Idaho struggles with a lack of child care

By Gemma Gaudette

Published March 12, 2024 at 1:42 PM MDT

In this photo taken Friday, Feb. 12, 2016, Nuray Bolat, left, and Ocean Epling briefly tussle over a toy at the Creative Kids Learning Center, a school that focuses on pre-kindergarten for 4- and 5-year-olds, in Seattle. While the states early learning program gets kudos for its efforts to improve quality, it gets poor marks for the small number of kids who are benefiting from high quality preschools. The state now publishes useful information online that could help parents figure out where to send their children for preschool, but most of that data is hard to find and decipher. (AP Photo/Elaine Thompson)

Demand for quality child care in our state is reaching a critical level. According to the Child Care Gap Assessment, there are close to 75,000 Idaho children in need of child care but our state only has 55,000 slots available.

One solution to this problem is training people to become qualified childcare providers. Darcy Heath, supply senior manager at Wonderschool, sat down with Idaho Matters to tell us more.

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Idaho Matters Child Care

Gemma Gaudette

Hi! I’m Gemma Gaudette, the host of the award-winning show, Idaho Matters. During the day you’ll find me researching and writing about all the fascinating topics we tackle on our show. And of course, at noon, each weekday you’ll find me live behind the microphone as Idaho Matters airs.

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