Lawmakers are set to decide this month whether to increase the number of 2-year-olds allowed in classrooms at early childhood care centers, a complicated decision demonstrating the push-and-pull between attempts to fill a child care shortage and maintain high-quality care for young children.
The regulatory change has been years in the making and would allow an early childhood educator to take care of five 2-year-olds rather than four. It would increase the number of 2-year-olds allowed in a classroom to 10, if there are at least two caregivers. It would apply to center-based care rather than home-based programs.
The Regulations Review Committee is scheduled to vote on whether to change the regulation later this month. Providers and the state Office of Early Childhood are in favor of the proposal, while a group of pediatricians and child development experts have raised objections.
“I’m a little concerned that we’re trying to get some other opportunities for our young folks, but we need to first and foremost think about our young children and make sure that they’re cared for in safe and healthy settings,” said committee co-chair Rep. Lucy Dathan, D-New Canaan.
Dathan said she still “has some homework to do” because it’s not a straightforward question, and she’s had several people from both sides of the issue reach out to her office.
The suggestion to expand the number came from a Blue Ribbon Panel report issued in 2023. Gov. Ned Lamont convened the panel to strategize on ways to strengthen the child care system.
Connecticut is short about 17,000 early childhood care slots. The COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated strains on the industry, which is seeing significant workforce shortages.
The number of slots is also dropping, and the shortage disproportionately affects children of color, immigrant children, children experiencing homelessness and children with special needs, according to a report released earlier this year from Connecticut Voices for Children.
It’s hard for many parents to find affordable, high-quality early care. In Connecticut, child care costs on average $18,156 for center-based care and $11,955 in a family child care home annually.
Early childhood care and education is important for brain development and helps young children build social skills.
The shortage has been a focus for some lawmakers in the last few sessions, and the state has increased investment in recent years. The Blue Ribbon Panel issued a series of recommendations, although the state’s investments fall far short of what the panel said was necessary to fund the system.
Office of Early Childhood Commissioner Beth Bye said the agency has been trying to redo the regulations at centers for several years. The proposal to adjust ratios for care of 2-year-olds drew lots of comments, so they put it out for additional hearings, she said.
Connecticut and Washington, D.C., have the lowest ratios for center-based care of children under 3 in the country. A group of pediatricians and child development experts have argued it should stay that way.
They fear increasing it could lead to weakened connections between children and caregivers, more spread of disease and less-safe settings.
“Safety is really about supervision, and this is why it’s so important to talk about caring for our children,” said Angela Crowley, a professor emeritus of nursing at Yale. Crowley has researched poor quality child care and how to improve health and safety.
But Bye says it’s a modest change that preserves health and safety and could make big differences for kids.
“It’s one small move in an area with a lot of demand to improve access for families,” Bye said.
Health professionals object
The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends ratios of no more than one caregiver to four kids aged 13 to 35 months.
Many of the country’s regulations around ratios for child care came about decades ago because children were getting hurt in care. Young children need more supervision, Crowley said.
She said it’s especially important for children with additional health needs, such as those with serious allergies.
“What we’re seeing is deregulation,” Crowley said.
Maggie Yolen, a New Haven resident, has a 2-year-old in care who would be affected by the regulation change. Her kids have allergies and need EpiPens for anaphylaxis, and she is against increasing the ratios, she said.
Her daughter needs help with everyday things as well, such as eating and changing her diaper. She needs a grown-up to rub her back so she can take a nap, Yolen said.
“There are so many instances throughout her day where she demands one-on-one attention from a grown up,” Yolen said.
Dr. Gerald Calnen, a retired Connecticut pediatrician, said one of his major concerns with the proposal is that it could mean more spread of illness.
“This past winter, we’ve had to deal with RSV, COVID and influenza,” Calnen said. “You don’t respond to those challenges to crowd more children into a single room.”
Many health professionals also said they were concerned about children’s mental health and ability to connect with caregivers and that direct care workers would experience burn out if they have to care for more children.
Calnen said that most brain growth has occurred by the time children are 3 years old. They’re developing resilience during this time, he added.
“If we ignore evidence-based standards of care, then we lose our guardrails,” Calnen said.
Margaret Holmberg, a past president of the Alliance for the Advancement of Infant Mental Health, said close relationships with caregivers can help set kids up for success later in life.
“Infant mental health is all about early relationships and the importance of caregivers’ relationships with infants and toddlers, and those are critical years for brain development,” Holmberg said. “We do know that what assures and protects brain development are relationships with caregivers.”
Dr. Sandra Carbonari, a now-retired primary care pediatrician, said the connections with caregivers is crucial.
“It’s a really very crucial time for children and their work of learning through interaction and play and all those things is really pretty much what they do 24/7,” Carbonari said. “Of course we want them to be physically safe and have their diapers changed, but there’s a lot more to it than that. To decrease the amount of attention each child is going to get is potentially harmful.”
Margaret Donovan, a Hamden parent, said she worries about burnout among caregivers. She said there needs to be a better system of support and training for workers, not increased ratios.
“It’s good that Connecticut is acknowledging that there is a child care crisis,” Donovan said. ” … We’re missing the mark with shifting that burden to child care providers.”
Health professionals said they want to see more government investment in making high-quality early childhood care affordable, but that this is not the way to resolve the problems with the system.
Crowley said that the issue has national significance because Connecticut is the last state in the country that has the recommended ratios.
Crowley said the change would ignore research that underlines the importance of these early years and the best ways to keep kids safe. She and other health professionals also said they fear it’s the start of ratios that keep climbing higher.
“We’re getting on the top of that slippery slope,” Calnen said.
Providers say the change will help
Bye rejected claims that it was a slippery slope and said there aren’t further increases in the works.
“That’s just unfounded,” she said. “Connecticut has some of the strongest regulations in the country, and I don’t think that’s going to change.”
Providers said they’re in favor of the ratio change; many have long wait lists of families waiting for care who they want to help.
“Why are you asking these parents to sit on waiting lists while they’re accessing care in illegal child care center settings because they cannot find access to child care settings?,” said Georgia Goldburn, director of Hope For New Haven/CERCLE, a center-based care program.
Lack of child care not only affects kids. It can also leave parents, particularly mothers, shut out of the workforce while they care for their children.
“In my mind this is a way in which we can help lots of parents who are on wait lists for care to get their child into care,” said Merrill Gay, executive director at the Connecticut Early Childhood Alliance.
Care for children under 3 is also particularly expensive, Bye said.
Goldburn said the change could cut down on costs for parents and providers. She also said that if programs don’t feel they’re able to implement the change, they don’t have to.
“You can decide for your program what works best for your children and your families, and if you can financially support it, then absolutely you have the freedom to do that,” she said. “It is an easing of a regulation that does not make any sense.”
Francheska Velazquez, owner of Play to Learn, said it will mean that she doesn’t have to scramble so much when someone calls in sick or needs to take a day off work.
Velazquez, whose program has locations in Stamford, Cheshire and Enfield, said she thinks programs will still be able to offer safe, quality care to kids.
“It’s going to relieve a pain point,” she said.
Goldburn said the change will make the regulations for center-based care more logical alongside other types of care.
Family child care providers, who typically operate out of homes, are allowed to have up to six children over 18 months old to one caregiver. And now, children 2 years and 9 months old can move up to a preschool classroom, which has higher ratios.
Cassandra Pero, a Connecticut early childhood educator, said she works in a family care setting with the higher ratios. Caring for five 2-year-olds seems manageable to her, if providers get the proper training and support, she said.
“I definitely think that it’s manageable, I just think they do need more behavioral help,” Pero said. “I do think five would be manageable, as long as staff had the right training.”
Goldburn said the change is needed to meet the need and make the finances work for centers as well as family child care.
“The child care industry market is broken, so you have to then say that we are going to allow this so that this economic model for child care will work,” Goldburn said. “But then you say we’re going to restrict this in a family child care center?”
The upcoming Regulations Review Committee meeting is scheduled for Sept. 24.