VIRGINIA BEACH — As child care continues to be an economic hardship in Hampton Roads, state funding is providing some relief for local families through a new program this year.
Del. Michael Feggans, D-Virginia Beach, added an amendment to this year’s state budget plan to provide financial support for a child care program aimed at educators. Specifically, $500,000 allocated from the general fund supports a pilot program for Virginia Beach Public School employees working in Title I schools. The program began this school year.
The money supports more than 90 early childhood education slots, and the program uses existing child care facilities at YMCA campuses and has created child care centers at Virginia Beach schools. Anthony Walters, president and CEO of the YMCA South Hampton Roads, said besides the school system, the organization is the largest provider of child care, serving more than 10,000 children each year through its programs. About 3,800 of those children are in Virginia Beach.
“Like so many families, our teachers face tremendous challenges, and child care should not be one of them,” Walters said. “By easing this burden, we’re supporting our working families in our schools.”
State funding is paying a third of the cost for the program, the school division is paying at least a third, and employees cover the remainder.
Donald Robertson, superintendent of Virginia Beach City Public Schools, said a walk through one of the district’s Title I schools sparked inspiration for the legislation. Title I schools receives supplemental financial assistance from the Department of Education for children from low-income families. During a school tour, school leadership chatted with Feggans about struggles in retaining all kinds of staff, not just teachers. After that conversation, leaders from the schools, YMCA and at Feggans office worked to get the idea off the ground.
Robertson said the funding not only supports child care shortages in the region, but school leaders hope the extra support could help soften the teacher shortage as well. By taking the stress of finding and affording day care off of employees, Robertson said the program could become an incentive to keep staff in their positions with the school district.
Earlier this year, business, military and community leaders gathered at Old Dominion University to discuss the economics of early childhood education. At the briefing, speakers discussed the economic strain of unaffordable child care, especially for women in the workforce.
Labor force participation drops 1.4% among lower-income mothers for every $100 increase in child care costs, according to research from ODU. Efforts to improve child care quality, such as reducing child-to-staff ratios or raising training standards, can increase costs and unintentionally price families out.
Feggans said the cost to keep a 4-year-old in daycare in Virginia Beach can reach $13,000 each year. For some families, that could equate to a monthly rent or mortgage payment.
Despite growing demand from working families and increasing public investment, many Virginia communities continue to face significant shortages in affordable, high-quality child care, according to a July report from the Shovel Ready Virginia Task Force, which is part of the Virginia Early Childhood Foundation.
Across the region, groups are working to create more spots for children’s daycare. Resurrection Lutheran Church’s child development center in Newport News is going through an $8.5 million expansion to allow for more students, from 100 to 225 full-time spots for children ages 6 weeks up to 5 years old. A York County facility broke ground in June, and when finished will employ 26 full- and part-time teachers to provide educational child care for 198 students. A pilot program launched by Minus 9 to 5, an ODU initiative focused on child health, also helped five licensed child care providers start their own businesses. Four are in Suffolk and one is in Chesapeake.
Feggans said his team will track the pilot program’s success in teacher retention to assess how the program could expand.
“To me, this is what innovative partnerships are about,” Feggans said. “It’s about finding smart, compassionate ways to continue fighting to show our educators and our staff that Virginia’s public school systems and community have their back.”
Eliza Noe, eliza.noe@virginiamedia.com