aide. “It’s hard when you know you’ve tried but still have to say no,” she said. “That breaks my heart more than anything.” 

    On one June morning, the center’s teachers acknowledged and celebrated several milestones in its work on inclusion, big and small. One child in the 3-year-old classroom with fine and gross motor challenges was drinking independently from a bottle. The preschool classroom held its first graduation ceremony, translated partly into sign language. All of the kids, no matter their challenges, were set to go on field trips to Dairy Queen and the zoo.

    Likely dreams of someday running a center where about half of the children have a disability or delay. It may be years off, she said, but as with the milestones she sees scores of children at the center reach every day, “There’s a way — if there’s a will.” 

    Sarah Carr is a fellow at New America, focused on reporting on early childhood issues. 

    Contact contributing editor Sarah Carr at [email protected].   

    This story about children with disabilities was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for the Hechinger newsletter.

    The Hechinger Report provides in-depth, fact-based, unbiased reporting on education that is free to all readers. But that doesn’t mean it’s free to produce. Our work keeps educators and the public informed about pressing issues at schools and on campuses throughout the country. We tell the whole story, even when the details are inconvenient. Help us keep doing that.

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  • LA Preschool Teacher Closed Her Doors After Almost 20 Years. What It Says About the State of Childcare – The 74

    LA Preschool Teacher Closed Her Doors After Almost 20 Years. What It Says About the State of Childcare – The 74


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    After almost 20 years in business, Milestones Preschool in Inglewood closed its doors this month.

    It was a decision that preschool director Milena Bice had been putting off for years. She’d turned her family home into a small business, transforming the house on a quiet tree-lined street into a playground of childish delights, complete with a sand pit, fruit trees and even a brood of chicks waddling around a small pen.

    Bice loved her preschool. She loved the way it allowed her to care for her own kids when they were little, and how she could continue to apply therapeutic approaches to her work long after they’d outgrown preschool. Over the years, she developed a reputation for her care for children with neurological differences.

    But child care is no easy business. Margins were about as slim as can be. When parents couldn’t afford to pay full tuition, Bice felt it was her duty to keep caring for their kids anyway. The question of closing loomed over her as her business survived the ups and downs of the global economy: first, the 2008 recession, and the COVID-19 pandemic more than a decade later.

    But this month, Bice finally called it quits. She was sick of charging families high fees and still struggling to pay herself at the end of the month. And for the first time this year, she said her preschool didn’t have anyone on her waitlist. One reason is universal transitional kindergarten — or TK — no-cost public kindergarten that becomes an option for all California 4-year-olds this fall.

    “ I can’t compete with free,” she told LAist in a recent interview. “And in this economy, I think a lot of families are hurting.”

    Bice’s predicament mirrors a statewide challenge. As families sign their 4-year-olds up for TK, some childcare and preschool providers say they’re losing enrollment and it’s threatening their businesses. While teachers struggle to adjust, childcare remains an unaffordable and unmet need for many families across California, especially with very young children.

    Child care is still a major need for CA families

    Even as transitional kindergarten expands, there’s no shortage of need for child care. The California Budget & Policy Center estimates that just 19% of infants, toddlers and preschool-aged children who are eligible for state subsidized care are enrolled. The need is especially great for children age 2 or younger — the most expensive age group to care for.

    A recent report from the Center for the Study of Child Care Employment found that most early education programs will need to pivot to younger kids to meet the need and stay in business, and that centers and home-based childcares are hurting from declined enrollment since the pandemic.

    Anna Powell, the lead author of that report, said early educators struggling to adapt to the changing landscape of their industry are a byproduct of the state’s massive investment in universal TK, but lack of similar investment in others.

    “ If one area, for example TK, receives a lot of resources to scale up to reach demand, in theory, that is positive,” she said. “What happens when you don’t invest in all the quadrants at the same time is that there can be these unintended consequences.”

    Transitioning to younger kids is a challenge

    Powell said that caring for younger kids requires a number of shifts in how child care programs operate. Teaching expertise is different for younger children, and staffing ratios are smaller. The time a provider might expect to have a child enrolled is also shorter, since kids are heading to the public school system earlier. This means early educators could face more turnover.

    There’s also the matter of teaching preferences. Caring for a 3- or 4-year-old is very different from taking care of a 1-year-old. In a survey of nearly 1,000 early educators, just 20% said they’d be interested in teaching infants and toddlers.

    David Frank, who runs a preschool in Culver City, told LAist in April that he’s also closing his doors this year. He said that 4-year-olds used to make up a third of the school’s students, and his enrollment was down from 34 to 13. His preschool already took 2 -year-olds, but he didn’t want to go any younger. One reason is it would require him to reconfigure the school to create a separate space for the youngest children.

    Frank said he’s not against TK, but he couldn’t keep making it work.

    “ I’m happy that children will have good, free education,” he said. “But as a person trying to run a business … it’s just no longer a viable plan to stay open anymore.”

    Advocates say even more investment is needed

    California’s transitional kindergarten is a plan years in the making, and, despite kinks, it has achieved a big goal: offering a free option for every family with a 4-year-old in the state.

    That program runs through the public school system, but child care and early education offerings for the state’s youngest children continue to be a patchwork of different types of care with no similar central system. The state funds a public preschool program for 2- to 5-year-olds for low-income families, which has received more money in recent years. Many private programs receive state subsidies for serving low-income families, and the state has increased the number of seats it funds in recent years.

    It also bumped up reimbursement rates for 3-year-olds to entice more providers to take younger kids.

    Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office pointed to these changes, telling LAist that it has invested heavily in a universal Pre-K program that extends beyond transitional kindergarten.

    Some advocates and childcare providers say still more game-changing investment is needed. The state has promised the childcare providers that receive its subsidies to overhaul its payment system to reflect the “true cost” of care, but this year deferred offering them pay bumps. The union representing those workers is currently bargaining with the state, saying providers can’t wait for a raise.

    Patricia Lozano, the executive director of advocacy organization Early Edge California, said TK’s ripple effect on early education programs shows that the state needs to do more to provide for its youngest children.

    “ TK was one of the key things we’ve been advocating since it was passed,” she said. “But that’s just one piece. I think the whole system itself is problematic. It’s underfunded.”

    Lozano pointed to New Mexico as a potential model for California. The state has boosted teacher pay and expanded eligibility for free care by directing gas and oil revenue to state childcare programs. She said this type of consistent source of money is especially important amid threats to federal funding and state budget cuts.

    “The  bottom line is we need to have that source of funding protected,” she said.

    In the meantime, Milena Bice’s preschool in Inglewood is closed. She’s not sure exactly what happens next. She can’t go work at a public school. Despite decades in the business, she doesn’t have a bachelor’s degree or teaching credential.

    While she debates the future, Bice is holding onto her childcare license. Who knows? Maybe she’ll want to reopen someday.


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  • New book argues child care is a ‘societal imperative’

    New book argues child care is a ‘societal imperative’

    The other day, I came across an article about child care that felt so familiar I let out an exasperated sigh. Child care, the article announced, is now more expensive than college tuition and rent in most states. Many of us had just read another version of the article in March. And before that, in November 2024. Then there’s the one that dates back a little further — to 2013. 

    Many of these stories, which seem to come out on an annual basis, fail to mention that this is a problem that spans decades. The real news is that it hasn’t gotten any better, and many American lawmakers don’t seem to care enough to take action. 

    I asked Elliot Haspel his thoughts on this a few weeks ago when I interviewed him about his new book, “Raising a Nation,” which will be available Aug. 11. In the book, he presents 10 arguments — some of them well known and others less intuitive — for why child care needs to be a more supported part of American society. His book starts with an anecdote that echoes my observation on the dispiriting lack of momentum around the issue: In 1998, President William Jefferson Clinton stood in the Rose Garden and declared in an address that child care was essential to the nation’s economy. President Barack Obama made the same argument in 2015. President Donald Trump did the same in 2019. Yet as the years go by, little changes.

    “We have been having many of the same child care battles for a long time, for decades and decades and decades,” Haspel told me.

    Haspel’s arguments in “Raising a Nation” include “The Economic Case,” where he digs into how child care affects business productivity and the labor force; and the “The Patriotic Case,” where he presents parenthood as patriotic and argues child care is important for American democracy.

    He cites numerous worrisome examples of the consequences of insufficient policy and investment. In making “The Community Case,” for instance, he tells a jarring story from Montrose, Colorado, where the lack of child care has led to difficulties recruiting and retaining police officers. That, in turn, negatively affects the city’s crime rate and response time to emergency calls. And in arguing “The Antipoverty Case,” he highlights extensive research on how a lack of child care is a key theme for families who are unable to move out of poverty.  

    “Care is, in fact, just as important to our social infrastructure as having a public education system, having public libraries, having public parks,” he told me.

    As he writes, it’s clear why we haven’t made much progress as a nation, and why we remain behind nearly every other wealthy country in investing in child care: “We have never established that good child care belongs among the pantheon of American values.” 

    While Haspel’s book focuses more on why we need more robust child care policy than how we get there, he provides a few ideas for the latter: giving child care educators a wage that could support their own families, investing in stay-at-home parents and informal caregivers along with licensed care, and including before- and after-school care and summer care in the system. While those seem like lofty goals, Haspel argues it is indeed fully “American” to embrace such policies. Access to high-quality child care, he argues, is not an “individual family obligation but rather a societal imperative.”

    Contact staff writer Jackie Mader at 212-678-3562 or [email protected]. 

    This story about child care was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for the Hechinger newsletter.

    The Hechinger Report provides in-depth, fact-based, unbiased reporting on education that is free to all readers. But that doesn’t mean it’s free to produce. Our work keeps educators and the public informed about pressing issues at schools and on campuses throughout the country. We tell the whole story, even when the details are inconvenient. Help us keep doing that.

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  • Some States Are Seeking to Deregulate Child Care. Advocates Are Fighting Back – The 74

    Some States Are Seeking to Deregulate Child Care. Advocates Are Fighting Back – The 74


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    Content warning: This story includes details of an infant’s death.

    After Democrats passed the American Rescue Plan in 2021, states were flush with federal funding to help prop the child care sector up. But that money is now all gone, and as Republicans in Congress threaten to pass spending cuts that could further shrink state budgets, lawmakers are trying to find solutions to the child care crisis that don’t cost money. 

    Many have proposed changing the mandated ratios that require a certain number of early educators to care for young kids. Nearly a dozen states have considered rolling back child care regulations, including those governing staff-to-child ratios.

    But while these deregulatory bills are common, it’s not a foregone conclusion that they will pass. Advocates in three states have been able to beat back these efforts in the legislative sessions that just wrapped up by mobilizing a wide variety of people to speak up against these proposals and deploying research-backed arguments about child safety and child care supply.

    Eliminating Ratios Entirely 

    Idaho advocates faced down the most extreme bill. In its original form, HB243 would have eliminated all requirements that limit the number of young children an early educator can care for, leaving it up to individual providers. It would have been the first state in the country to take such a step. 

    Advocates had very little time to fight back. The bill got fast tracked; there was less than 24 hours’ notice before the first public hearing on it in the House. “You can’t get child care providers and parents there in that amount of time,” said Christine Tiddens, executive director of Idaho Voices for Children, a nonprofit that advocates for child-focused policies, noting that it requires moving work schedules and getting people to cover shifts. The bill sailed through the House.

    Eventually, Tiddens said, they were able to put parents and providers in front of lawmakers to warn of the negative consequences. One of those parents was Idaho resident Kelly Emry. On June 10, 2024, she got a panicked call from the home-based child care provider where she had just started sending her 11-week-old son Logan. She dashed to the provider’s home and was told he was dead. The coroner’s report later confirmed he died from asphyxiation. According to Emry, the coroner said the provider put him down for a nap between a rolled up blanket and a pillow and left him there for hours. The provider was caring for 11 kids by herself that day, putting her out of compliance with state regulations that, at the time, required at least two staff members. 

    “It was completely preventable, and that’s what’s so hard for me to come to terms with,” Emry said in a podcast interview in January.

    Emry wasn’t the only one who spoke up. Once the bill got to the Senate, advocates packed the hearing and overflow rooms with several hundred people. Among the 40 people who signed up to testify, 38 opposed the bill. Baby Logan’s uncle spoke, as did pediatricians, fire marshals, nurses, the state police, child welfare experts, child care providers and parents. Lawmakers were flooded with thousands of calls and emails from the opposition. Tiddens made sure every senator was sent the podcast interview with Emry.

    The bill passed the Senate committee by a single vote. Advocates decided to try to stop the worst elements, knowing that the bill was likely to pass in some form. They asked a senator who opposed it to “throw a Hail Mary,” Tiddens said. When the bill came to the Senate floor, he asked for unanimous support to pull it and move it into the amending process. He got it. The original elimination of staff-to-child ratios was stripped out; instead, the bill preserved ratios, albeit higher ones than before. Under previous law, Idaho ranked at No. 41 among all states for how high its ratios were; now it has dropped even further to No. 45.

    The victory is “bittersweet,” Tiddens said. She attributes it almost solely to one thing: putting parents, not just businesses and child care providers, in front of lawmakers, which led to the moving account of Logan’s family, still in the midst of raw grief. “How could you listen and not have your heart changed?” Tiddens asked.

    Doubling Family Child Care Ratios

    Advocates in Maryland have fought back against legislation to loosen staff-to-child ratios twice now. Last year, lawmakers introduced a bill to raise the ratios in family child care settings, but it died thanks to “a lot of advocacy,” said Beth Morrow, director of public policy at the Maryland Family Network, a nonprofit focused on child care. As in Idaho, the American Academy of Pediatrics and fire marshals warned about what would happen in the case of emergencies. Children under 2 years old are “not capable of self-preservation,” Morrow pointed out; they might hide when a fire alarm goes off and can’t evacuate on their own. “If there is an emergency you have to be able to get these kids out,” she said.

    The idea returned this year in House Bill 477, this time coupled with looser ratios for center-based care. Family providers are currently allowed to care for eight children but no more than two under the age of 2; the legislation would have doubled that, allowing providers to watch as many as four children under the age of 1. That was a “nonstarter,” Morrow said. It would also have been the first time that these rules were dictated by lawmakers rather than by the Maryland State Department of Education, which would have been barred from changing them in the future. 

    So advocates marshalled research, with the help of national groups including the National Association for the Education of Young Children and Center for Law and Social Policy. They highlighted that there has been no evidence that stricter child care regulations lead to reduced supply. Lawmakers seemed moved by the argument that lower ratios support better health and safety for children.

    During the markup session, the chief sponsor amended the bill by striking the language about higher ratios; instead, the version that passed requires the Department of Education to study child care regulations with an eye toward alleviating barriers for providers.

    Ratio Increases by Another Name

    In Minnesota, lawmakers took a different approach to proposing changes to the number of staff required to care for young children this session. Their legislation avoided mentioning the term “ratios” at all. Instead, the issue was presented as an exemption for in-home child care providers caring for their own children as well. The legislation originally would have exempted as many as three of the providers’ own children from the number they are licensed to watch. “That’s a direct ratio increase, no way around that,” said Clare Sanford, vice president of government and community relations at New Horizon Academy, a child care and preschool provider. “You still have the same number of adults but you’re increasing the number of children that adult is responsible for.”

    In later drafts, the number of children who could be exempted kept being reduced. In the end the legislation didn’t get a standalone vote and the language was left out of the final state budget. The argument that Sanford thinks worked the best was that increasing ratios wouldn’t actually increase child care supply. That’s because, as a brief by NAEYC argues, they will lead to more burnout among providers, which will push them to leave and, in the end, reduce available child care spots.

    The fight is far from over. Advocates in all three states expect lawmakers to try to loosen staff-to-child ratios again next session. Tiddens fears that, although Idaho didn’t eliminate ratios, the idea could spread. “Idaho has often been a frontrunner for harmful legislation,” she said. On the whole, more of these laws have been signed than stopped, said Diane Girouard, state policy senior analyst at ChildCare Aware of America. Ratio deregulation bills pop up “in some states every single year,” she said. “This isn’t just unique to red, conservative states. It has happened in blue states, it has happened in purple states.”

    Advocates who oppose raising these ratios are formulating responses to the child care crisis that preserve safety standards without requiring state funding. In Maryland, for example, Morrow’s organization helped pass a bill that removes legal barriers to opening and operating family child care programs. The hope is that with more solutions on the table to increase child care supply, states won’t look to options that erode safety standards, such as increasing ratios. 

    Tiddens has vowed to fight back. “We’re not going away, and we’re going to show up next session with our own proposal,” she said. Her coalition plans to formulate a bill for next year that “prioritizes child safety at the same time as dealing with the child care shortage,” she said.


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  • America’s child care system relies on immigrants. Without them, it could collapse

    America’s child care system relies on immigrants. Without them, it could collapse

    ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Maggi’s home in a suburban neighborhood here is a haven for local families. It’s a place where after just a few weeks in Maggi’s family-run child care program this spring, one preschooler started calling Maggi “mama” and Maggi’s husband “papa.” Children who have graduated from Maggi’s program still beg their parents to take them to her home instead of school.

    Over the past few months, fewer families are showing up for care: Immigration enforcement has ramped up and immigration policies have rapidly changed. Both Maggi and the families who rely on her — some of whom are immigrants — no longer feel safe. 

    “There’s a lot of fear going on within the Latino community, and all of these are good people — good, hard-working people,” Maggi, 47, said in Spanish through an interpreter on a recent morning as she watched a newborn sleep in what used to be her living room. Since she started her own child care business two years ago, she has dedicated nearly every inch of her common space to creating a colorful, toy-filled oasis for children. Maggi doesn’t understand why so many immigrants are now at risk of deportation. “We’ve been here a long time,” she said. “We’ve been doing honest work.”

    Immigrants like Maggi play a crucial role in home-based child care, as well as America’s broader child care system of more than 2 million predominantly female workers. (The Hechinger Report is not using Maggi’s last name out of concern for her safety and that of the families using her care.) Caregivers are notoriously difficult to find and keep, not only because the work is difficult, but because of poverty-level wages and limited benefits. Nationwide, immigrants make up nearly 20 percent of the child care workforce. In New York City, immigrants make up more than 40 percent of the child care workforce. In Los Angeles, it’s nearly 50 percent. 

    The Trump administration’s far-reaching war on immigration, which includes daily quotas for immigrant arrests, new restrictions on work permits and detainment of legal residents, threatens America’s already-fragile child care system. Immigrant providers, especially those who serve immigrant families, have been hit especially hard. Just like at Maggi’s, child care providers nationwide are watching families disappear from their care, threatening the viability of those businesses. In America, 1 in 4 children under the age of 6 has at least one foreign-born parent. Some kids who could benefit from experienced caregivers are now instead at home with older siblings or elderly relatives, losing out on socialization and kindergarten preparation. Some immigrant workers, regardless of status, are too scared to come to work, exacerbating staffing shortages.  And in recent days, the administration announced that it would bar undocumented children from Head Start, the federally funded child care program for children from low-income families.

    Related: Young children have unique needs and providing the right care can be a challenge. Our free early childhood education newsletter tracks the issues. 

    “Anti-immigrant policy can and will weaken our entire caregiving infrastructure,” said Karla Coleman-Castillo, senior policy analyst at the National Women’s Law Center. Home-based programs in particular will feel the squeeze, she said, since they tend to serve more immigrant families. “Anything that threatens the stability of families’ ability and comfort accessing early childhood education — and educators’ comfort entering or remaining in the workforce — is going to impact an already precarious sector.”

    For Maggi, the fallout has been swift. In February, just a few weeks after the first changes were announced, her enrollment dropped from as many as 15 children each day to seven. Some families returned to Mexico. Others became too nervous to stray from their work routes for even a quick drop off. Some no longer wanted to give their information to the state to get help paying for care.

    Maggi plays with a child in the back yard of her child care program. Maggi runs one of a few child care programs that provides 24/7 care in her town. Credit: Jackie Mader/The Hechinger Report

    By May, only two children, an infant and a 4-year-old, were enrolled full time, along with six kids who came for before- or after-school care. She accepts children who pay privately and those who pay with child care subsidies through the state program for low-income children. She brings in about $2,000 a month for the infant and preschooler, and a couple hundred more each week for after-school care — down significantly from the $9,000 to $10,000 of late 2024. For parents who don’t receive a state subsidy, she keeps her rates low: less than $7 an hour. “They tell me that I’m cheap,” Maggi said with a slight smile. But she isn’t willing to raise her rates. “I was a single mom,” she said. “I remember struggling to find someone to care for my children when I had to work.” 

    Related: 1 in 5 child care workers is an immigrant. Trump’s deportations and raids have many terrified

    Like many child care providers who emigrated to the United States as adults, Maggi started her career in an entirely different field. As a young mother, Maggi earned a law degree from a college in Mexico and worked in the prosecutor’s office in the northern Mexico state of Coahuila. Her job required working many weekends and late evenings, which took a toll on her parenting as a single mother. “I really feel bad that I was not able to spend more time with my daughters,” she added. “I missed a lot of their childhood.” 

    For a year when her girls were in elementary school, Maggi enrolled them in a boarding school, dropping them off Sunday nights and picking them up Friday afternoons. On some weekends, she took the girls to her office, even though she knew it wasn’t a place for children. Maggi longed for a different job where she could spend more time with them. 

    She started thinking seriously of emigrating about 15 years ago, as violence escalated. Her cousin was kidnapped and police officers she worked with were killed. Maggi received death threats from criminals she helped prosecute. Then one day, she was stopped by men who told her they knew where she lived and that she had daughters. “That’s when I said, this is not safe for me.”

    In 2011, Maggi and the girls emigrated to America, bringing whatever they could fit into four suitcases. They ended up in El Paso, Texas, where Maggi sold Jell-O and tamales to make ends meet. Three years later, they moved here to Albuquerque. Maggi met her husband and they married, welcoming a son, her fourth child, shortly after. 

    In Albuquerque, Maggi settled into a life of professional caregiving, which came naturally and allowed her to spend more time with her family than she had in Mexico. She and her husband went through an intensive screening process and became foster parents. (New Mexico does not require individuals to have lawful immigration status to foster.) Maggi enrolled her youngest in a Head Start center, where administrators encouraged her to start volunteering. She loved being in the classroom with children, but without a work permit could not become a Head Start teacher. Instead, after her son started elementary school, she started offering child care informally to families she knew. Maggi became licensed by the state two years ago after a lengthy process involving several inspections, a background check and mandatory training in CPR and tenets of early childhood care.

    It didn’t take long for Maggi to build up a well-respected business serving an acute need in Albuquerque. Hers is one of few child care programs in the area that offers 24/7 care, a rarity in the industry despite the desperate need. The parents who rely on her are teachers, caregivers for the elderly and people answering 911 calls.  

    In Maggi’s living room, carefully curated areas allow children to move freely between overflowing shelves of colorful toys, art supplies parked on a miniature table and rows of books. Educational posters on her walls reinforce colors, numbers and shapes. She delights in exposing the children to new experiences, frequently taking them on trips to grocery stores or restaurants. She is warm, but has high expectations for the children, insisting they clean up after themselves, follow directions and say “please” and “thank you.”

    “I want them to have values,” Maggi said. “We teach them respect toward animals, people and each other.” 

    By the end of 2024, Maggi’s business was flourishing, and she looked forward to continued growth. 

    Then, Donald Trump took office.

    Related: Child care centers were off limits to immigration authorities. How that’s changed

    Data has yet to be released about the extent to which the current administration’s immigration policies have affected the availability of child care. But interviews with child care providers and research hint at what may lie ahead — and is already happening. 

    After a 2008 policy allowed Immigration and Customs Enforcement to check the immigration status of people taken into custody by local police, there was a marked decline in enrollment in child care among both immigrant and non-immigrant children. There was also a decrease in the supply of child care workers. Even though women were the minority of those deported, researchers found the policy sparked fear in immigrant communities, and many pulled back from their normal routines.

    In the child care sector, that’s problematic, experts say. Immigrants in the industry tend to be highly educated and skilled at interacting with children positively, more so even than native workers. If a skilled portion of the workforce is essentially “purged” because they’re too afraid to go to work, that will lower the quality of child care, said Chris Herbst, an associate professor at Arizona State University who has studied immigration policy’s effect on child care. “Kids will be ill-served as a result.”  

    Home-based programs like Maggi’s are among the most vulnerable. Children of immigrants are more likely to be in those child care settings. In the decade leading up to the pandemic, however, the number of home-based programs declined by 25 percent nationwide, in part due to financial challenges sustaining such businesses. 

    Related: Trump’s deportation plan could separate millions of families, leaving schools to pick up the pieces 

    On a recent morning, Maggi stood in her living room, wearing white scrubs adorned with colorful cartoon ladybugs. Last year, the room would have been buzzing with children. Now, it’s quiet, save for chatter from Kay, the sole preschooler in her care each day. (The Hechinger Report is not using Kay’s full name to protect her privacy.) While Kay sat at a table working on a craft, Maggi cradled the infant, who had just woken up from a nap. The baby’s eyes were latched onto Maggi’s face as she fawned over him. 

    “Hello little one!” she cooed in Spanish. He cracked a smile and Maggi’s face lit up. 

    As one of her daughters took over to feed the newborn, Maggi followed Kay outside. The preschooler bounced around from the sandbox to the swings to a playhouse, with Maggi diligently following and playing alongside her.

    Advocates and experts say upticks in immigration enforcement can cause stress and trauma for young children. In America, 1 in 4 children under the age of 6 has at least one foreign-born parent. Credit: Jackie Mader/The Hechinger Report

    Finally Kay came to a standstill, resting her head against Maggi’s hip. Maggi gently patted her head and asked if she was ready to show off her pre-kindergarten skills. The pair sat down at a small table in the shade and Kay watched eagerly as Maggi poured out small plastic trinkets. Kay pulled three plastic toy turtles into a pile. “Mama, look! They’re friends!” Kay said, giggling. 

    Kay came to Maggi’s program after her mother pulled her out of another program where she felt the girl wasn’t treated well. Here, Kay is so happy, she hides when her mom comes back to get her. Still, a key aspect of the child care experience is missing for Kay. Normally, the girl would have several friends her own age to play with. Now when she is asked who her friends are, she names Maggi’s adult daughters.

    Maggi worries even more about the children she doesn’t see anymore. Most are cared for by grandparents now, but those relatives are unlikely to know how to support child development and education, Maggi said. Many are unable to run around with the children like she does, and are more likely to turn to tablets or televisions for them.

    She has seen the effects in children who leave her program and come back later having regressed. “Some of them are doing things well with me, and then when they come back, they have fallen behind,” she said. One child Maggi used to care for, for example, had just started to walk when the mother pulled them out of full-time care earlier this year, at the start of the immigration crackdown. In the care of a relative, Maggi found out they now spend much of the day sitting at home. 

    Related: They crossed the border for better schools. Now some families are leaving the US 

    Before the second Trump administration began, the child care landscape looked bright in New Mexico, a state with a chronically high child poverty rate. In 2022, New Mexico started rolling out a host of child care policy changes. Voters approved a constitutional amendment guaranteeing a right to early childhood education, with sustained funding to support it. The state now allows families earning up to 400 percent of the federal poverty level, or nearly $125,000 a year, to qualify for free child care. That includes the majority of households in the state. Among the other changes: Providers are now paid more for children they enroll via the state’s assistance program. 

    The increase has been helpful for many providers, including Maggi. Before the pandemic, she received about $490 a month from the state for each preschooler enrolled in her program, compared to $870 a month now. If she enrolls infants who qualify for child care assistance, she gets paid $1,100 a month, nearly $400 more than pre-pandemic. She needs children enrolled to get the payments, however. Running her program 24 hours a day, seven days a week helps. She earns extra money from the state when caring for children evenings and weekends, and she is paid monthly to cover the cost of housing foster children.

    Child care advocates in New Mexico are concerned that immigration policy will affect the industry’s progress. “I am worried because we could be losing early childhood centers that could help working families,” said Maty Miranda, an organizer for OLÉ New Mexico, a nonprofit advocacy organization. “We could lose valuable teachers and children will lose those strong connections.” Immigration crackdowns have had “a huge impact emotionally” on providers in the state, she added. 

    State officials did not respond to a request for data on how many child care providers are immigrants. Across the state, immigrants account for about 13 percent of the entire workforce. 

    Many local early educators are scared due to more extreme immigration enforcement, as are the children in their care, Miranda said. They are trying to work regardless. “Even with the fear, the teachers are telling me that when they go into their classrooms, they try to forget what’s going on outside,” she added. “They are professionals who are trying to continue with their work.”

    Maggi said she’s so busy with the children who remain in her care that there is no extra time to work an additional job and bring in more income. She won’t speculate on how long her family can survive, instead choosing to focus on the hope that things will improve.

    Maggi’s biggest fear at the moment is the well-being of the children of immigrants she and so many other home-based providers serve. She knows some of her kids and families are at risk of being detained by ICE, and that interactions like that, for kids, can lead to post-traumatic stress disorder, disrupted brain development and behavior changes. Some of Maggi’s parents have left her with emergency numbers in case they are detained by immigration officials. 

    Many of the children Maggi cares for after school are old enough to understand that deportation is a threat. “They show fear, because their parents are scared,” Maggi said. “Children are starting to live with that.” 

    Amid the dizzying policy changes, Maggi is trying to keep looking forward. She is working on improving her English skills. Her husband is pursuing a credential to be able to help more in her program. All three of her daughters are studying to become early childhood educators, with the goal to join the family business. Eventually, she wants to serve pre-K children enrolled in the state’s program, which will provide a steady stream of income. 

    In spite of all the uncertainty, Maggi said she is sustained by a bigger purpose. “I want them to enjoy their childhood,” she said on a sunny afternoon, looking fondly at Kay as the girl flung her tiny pink shoes aside and hopped into a sandbox. It’s the type of childhood Maggi remembers from her earliest days in Mexico. Kay giggled with delight as Maggi crouched down and poured cool sand over the little girl’s feet. “Once you grow up, there’s no going back.” 

    Contact staff writer Jackie Mader at 212-678-3562 or [email protected]. 

    This story about immigrants in New Mexico  was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for the Hechinger newsletter.

    The Hechinger Report provides in-depth, fact-based, unbiased reporting on education that is free to all readers. But that doesn’t mean it’s free to produce. Our work keeps educators and the public informed about pressing issues at schools and on campuses throughout the country. We tell the whole story, even when the details are inconvenient. Help us keep doing that.

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  • Child Care Worker Detained by ICE Leaves a Community Reeling – The 74

    Child Care Worker Detained by ICE Leaves a Community Reeling – The 74


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    This story was originally reported by Chabeli Carrazana of The 19th. 

    Two years ago, Nicolle Orozco Forero walked into an in-home day care in Seattle, Washington, looking for a job. She was barely 22, a whole five feet tall — if that. But she was calm, focused. Her presence struck the owner, Stephanie Wishon, because it’s not easy to find qualified staff who can work with children with disabilities.

    Orozco Forero had experience working with kids who had autism back in Colombia, so Wishon had her come in for a trial run and hired her after the first day. The children, who needed someone who had love and care to give in abundance, gravitated toward her. She was good at the hardest stuff. She changed diapers and outfits the moment they were soiled. She was vigilant; her kids stayed pristine. And she got them to do the things they wouldn’t do for other people, like say “ah” when it was time to get their teeth brushed or sit still long enough for her to twist a braid down their back.

    Some people just have that way about them.

    And people like Orozco Forero are exceptionally rare. Already, the staffing shortage in child care is near crisis levels. It’s far worse for children with disabilities — about a third of those families say they face significant difficulty finding care for their kids, partly because there are too few people with the ability, expertise or desire to work with their children. Immigrant women like Orozco Forero have been helping to fill that void. They now make up 20 percent of all child care workers.

    At home, Orozco Forero was also caring for her own young boys, one of whom started to show symptoms of a serious illness over the past two years that doctors have not yet been able to diagnose. She took some time off to care for him last year, before returning to the kids at Wishon’s day care.

    Her work has kept an already precarious safety net together. Without women like Orozco Forero, families who have nowhere else to turn for care have to make difficult decisions about how to survive and keep their children safe. Without her, the safety net snaps.

    And that’s exactly what happened on June 18, the day she was detained.

    It was supposed to be a routine meeting with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Orozco Forero and her husband had been to all their monthly meetings for the past year and change, since their asylum charge was denied in April 2024.

    The family — Orozco Forero; her husband, Juan Sebastian Moreno Acosta; and their two sons, Juan David, 7, and Daniel, 5 — fled Colombia two years ago. Moreno Acosta, a street vendor, had been persecuted by gangs who target vendors for money.

    After arriving in the United States, they sought the help of a lawyer with their asylum claim, but when they couldn’t pay his full fee ahead of their hearing, he pulled out. They represented themselves in court and lost the case. With no knowledge of the U.S. court system, they didn’t know they had 30 days to appeal the ruling, either. Ever since, ICE has been monitoring them, requiring they wear a wrist tracker and meet with an immigration officer once a month, sometimes more, according to a family member. (The 19th is not naming the family member to protect their identity.) It’s unclear why ICE has allowed them to stay in the country all this time, though it’s not necessarily uncommon; ICE typically prioritized immigrants with felonies for deportation.

    Orozco Forero had seen the reports of illegal immigrants being rounded up at their immigration appointments. President Donald Trump’s mass deportation effort has led to the detention of about 30,000 migrants with no criminal record, like Orozco Forero, who now make up about half of those detained. Her husband does have a misdemeanor reckless driving conviction for driving under the influence of alcohol on his record, but he completed a court-mandated alcohol course for that and has no other convictions.

    Still, Orozco Forero wasn’t worried when she headed to her appointment on the morning of June 18. If ICE planned to detain her, Orozco Forero thought, they would have asked her to come with the boys, right?

    And she had been doing everything right: She’d gone to all her appointments, taken documentation to show she was going to school at Green River Community College taking courses in English and early childhood education. She had completed a child care internship that trained her to open her own licensed in-home day care. Her licensure approval was set to arrive any moment, likely that same week, and the day care was just about ready to go.

    But that morning, her family was still wary, asking her to share her location just in case.

    Shortly after 10 a.m., Orozco Forero texted her family member: “They are going to deport us”

    “Nicolle what happened? Nicolle answer me,” they texted back. “What do I do?”

    “I can’t speak I feel like I’m going to faint,” Orozco Forero replied. And then: “I’m sorry it wasn’t what we expected.”

    Two-and-a-half hours west, on the coast of Washington in a town called Southbend, Wishon was frantic. Orozco Forero had texted her, too. ICE was asking for the boys.

    In two years, Wishon had grown incredibly close to Orozco Forero, who had cared for her own kids. After her family moved to the coast, Wishon rented out her house in Seattle to Orozco Forero, whose boys were excited to have a home with a yard.

    Wishon’s husband, Gabriel, hopped into his truck and headed to Seattle. Wishon, meanwhile, got on the phone with the Orozco Forero family’s ICE agent and every lawyer she could. They were going to take them into detention at a facility 2,200 miles away in Texas, a facility that was reopened earlier this year by the Trump administration to detain families. Wishon wanted to find a lawyer who could stop the deportation order, and she wanted to make sure the boys would be reunited with their parents if they took them to meet the ICE agent.

    Nicolle Orozco Forero’s sons play with a child their mother takes care of. (Stephanie Wishon)

    And that was especially important, not just because they were young children, but because Juan David is still sick.

    For the past year, he’s been seeking treatment at Seattle Children’s Hospital for an illness that is turning his urine muddy. So far, doctors have determined he’s losing red blood cells and protein through his urine, indicating a possible kidney issue, but they haven’t yet zeroed in on what is causing the problem. They likely need a kidney biopsy to be sure.

    “Given the complexity of his case, it is essential that Juan remain in the United States for continued testing and treatment,” his nephrologist Jordan Symons wrote in a March letter to ICE. “We kindly request that you consider this medical necessity in your review of his immigration status and grant him the ability to stay in the United States until his treatment and evaluation are completed.”

    Juan David’s care team has been monitoring him closely to ensure his red blood cell and protein levels never drop too low. His condition could become serious quickly.

    “You can die from that,” said Sarah Kasnick, a physician’s assistant who is familiar with his case. Kasnick is also a foster parent, and Orozco Forero provided care for her family.

    When Gabriel Wishon arrived to pick up the boys, they were confused and disoriented. Where were their parents? Why was everyone crying? They didn’t want to go to Colombia, they told him on the drive. They wanted to stay in the United States.

    Around 5:30 p.m. that evening, he met with the ICE agent, who had waited past her work hours for them to arrive.

    “Bye boys, you are going to see your parents right now. They are right inside,” Wishon told them. He watched them walk in carrying two stuffed animals, a Super Mario doll and Chase, the popular cartoon dog dressed as a police officer.

    The families Orozco Forero cares for are now in a free fall.

    Jessica Cocson, whose son has been in Orozco Forero’s care for more than a year, described her in a character letter to ICE as a “blessing to us in ways I struggle to fully express.”

    Orozco Forero and her husband “support working families, provide quality childcare, and demonstrate compassion and commitment every day,” Cocson wrote. “It is heartbreaking to think that someone who gives so much and asks so little could be forced to leave.”

    Tamia Riley, whose two sons with autism were also in Orozco Forero’s care, said losing her was like watching “a father walking out the door.”

    “These people, these day care providers, sitters, they are a form of family members for me and my children,” Riley said.

    Now, the day care she was set to open lays empty. Inside, the walls are plastered with posters listing colors and sight words. There are cushioned mats on the floor and play stations. Tables with tiny chairs. A tall pink dollhouse. High chairs and a pack and play for the babies. Outside, two play houses, a ball pit, toys to ride on and little picnic tables set across an artificial turf. But no children to enjoy any of it.

    Big Dreams Day Care she was going to call it, for the dreams she wanted the kids in her care to strive for, and the ones that were finally coming to fruition for her.

    Orozco Forero’s detention has rattled child care workers across the country. In Texas, workers represented by the Service Employees International Union have been rallying in her name. U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro, a Texas Democrat, spoke in support of the family’s release at a rally on June 29 in San Antonio. And a group of union workers is attempting to deliver supplies to the family. It’s an effort Orozco Forero knows little about; she only has limited communication with those on the outside.

    Tricia Schroeder, the president of the Seattle-based SEIU chapter that represents care workers, said that, for years unions like hers have been working to improve quality, access and affordability in child care, a system in such deep crisis it’s been called by the Treasury Department “a textbook example of a broken market.”

    Immigrant women like Orozco Forero were part of that effort to improve access, doing jobs few Americans want to take on.

    “Detaining child care providers, especially those who care for kids with special needs, just deepens the crisis in early learning,” Schroeder said.

    A woman holds a baby in her lap.
    Nicolle Orozco Forero was going to community college for early childhood education and planned to open her own daycare before she was detained by ICE. (Stephanie Wishon)

    Orozco Forero was also the connective tissue that kept families employed. Her loss has rippled across industries.

    Kasnick, the foster parent, said one of the children in her care had been tentatively set to start at Orozco Forero’s day care as soon as it opened. Orozco Forero had been the only provider who would take the child, who has autism and is nonverbal.

    Orozco Forero had cared for the girl at Wishon’s day care as if she was her own, even taking her in once when the child’s care had fallen through and no foster family in the entire county would take her in because of the complexity of her needs. The girl arrived at Orozco Forero’s house at midnight on a weekend “with no clothing, toys, medication or any of her belongings … this did not [deter] Nicolle and Sebastian instead they immediately went and purchased all the things” the child needed, a social worker wrote in a letter to ICE. Kasnick said Orozco Forero was even considering becoming a foster parent.

    Without her, Kasnick is out of options: She quit her job as a physician’s assistant to care for the child after Orozco Forero was detained.

    “There are now 44 patients a day who don’t have anyone to provide their health care, and I can’t go to work because Nicolle’s day care didn’t open,” Kasnick said.

    In the weeks since, Kasnick has had an overwhelming feeling of helplessness, she said. How could this happen to someone who gave back so much?

    “The security of knowing that you can be in your home one day and in a prison the next week, and you didn’t do anything except exist?” she said. “It makes you feel like there’s no good left in the world.”

    Orozco Forero’s family has now been in ICE detention for nearly a month awaiting a bond hearing that could buy them time in the United States. Orozco Forero and the boys are together; her husband is in the same facility but separated from them.

    Juan David hasn’t been eating. It took three weeks for him to receive medical care, Orozco Forero told her attorney, James Costo.

    Costo has been working to get the details of why ICE allowed the family to stay in the country with monitoring after they lost their asylum case last year. There has been an order for their deportation since then, but ICE never attempted to deport them until the Trump administration ramped up efforts. The number of immigrants without criminal convictions who have been detained has doubled since May.

    The process to fight an asylum claim and appeal a denial is complicated — there are court deadlines, documents that need to be submitted and translated.

    “They think maybe they can do it themselves and go in and say what happened but they are not understanding the whole legal process,” Costo said. “The system isn’t made for things to be easy.”

    Costo is hopeful a judge will allow them to stay in the country temporarily as Juan David seeks care. They have almost no family left in Colombia, and no way to obtain care for him there, their family said. If they can stay, then perhaps Orozco Forero could try to obtain a work visa as a domestic worker.

    He has gathered letters of support from numerous people whose lives the Orozco Forero family touched, and Wishon set up a GoFundMe to cover her legal expenses.

    In the letters, Juan David’s first grade teachers call him an exceptional student who went from one of the lowest reading levels in the class — 10 words a minute — to one of the highest at 70 words a minute.

    “He shows the qualities of a model citizen at a young age — dependable, ethical, and hard-working,” wrote his teacher, Carla Trujillo.

    They were all on their way to shaping a better future, Wishon wrote in hers. The couple “worked tirelessly to build a better life for their children and to open their own licensed child care business. In all my years of employing and mentoring caregivers, I have rarely met a couple as responsible, driven, and capable as Nicolle and Sebastian.”

    “This family is not a threat,” she concluded. “They are an asset.”


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