Perspective | What happens when a community loses its only licensed child care program

This summer, I received a letter that would cause any parent’s head to spin: Leaders at my children’s child care program, Little Sprouts Child Care in Frisco, informed us it will close its doors at the end of the year. 

For years, the program had hung on, but couldn’t overcome the severe staffing shortage facing so many child care centers today. The owner had sought to offer care that working parents could afford, but also needed to offer fair wages to recruit and retain qualified staff. In the end, despite their best efforts, the numbers didn’t add up. 

I have three children who have benefited tremendously from the quality care and education this program provided: a 5-year-old and 2-year-old twins. My husband and I run a small business together, and I’m also a broker and office manager for a local real estate company. Reading that letter, my mind swarmed with questions: What would we do? How could we keep our business afloat and afford to stay in our community if one us needed to drop out of the workforce to care for our kids? My husband was born and raised here on Hatteras Island; we’re proud to call it home. Would we be forced to move? 

Suddenly losing child care is an emergency for any working parent, anywhere in North Carolina. But for families on Hatteras Island, this situation is especially dire because my children’s program is the only licensed child care center on the island. 

I can’t call around to see who has an opening or even sign up for waitlists. Unless we find a solution, at the end of the year, families here will have no options for child care. Zero. 

I fear what that will mean, not just for my family but for our whole community. I’m not sure most people understand the domino effect closing a child care center can cause. If local business owners need to scale back their businesses because of a lack of child care, their employees could lose their jobs. On the flip side, local businesses could lose talented employees who also have young children. If parents can’t work, many families will struggle to put food on the table in this already difficult economy.  As a real estate agent and small business owner, I know having zero licensed child care facilities will diminish families’ willingness to move here and businesses’ interest in investing here.

As a tourist destination, our community’s economy is especially vulnerable because of its seasonal nature. Without a licensed child care facility, we immediately lose an entire demographic of families who would otherwise live, work, and thrive here. This absence directly impacts the local businesses that sustain our economy and provide the exceptional vacation experience that keeps the Outer Banks a top destination. Without essential services like child care, our community will struggle to maintain its workforce and its vitality.

Those of us in small, rural communities already feel left behind. Child care closures threaten the health and longevity of communities like mine. We can’t afford even more disinvestment.

Perhaps most importantly, it’s children who are harmed by all this. The research is crystal clear that a child’s first five years are critical for brain development. Quality early education makes an enormous difference. 

I’ve seen that firsthand: My twins were born prematurely, and they’ve truly thrived thanks to the support and structure their teachers provide. Often, it’s early education professionals who are the first to notice learning differences or disabilities and connect families with early intervention resources. Early intervention has been life-changing for one of my twins. Without that support, I know many children will fall through the cracks. 

I love my community, and I’m not willing to sit by and let those dominoes fall. Within two days of receiving that horrible letter, I got to work, partnering with two other moms who relied on the center — Whitney Dempsey, a local nurse; and Kelly Aiken, a business owner — to email and call everyone we could think of: county commissioners, the county Department of Health and Human Services, our school board members and district superintendent, state representatives, and others. We are determined to find a solution and are working rapidly to establish or identify a new nonprofit program designed to give our community a direct stake in sustaining and strengthening this essential service.

Still, that feels like putting a Band-Aid over a bullet wound, because this problem stretches far beyond Hatteras Island. In fact, ours is just one of 252 child care programs that have closed from January through August in North Carolina (compared with 208 openings), according to the Division of Child Development and Early Education. That’s countless kids, families, and businesses left in a lurch — an emergency for every one of them.

This is a systemic issue. Our lawmakers haven’t made child care a priority, and state subsidy rates don’t match the true cost of providing care. Programs across our state are struggling with the same workforce challenges that forced ours to close; even more since pandemic stabilization grants, which helped programs boost wages, expired in April. 

It doesn’t have to be this way. It’s past time for our elected leaders to step up and find long-term, sustainable solutions to the child care crisis — so parents can work, kids can learn, our economy can thrive, and our state’s rural communities are not left behind.