Child Care for North Carolina
The Child Care for NC coalition brings providers, parents, and supporters from across the state together to demand that our leaders solve the ongoing child care crisis. The lack of investment in our early childhood education system impacts us all and it is time to put child care first! This year, we held a Day of Action on May 16th to raise our voices and show our electeds in the General Assembly what is at stake for our state. We knew it was a big ask to close centers or classrooms for the day, but it was because we faced a big problem ahead of us. COVID-era stabilization grants that were a lifeline to our industry and families were set to expire on June 30 and we faced a grim future where almost ⅓ of centers were at risk of closing. We couldn’t let that happen. On May 16, we shut down child care for ONE DAY and 650+ providers, children, families and supporters mobilized to Raleigh to ensure that we wouldn’t see more centers, family child care homes, and classrooms close forever in the coming months.
To prevent mass closures and to prevent centers from falling off the funding cliff, we asked the NC General Assembly for a one-time extension of the child care stabilization grants. In alignment with the Governor’s office and the Division of Child Development and Early Education, we asked for an allocation of $200 million to fund stabilization grants for providers through June of 2025, providing enough time to identify and discuss long-term sustainable funding for child care in the 2025 long session. While the proposed budgets for both the House and Senate included $136 million for stabilization grant funding, breakdowns in budget negotiations stalled progress on this issue. The General Assembly eventually passed emergency partial funding of $67.5 million and declared that they would come back to the table in November for further discussions on the budget. This was a great start but not nearly enough.
The General Assembly has still not met the original $200 million demand to fully fund one-time stabilization grants. If our industry is to thrive, we need to prioritize an adequately funded early education system, starting with passing the remaining $132.5 million this year for stabilization grants.
Sign our statewide petition now to make sure that lawmakers take funding early childhood education seriously when they return to Raleigh in November! We are holding a week of action for child care the week of Oct 21, and will be ending it with a virtual town hall on Saturday, October 26th at 11 AM. We will come together to show legislators we won’t stop fighting until we win permanent, long-term funding for child care, and premiere a short video on an NC child care center navigating the challenges in the industry.
WHERE: On Zoom
WHEN: Saturday, Oct 26th at 11 AM
WHAT: Come hear testimony and share stories with those most impacted by our broken child care system. We will discuss actions to impact budget negotiations in November, and identify our collecctive 2025 long term funding priorities for child care. Lastly, we will premiere a short video on an essential child care program in Rockingham County and their appeal to legislators in support of early childhood education.
We created an action toolkit for our big Day of Action on May 16th. You can find all of the information we shared for that day, ideas for taking action, messages to share with parents and supporters, social media graphics, classroom materials, and educational materials for others all in one place.
Although the Day of Action has passed, our fight for child care continues! Stay tuned for updates to the toolkit and be encouraged to repurpose these materials in the ongoing push for more investment in early childhood education.
Every young child in North Carolina deserves an opportunity to learn, grow, and succeed. But right now, our state’s child care system is in crisis, and too many children are missing out on foundational early care and learning. Families can’t afford the high cost, teachers can’t afford to work for such low wages, and providers can’t afford to keep their doors open. With federal COVID relief funding about to run out, our state has reached a tipping point. It’s time to come together and take action for:
This urgent crisis calls for urgent action, and we hope you will join this statewide movement of parents, early educators, businesses, and advocates who are united in fighting for our future. Together, we can show our communities and our policymakers just how essential child care is for young children and parents, for businesses and employers, and for our state’s economy.
In 2023, child care providers, advocates, community members, parents, and worker orgs came together for child care investment and fought together for wins in ways we haven’t before. Not only did we gather around 400 people in Raleigh on April 20th for a Day of Action on child care investment that got the attention of people across the state, the legislature, and major media; we opened lines of communication and thought about the issues we shared to come up with shared solutions. We didn’t get the $300 million we demanded and needed from the general assembly in the final budget, but we have momentum to build on and we’re not done fighting. We know with the cliff coming up for child care teacher compensation grants, child care investment can’t wait, and whatever happens with child care investment, there will be ripple effects through every other sector.
The Child Care for NC planning committee is a grassroots coalition made up of center-based and family child care home providers, families, and organizations that are committed to long-term policy, program and funding changes to support our state’s early education system, the teachers who make it work, and the young children it serves.