Who’s watching the kids? La Plata County aims to fix its child care shortage
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DURANGO, Colo. — Finding affordable and high-quality child care is a growing challenge for families in Durango. With a shortage of child care facilities, low wages for early childhood educators and financial constraints on nonprofit child care centers, the system is struggling to meet demand.
Lack of sufficient child care is impacting economic growth in La Plata County. Sixty percent of employers have lost employees directly to child care issues, while 54% face ongoing hiring challenges linked to child care accessibility. The county experiences $34 million in lost wages annually from parents staying home with their children.
In late 2024, voters approved a ballot measure that allows La Plata County to direct up to 70% of the revenue from its lodgers tax to affordable housing and child care.
To better understand the child care challenges and potential solutions, Rocky Mountain PBS spoke with Becca Trefry, the executive director of Durango Early Learning Center, a nonprofit early childhood program serving toddlers and preschoolers since 2003.
This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
Rocky Mountain PBS: What are the biggest challenges early child care centers face in Durango?
Becca Trefry: The population of Durango is growing, but early child care centers haven't been able to keep up.
There's not enough spots for sure, and it's a difficult cycle. We need to expand, but to expand, we need staffing. But child care is one of the lowest-paying jobs. You can work at McDonald's and get paid more than being an early childhood teacher. Definitely not a living wage for Durango. So it's hard to find and keep teachers.
I get grants, but I can't use grants to give teachers pay increases, because what happens if you don't get that grant the next year? You can't suddenly be like, ‘well, you were paid $20 and now you're back to getting paid $17 an hour.’ So trying to find consistent, sustainable funding is what will help support the early childhood community.
It takes a special person to work with young children — it’s rewarding but emotionally and physically exhausting. Not everyone can maintain that for a long time.
You also have to navigate through permitting, licensing, and real estate issues just to open a new center. It really needs to be a community effort.
RMPBS: How much does early child care cost?
BT: It depends. For toddlers, five days a week from 7:45 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. is $1,257 a month. And for preschools, five days a week is $1,170 a month. So it’s slightly cheaper for preschool than for toddlers, but that’s obviously still a ton of money.
We provide snacks but we don’t provide lunches. We don’t have a commercial kitchen. Other programs that have food programs are going to be a lot more expensive.
RMPBS: What’s the enrollment process like at DLC? Is there a waitlist?
BT: This year, we’re actually doing a lottery for spots. We don’t do waitlists anymore.
What I do is I have my current families who are here register first. We also give priority to teachers’ kids and siblings.
Say we have 12 toddlers that move up into the preschool and then whatever spots I have left goes to the lottery. We will pick every single entry to create an order of the numbers.
We have two separate lotties, one for the toddler program and one for preschool. We have 34 lottery forms for toddlers, and for preschool we have 46 families.
I have 80 people who put in lottery form, I will pick all 80 people to determine an order and when there’s a spot open I just go down the list asking if they want it.
For the toddler, I’m going to have three spots open. For preschool, I’m going to have one or two.
We keep that order for a year, and then once we get closer to next year's lottery, that list will just go away and people will have to put in again for the lottery if they didn't get in. I think it gives a more realistic view to families of it really is a small chance.
RMPBS: Why did you switch to the lottery form?
BT: We’re trying this strategy as a way to make it more equitable for more families and we also prioritize low income families. We will pick them first.
RMPBS: What methods are in place to make child care more affordable?
BT: UPK (Colorado’s universal preschool program) provides 15 hours of free preschool per week for any child in the year before kindergarten. It’s state-funded and helps make child care more affordable for families. It also benefits us as a school because we receive financial support per child. But parents still have to apply, and there are some bureaucratic hurdles.
RMPBS: How might the new lodging tax allocation act help with early child care for your center?
BT: Yes, the county passed a measure to allocate a portion of the lodging tax to housing and child care. The exact breakdown of how much will go to child care is still being determined, but it’s a step in the right direction. It’s been done in other places in Colorado, so we have models to look at.
And I think also to try and get interest from the business community. How can businesses buy into supporting this overall instead of it just being these individual centers trying to stay afloat with just tuition funds. Because it is a larger community issue instead of just a child care issue.
But at least it will be a possibility. It was never a possibility before.
Type of story: Q&A
An interview to provide a single perspective, edited for clarity and obvious falsehoods.
An interview to provide a single perspective, edited for clarity and obvious falsehoods.
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