NC’s early learning network has shrunk

Drops in enrollment, sites, staff

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Early childhood folks at the local and state level know information can be hard to come by. A new dashboard from the Department of Health and Human Services provides both county-level and statewide recent information on early childhood programs. I played around on the dashboard this week to see what stuck out to me. These were my main takeaways:

1. Fewer sites: The number of early childhood programs fell by 10% from January 2018 to November 2021. Much of that drop is due to a 30% decrease in home-based child care. Learn about this national trend in this recent Hechinger Report piece on rural families’ needs and this piece I wrote on North Carolina context from 2020.
2. Pandemic drops: Though the number of sites has fallen since 2018, the pandemic did not seem to make much of a difference. The state saw bigger pandemic drops in enrollment (14% from March 2020 to November 2021) and the number of staff (10% in the same time period).
3. Less public-funded access: Two main public funding sources for early learning, the child care subsidy program and NC Pre-K, reached fewer children in 2021 than in 2018, with 14% fewer children being served through subsidized care and 29% fewer children enrolled in NC Pre-K. The NC Pre-K drop is a result of the pandemic, the dashboard says. The 2021-22 enrollment is back to 82% of pre-pandemic levels.

You can search by county to find how many early learning programs are in your community, how that relates to the area’s child population, as well as the types of programs they are (school-based, centers, in-home, etc.) and their quality ratings.

Let me know: What questions does this raise for you about local and statewide access for children and families? I’d love to hear your questions and story ideas.