- 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.