Across West Virginia, some parents are putting their kids on waitlists for child care before they’re born. They’re balancing parenting, school and work while hoping for a call that a spot has opened up.
Waitlists for child care are growing, driven by increased demand in counties with limited providers and the closure of multiple centers in recent years. There are about 1,200 licensed providers statewide, but more than 25,000 children don’t have access to child care.
Meanwhile, lawmakers are searching for solutions to the worsening child care crisis impacting the state’s shrinking workforce.
For families, a child care spot can determine whether they keep a job, stay in school or drop out of the workforce altogether.
‘It was a juggling act’
On the day Sam Kinnear walked across the stage at Marshall University, she was thinking about more than her degree. She was thinking about her three kids and the mountains she moved for them.
A single mother, Kinnear worked full-time as a cashier at a Sheetz while raising her older children and finishing college. Her youngest daughter was born just as the pandemic began.
And Kinnear was “strangely lucky,” she said.
While the world paused, she was able to work fewer hours, and classes went online so she could focus on raising her newborn daughter.
“It was definitely a juggling act,” she said. “I can’t imagine how I could have made that work if I were working full-time and going to school at the same time again.”
When she finally returned to work as a psychologist in Cabell County, finding child care was harder than finishing her degree. Every facility she called had a waitlist, some months long, others even years.
Now, her daughter is five, and her name is still on several lists.
“When she started kindergarten, she was still on the waiting lists for two centers that I had put her on before she was born,” she said.
‘I couldn’t get my baby in anywhere’
Jessica Blake had her youngest son in late 2019. Then the pandemic hit.
“There was no child care at all,” she said. “I stayed home for over a year because I couldn’t get my baby in anywhere.”
Blake, who was in school at the time, lives in Hurricane. She said she remembers calling center after center, Winfield, Teays Valley, anywhere within driving distance. Every waitlist was full.
“I probably waited a year and a half before I finally got him in,” she said. “Either they weren’t taking kids because of COVID, or the list was so long.”
She juggled meals, naps and story times while at home with her three children, while her ex-husband worked. When her son was nearly three, a spot opened at her first-choice center.
It cost about $220 a week, but for Blake, the quality made it worth it.
“They’re very hands-on and do a lot with the kids in the community,” she said. “It’s a wonderful facility.”
She recently graduated with her teaching degree from West Virginia State University and works as a substitute teacher for special education classrooms.
She now works the same schedule as her kids.
“That way,” she said, “I won’t have to worry about child care.”
For parents like Blake and Kinnear, the waiting can last years. For providers, the problem looks different; it’s not a lack of families seeking care, but a lack of space and staff to meet the growing demand.
‘We can’t really expand’
In Mason County, where just five licensed child care centers serve the entire county, providers have struggled with rising demand.
Erica Cook, who directs one of those centers, Early Education Station in New Haven, said the facility is licensed for just 60 children, and that’s all she can take.
“We can’t really expand,” Cook said. “I’m stuck to five classrooms. I couldn’t take more infants in place of preschoolers or anything like that.”
Even when she has an opening for one age group, another room might have a waitlist stretching for months.
“It seems like it never really balances out,” she said. “There’s always a wait in one room and then space in another one.”
Cook said the imbalance leaves parents with impossible choices to make.
“If they don’t have childcare, they can’t work,” she said. “They have to go somewhere that they’re unsure of.”
Cook has worked in early childhood education for over two decades and said she’s never seen demand this high. Part of the growing demand comes from new jobs moving into Mason County without enough providers to match.
“I think you just have more people utilizing child care,” she said. “The increase in people needing care is extreme.”
‘We will always have a waiting list’
The waitlist for infants and toddlers is pages long at the Kanawha Valley YMCA’s Cross Lanes Child Development Center.
“We actually have a mother right now who just had her baby,” Director Karleigh Hale said. “She wants to take her full 12 weeks of maternity leave, but we can’t hold a spot for 12 weeks, so she’s going to have to start paying for her spot early.”
That decision, to start paying for care before a baby can even attend, isn’t unusual. Families across the state are making these choices just to keep a spot.
YMCA CEO Sarah Bolyard said the nonprofit’s Cross Lanes center serves about 250 children a day and still can’t meet the demand.
“We will always have a waiting list,” she said. “The biggest needs are your infant classrooms. Because not all providers take infants.”
The biggest challenge, she said, isn’t just finding space, but keeping enough qualified staff to meet state ratios while navigating the changing child care system.
Because of strict licensing rules, only a handful of infants can be placed in each classroom. Every age change requires moving children into new rooms before new families can enroll.
She said the months-long waitlist for child care centers has unfortunately become more normal, and it’s entirely dependent on the makeup of a classroom when parents enroll.
“It’s either child care, or you pay a nanny, or somebody doesn’t work,” she said. “Is it worth it financially? I don’t think that people should have to make that decision.”