From the cover
Local parents, providers face child care challenges
What’s happening
Child care seats vs. eligible children in the Tomball-Magnolia area, 2022 Number of child care seats
In the Tomball and Magnolia area, three ZIP codes qualify as child care deserts: 77375, 77355 and 77362. To determine child care deserts, Children at Risk o cials used 2022 U.S. Census Bureau data to de ne a child as eligible for care if they were age 5 or younger and both of their parents were employed. Kim Kofron, Children at Risk’s senior director of education, said she believes access to child care has been a problem statewide for decades but was further complicated by the pandemic. Kofron said Texas had around 17,000 early child care centers before the pandemic hit in 2020. While that number had fallen to roughly 12,000 in 2021, she said the number of providers has rebounded to around 14,000. Despite the increase, Kofron said more than 70,000 kids throughout the state are currently on waitlists to receive early child care. Hockley resident Kadie Sellers said she applied to a handful of child care centers around Tomball and Cypress two months before her child was born in January 2023. “I waited until I was in the third trimester of my pregnancy, which I thought was a reasonable amount of time because I was going to be on maternity leave for a few months,” she said. “We nally got a call for a spot in October. [My child] was 9 months old.” Matt Evers—co-owner of several Primrose Schools, including a location in Tomball—said he believes parents should apply at least six months in advance of the date they want their children to attend. He said that wait can increase to as much as two years for infants.
Number of eligible children
1,000 1,500 2,000 2,500 3,000 3,500
3,776 child care seats overall 7,800 eligible children 2.1 times more eligible children than seats
500
0
77354
77362
77375
77377
77355
High access to child care: 76% or more of eligible children have access to a child care seat Moderate access to child care: 34%-75% of eligible children have access to a child care seat Child care desert: 33% or less of eligible children have access to a child care seat Child care deserts in the Tomball-Magnolia area, 2022 Child care desert The Tomball-Magnolia area is home to three ZIP codes referred to as child care deserts, meaning there are at least three times as many children eligible for early child care as there are seats available.
77354
1774
1488
77362
77355
77375
249
77377
99
N
SOURCES: CHILDREN AT RISK, U.S. CENSUS BUREAU COMMUNITY IMPACT
What they’re saying
“The one thing about child care is that it costs a lot of money to operate the centers. We hope that laws will be passed and things will happen to where there will be funding to help us. In our hearts, we want to take care of the children, but we have to have those funds to be able to expand.” ANNETTE COLLINS, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, GOD’S GRACE LEARNING CENTER
“We took a hit [in enrollment] during COVID, as so many facilities in the industry did, and it was a challenge climbing back up to those pre-COVID numbers, but we are getting there. As we grow, we are able to open other classrooms and meet the demand.” LEYLEA DUMSTORSS, DIRECTOR, A CHILD’S VIEW
“It’s hard to make child care profitable anywhere you are, but it’s even harder to do that in a low-income area. We do find low- income areas to be more likely to have higher child care deserts than our middle-income and more affluent neighborhoods.” KIM KOFRON, SENIOR DIRECTOR OF EDUCATION, CHILDREN AT RISK
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