- [Announcer] "ncImpact" is a PBS North Carolina production, in association with the University of North Carolina School of Government.

Funding for "ncImpact" is made possible by.

- [Narrator] Changing the course of people's lives, that's the impact UNC Health and the UNC School of Medicine work to deliver every day.

Our 40,000 team members across the state of North Carolina are committed to caring for you, our patients and communities, as well as educating the next generation of healthcare professionals.

Individually, we can do a little, but collectively, we can do a lot to create impact.

- Welcome to "ncImpact," I'm Anita Brown-Graham.

Every day, there are parents across the state struggling to secure affordable quality childcare.

We visit Asheville where an innovative community solution is bringing relief to parents and teachers.

- Finding a spot for your child in daycare can feel like winning the lottery, except it costs you a million bucks.

Okay, maybe not a million, but the point is childcare is insanely expensive.

Some families are spending over one third of their income on care, and even if you have that sort of money, you can spend months, even years on a childcare wait list because there aren't enough slots for all the kids in North Carolina.

In North Carolina, the average daycare worker earns $11.69 cents per hour.

That's less than the average fast food worker.

The childcare workforce has struggled for years with wages, hiring and retention, and it was temporarily supported by Pandemic Recovery investments.

Now that money has dried up, will the whole system come crashing down?

[blocks rattling] So, where do we go from here?

I'm David Hurst, this is "ncImpact".

[upbeat music] When Alexis Coppola planned her move to Asheville in 2022, she did everything right.

Six months before relocating, she started searching for childcare for her 2-year-old son.

She put her name on every waiting list she could find.

- I was somewhere between 70th and 120th on all of those lists, and I still get calls from some of those facilities, it's been two years saying, "Hey, you moved up to 60th.

Should we take you off the wait list?"

- From 70th?

- From 70th or from 100th.

- [David] Yeah.

With no options in Asheville, Alexis found herself settling for a spot at a daycare in Hendersonville.

- But I had anywhere from a hour and a half to three hour commute every day, taking my kid to childcare, sometimes worse.

- [David] Stories like this echo across North Carolina.

Over 60% of children under six live in households where both parents work.

But there's only enough room at childcare providers for less than 20% of those children in the state.

The impact on families is significant.

In 2019, about 9% of US parents reported that childcare issues caused major disruptions to their employment.

In North Carolina, it was even higher at nearly 17%.

But post pandemic, it jumped up to 25%.

That could mean disciplinary action or even job loss, forcing parents to put careers on hold.

It's what researchers call a parenting penalty, and the ripple effect doesn't just hurt families today.

it impacts their earning potential for years to come, making quality childcare even harder to afford in the future.

But childcare centers can't expand to meet the demand.

In fact, many are closing their doors because the business model isn't sustainable.

In 2023 alone, 300 childcare centers in North Carolina shut down and it mainly comes down to a shortage of childcare workers.

Maria Solome Loomis Ramirez understands this firsthand.

When she opened the Spanish Academy of Asheville three years ago, she found herself wearing multiple hats to keep the doors open.

- I was the teacher, [laughs] I was the custodian, I was the director, but that's what you have to do.

- While businesses across nearly every industry in North Carolina have dealt with labor shortages since the pandemic, many have turned to wage increases to attract workers, but not in childcare.

So help us understand kind of the different factors at play 'cause I imagine a lot of people might be watching this and asking, "Well, why can't we just pay these educators more money?"

- It costs a lot of money.

[laughs] It costs a lot of money, and there's a lot of places that just can't afford it, you know, running a childcare facility, you're not making millions of dollars.

Having to, you know, pay your staff, having to pay for maintenance of the building, having to keep up with utilities, all of those additional costs to owning your own facility just keeps rising, you know, the cost of living is getting higher and higher, it's very, very difficult.

- [David] According to a recent US Treasury report, most for-profit childcare centers operate on razor thin margins, usually less than 1%.

This puts providers in a bind.

Raising wages to retain and attract workers means either increasing costs for parents or reducing the number of children they can serve.

- When I wear the hat as a director, I have to think about, okay, what are the needs and what are the wants?

And trying to balance those things and trying to tell the teachers, "Okay, we can do this, but we have to wait for this 'cause there are priorities."

- [David] This experience highlights the vicious cycle.

Without workers, centers can't expand to meet demand, leaving more parents struggling to find care and potentially impacting their own careers.

This cycle leaves communities searching for solutions.

In Buncombe County, leaders recognize that breaking this cycle had to start with one crucial piece, getting more qualified teachers into classrooms.

Their solution?

The Pathway for Early Childhood Teacher Workforce Development Program.

- We are the workforce behind the workforce because there are a lot of people who have children, and if the workforce can't go to work 'cause they don't have childcare, then where does that leave us?

- [David] To build a stronger workforce, the program takes a comprehensive approach to supporting new teachers.

- Really, it's about breaking down the barriers for participants, whether it's transportation, housing, clothing, food.

We're kind of a one-stop shop when you come through the Workforce Development Program to keep you because we want to help you as much as possible.

- [David] And that comprehensive approach seems to be working.

Back at the Spanish Academy of Asheville, they've expanded from two classrooms to four, and they're now exploring plans for a second location.

The success stories include teachers like Indira Parma, who moved from Venezuela with a background in international studies.

- When I start, I say like, "This is going to be very hard for me, this is not my career, but they give me all the information, all the tools to feel like secure that I can achieve my goal.

- [David] The program also helped Jill Smith, who works at another daycare across town.

It helped her transition from private childcare to the classroom setting.

- When I first started, it was nerve wracking to be with so many kids, going from me being a nanny of two kids to being in a classroom full of children.

- [David] But once you get an early educator in the door, keeping them there presents another challenge.

The numbers tell a stark story.

North Carolina's childcare workforce turnover rate averages 38%.

- I see a lot of people come in and not be able to stick with it.

You gotta have a lot of patience to be a teacher.

- [David] That's why Buncombe County's program doesn't just train teachers, it stays with them, providing ongoing support for mental health resources to continuing education.

- We kind of just don't go away unless they tell us to go away because we want them to stay in the field.

- [David] But even the most comprehensive support system can't overcome a fundamental challenge, money.

For centers like the Spanish Academy, staying afloat meant relying on federal pandemic relief, over 834 million that kept North Carolina's childcare system running.

But as those funds evaporate, the entire system faces a cliff.

In 2024, North Carolina legislators responded with a $67.5 million stop gap measure.

But advocates say that's less than a quarter of what's actually needed to keep centers open and teachers paid.

While most legislators agree that early education needs funding, they differ on how to provide it.

Democrats push for direct subsidies to centers and families, meanwhile, Republicans abdicate for tax credits, saying that gives parents more choice in childcare options.

But recently, an innovative solution has emerged that's bridging the political divide.

North Carolina's General Assembly has approved testing a tri-share childcare model where costs are equally split between the state, employer and employee.

While still in early stages, the model raises an important question, could sharing costs across multiple stakeholders help make quality childcare more accessible for North Carolina families?

While policymakers debate these solutions, families continue searching for answers, some like Alexis Coppola, eventually found them.

After a year of three hour commutes and endless wait lists, she secured a spot for her son at the Spanish Academy, only 15 minutes away from her house.

- It's life changing, I know that he's safe, I know that he's happy.

The teachers here are amazing, he loves the other students, and it allows me to go to work and be able to focus on work and know that he's happy and well taken care of.

- [David] As communities across North Carolina search for solutions, the challenges remain complex.

Parents struggle to find care, centers strain to stay open, and teachers, they weigh their passion against their ability to make ends meet.

For "ncImpact," I'm David Hurst.

[gentle music] - From a lack of childcare to a lack of foster homes, many local family support systems find themselves stretched thin.

We discover how Gaston County is re-imagining how to care for vulnerable children.

- Foster children are sleeping on cots at social services offices because there aren't enough care homes for them.

That was the headline that shocked North Carolinians last year.

Today, the crisis continues.

In just two years, the number of licensed foster homes in North Carolina dropped by 20%.

We've got over 10,000 kids who need homes, but only about 5,600 licensed foster homes.

If you do the math, it doesn't quite add up.

Now, I know you may be thinking, hasn't it always been tough to find foster parents?

Sure, but not like this, this is different.

So what's changed?

Why is this happening now?

And most importantly, what could we do about it?

I'm David Hurst, this is "ncImpact".

[lively music] Mikaila Hopper was 12 years old when she entered foster care.

Over the next six years, she moved home 23 different times.

- So I think if you take anybody, even an adult, and change their environment constantly, it's an experience that really you can't describe or put into words.

- [David] That was 10 years ago, today, even more children face the same challenges Mikaila did.

Why?

Well, several things happened at once.

Of course, the pandemic changed everything, more kids needed help with mental health.

At the same time, many foster families stopped taking in children.

They're worried about COVID or they struggled with schools being closed.

Now, even though the pandemic has ended, those foster families still haven't come back.

You see, finding childcare is tough, mental health services have long wait lists, and social workers are managing double the recommended caseload.

It's forcing impossible choices about where to place children safely.

- I'll never forget, I was visiting a DSS in a different county and I walked in and they literally were pulling up the cots from the conference room and I thought, "We've gotta do something about this, kids shouldn't have to sleep in a conference room."

- [David] In Gaston County, they're refusing to accept this as the new normal.

- Welcome to the Hummingbird House.

- [David] Susanna Kavanaugh runs the Least of These Carolinas.

Her organization partners with local churches to create something different, The Hummingbird House.

- Let's show you the living room.

- [David] It may look like any other home on the street, but inside, it serves a special purpose.

Here, foster children can stay with their social workers while waiting for placement.

The kitchen stays stocked with food, the bedrooms can house up to five children at once, and most importantly, it feels like a real home.

- For most of these children, chaos is all they've ever known.

- [David] Children can stay here for up to two weeks.

In that time, social workers have a chance to find the right foster home, not just the first available bed.

- And it doesn't only serve the kids, it serves the social workers because they're able to rest and take care of the kids and they don't have to worry about food because we've already taken care of that for them.

- [David] And the organization does more than just provide emergency housing.

- Actually ready to go and that'll probably be picked up tomorrow.

And then this is probably gonna be in someone's living room.

- Wow.

- By the end of the week, being opened up by a really happy kid.

- [David] They're transforming how children enter foster care with something as simple as a bag.

- So usually, typically, a child in foster care brings everything they own in a black trash bag, and sometimes they're not even allowed to do that.

And so we like to replace that black trash bag with something that kind of screams dignity for them.

- [David] Every month, volunteers prepare up to 100 personalized duffle bags.

Each contains new clothes, toiletries, and comfort items.

It's a small gesture that makes a big difference.

But while the Hummingbird House and Bags of Hope provide crucial immediate support, Susanna knows it's not enough to solve the bigger problem.

- A long-term solution is more foster parents.

We just can't keep doing what we're doing the way we're doing it.

- [David] That solution depends on people like Tiffany Jothen.

For seven years, she's opened her home to foster children.

She says it changes everyone involved, both the kids and the families who take them in.

- I tell people it is the most challenging and hardest, yet most rewarding and best thing I've ever done.

- [David] And support networks across North Carolina are expanding to meet these challenges.

Recent state policy changes have increased financial assistance, with monthly stipends now ranging from 700 to $800 per child.

The reforms also extend equal support to kinship caregivers, relatives who take in foster children.

But what about the root of the issue?

Why are children entering the foster care system in the first place?

Well, child neglect accounts for about 75% of confirmed child protective services cases across the country, yet resources to prevent neglect remain scarce.

- So you're with limited resources, limited prosecutors, limited court time, limited funds available, limited treatment providers.

- [David] These limited resources create a cascade of challenges.

In North Carolina, children remain in state care for an average of one to two years with less than half of those families achieving reunification.

Critics claim some lose custody due to circumstances tied directly to poverty, such as housing instability or inability to afford childcare.

The challenge state authorities say is finding the balance between protecting children while preserving families.

But with mounting caseloads and scarce resources, that balance becomes increasingly difficult to maintain.

So across North Carolina, counties are rethinking their approach to child welfare.

New programs focus on prevention, addressing family needs before separation becomes necessary.

Gaston County has launched specialized courts and diversion programs aimed at keeping families together while ensuring child safety.

- Our office, you know, we're very careful about and mindful of the situations that where we're gonna send a kid back into.

And that's why we try to work hand in hand with Least of These or DSS or any other partnership that we may have to try to set our children up and our parents up for success.

[soft music] - [David] After experiencing 23 different placements, Mikaila Hopper found stability through adult adoption.

Today, she works to transform a system she once struggled to navigate, her experience now informs her work recruiting and supporting foster families.

- Even though we are in a crisis, I see more and more people who are like that stepping in.

It gives me a lot of hope.

- We can't change the world for all the children in foster care, there's over 10,000 in the state of North Carolina, we can't, we know we can't help all of them, but we just focus on the ones that we can help and we try and help them the best that we can so that that ripple effect starts happening.

[soft music continues] - [David] For "ncImpact", I'm David Hurst.

[soft music continues] - When children lack stable homes, their learning often suffers.

It's no surprise some of these students are mostly absent from their classrooms.

Let's head to Charlotte to find out how educators are working with the community to reach these students.

- There is a growing gap in North Carolina's classrooms, and I'm not talking about test scores or funding, I'm talking about empty seats.

You see, in 2023, North Carolina's chronic absenteeism rate hit a staggering 27%.

That's more than one in four students missing school on a regular basis, and it's not just North Carolina, nationwide, the rates of chronic absenteeism look about the same, even after the pandemic.

Students who consistently miss school in early grades are less likely to read at grade level by third grade.

By high school, these same students face a higher dropout risk, potentially leading to higher unemployment rates and lower lifetime earnings.

So why hasn't it returned to pre-pandemic rates and what's being done about it?

I'm David Hurst, this is "ncImpact."

[gentle music] We need to rewind to early 2020, the halls of North Carolina schools were suddenly silent.

Empty classrooms, vacant chairs, the familiar rhythm of daily attendance disrupted.

How much did the pandemic make things worse?

- Whoa, it was very difficult - [David] When COVID hit, schools across the country faced an unprecedented challenge.

The very concept of going to school transformed overnight, students traded classrooms for computer screens, and attendance, well, it became optional.

As weeks turned into months, the habit of daily school attendance began to erode.

For some families, the barriers were technological, no reliable internet or no dedicated devices for learning.

For others, it was logistical, parents working essential jobs, leaving no one to supervise virtual learning.

To be clear, the pandemic didn't create these disparities, it exposed them.

But here's what caught educators off guard, even after schools reopened their doors, things didn't snap back to normal.

In 2019, before anyone had ever heard of COVID-19, North Carolina's chronic absenteeism rate was 16%.

By 2023, that number had jumped to 27%.

A student is considered chronically absent when they miss 10% or more of school days in a year, that's two days a month.

It might not sound like much, but those absences add up and so do their consequences.

- If this goes unaddressed, we are gonna see a whole generation that is missing out on life, that they're not gonna have the tools that they need to to succeed, they're gonna have hopes and dreams that they just cannot reach.

- [David] Behind every empty desk is a story.

For seventh grader, Isaiah Robinson, the challenge of showing up to school began before the pandemic.

His family moved around a lot, making it difficult to maintain consistent attendance at any one school.

- Elementary school, I didn't really wanna come to school.

The only day I would probably go to school in elementary is probably Field Day.

- [David] Isaiah's story highlights a crucial point.

Chronic absenteeism isn't just about skipping school.

Research from the National Institutes of Health reveals it's a complex issue tied to family circumstances, mental health and shifting cultural norms, barriers that existed long before the pandemic, but have grown more pronounced in its wake.

- Some of the barriers is that their set up is not like most kids.

I have kids on my caseload, some are living in hotels, some are living with relatives, some are living in the shelter.

- [David] Dennis Dixon has spent three decades working with students in Charlotte.

Each day, he sees how these structural barriers can create ripples that affect every aspect of a child's education.

- It's gotta be hard living in a hotel, trying to get your homework done.

It's gotta be hard living in a shelter, trying to get your homework done.

It's gotta be hard living with your cousin or your relatives when you don't have your own room to get your work done.

- [David] It's a complex web of challenges that extends beyond any single classroom or community.

But in Charlotte, one school is testing an incentive-based strategy using reward programs to boost attendance and rebuild the daily habit of coming to school.

Principal Patrice McCauley saw her school's chronic absenteeism rate spike to nearly 59% after the pandemic, that's almost four times higher than pre-pandemic levels.

But through a combination of outreach and incentives, those numbers are slowly improving.

- We do go into homes, we do meet with families.

We also do what we call an attendance challenge.

And so, this past school year, we did decrease chronic absenteeism.

Our goal is to decrease it again this year.

- [David] That improvement comes through creative incentives from candy rewards to party with the principal events.

Perhaps most popular, TikTok Thursdays where students gather for social media inspired dance parties.

But not everyone's embracing that trend.

Do you partake in TikTok Thursdays?

- You know what?

That was the first time I heard that.

- Really?

- I don't participate, I don't do TikTok at all.

- Do you know what TikTok is?

- Yeah, I do, but I don't participate in it.

- [David] I'll admit, when I first heard about TikTok Thursdays and candy rewards, I was skeptical.

Could something so simple really make a difference in such a complex problem?

While educators at the school swear by these incentives, they're the first to acknowledge a harder truth, getting students through the door is just the beginning.

The barriers to attendance often run much deeper than what any reward system can solve.

That's why some districts are implementing a different kind of solution.

Dedicated trouble spotters who work inside schools, building relationships with students before small problems become big ones.

The program is run by Communities in Schools.

It's an organization that places trained site coordinators in schools.

These coordinators identify and address barriers to attendance before they lead to chronic absence.

Site coordinators, like Dennis Dixon, become bridges between school and home, catching early warning signs and connecting families with resources, whether that's stable housing, healthcare, or transportation.

- When you start showing someone that you care and you're gonna be there and you're supporting them, I think their lifestyle's gonna change, they're gonna start having an interest in school.

- [David] But even as schools like Wilson STEM Academy build these vital connections, data shows that while some students miss just a few extra days, others have become deeply disconnected from education altogether, suggesting no single solution will be enough.

So across North Carolina, schools are discovering their own ways to keep students in class.

In some of the state's rural mountain communities, they're using telehealth to keep kids in school.

I know that sounds counterintuitive, but a Duke University study of McDowell, Mitchell and Yancey County schools found that connecting students to healthcare providers virtually led to a 29% drop in chronic absences.

A school nurse could now help a student with asthma consult a doctor without ever leaving the building.

Meanwhile, at Brevard High School, administrators are using a three-tiered system.

It combines real-time attendance tracking with something more personal, over a thousand direct contacts with families.

The goal is to catch problems early.

[gentle music continues] For seventh grader Isaiah Robinson, everything changed after a conversation about school supplies.

That hallway meeting with Dennis Dixon became regular check-ins, building trust and connecting his family with resources for stability.

Today he's an honor roll student planning for college and dreaming of becoming a software developer, - I could just still be able to help my family out and be able to provide, if not, they'd be able to provide for me and I have a good education.

- [David] And while the pandemic is over, the work to address the root causes of absenteeism continues.

Communities across North Carolina are forced to rethink how to engage students in a post-pandemic world.

[balls bouncing] For "ncImpact," I'm David Hurst.

[kids chattering] - We've been trying something new this season, we're focusing more on the experts on the ground.

Thank you to the local leaders featured in this episode who so generously allowed us to share the inspirational stories of their collaborative work.

Tell us what your community is doing or how we can help you.

Email us at ncIMPACT@unc.edu or message us on Facebook or LinkedIn.

And be sure to join us every Friday night at 7:30 on PBS North Carolina for new episodes of "ncImpact."

[upbeat music] [upbeat music continues] - [Announcer] "ncImpact" is a PBS North Carolina production.

In association with the University of North Carolina School of Government.

Funding for "ncImpact" is made possible by.

- [Narrator] Changing the course of people's lives, that's the impact UNC Health and the UNC School of Medicine work to deliver every day.

Our 40,000 team members across the state of North Carolina are committed to caring for you, our patients and communities, as well as educating the next generation of healthcare professionals.

Individually, we can do a little, but collectively, we can do a lot to create impact.