Alarm Bells Ring About Access to Quality Child Care as Sep. 30th Looms

We want to share a sample of recent press coverage about child care in Texas. The articles underscore that Texas parents are on the brink of facing even greater difficulty finding affordable, safe, nurturing child care so they can go to work. 

Federal pandemic relief funds provided during the Trump and Biden administrations played a critical role in keeping child care afloat in our state, allowing many child care providers to stay open, retain staff, and avoid large cost increases for parents. Unfortunately, that federal relief funding will expire September 30th, meaning many child care providers will either lose staff to higher paying industries, raise costs for parents even higher in order to stay open, or simply shut down.

This session, the Legislature decided not to use state funding to maintain that support for child care. In light of these challenges, and with more than 80,000 Texas children on the waitlist for the state’s child care subsidy program, child care must be a priority for the Legislature during the next session.

Here’s a sample of recent press coverage:

We look forward to working with legislators, child care providers, families, partners, and other Texans to address this crisis.

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