At Downtown Baltimore Child Care, teachers have access to employer-sponsored health care and paid time off, attractive benefits in an industry known for low wages.

Even so, the 40-year-old nonprofit struggles to attract teachers, leaving its three child care centers slightly understaffed.

“The shortage is profound right now,” executive director Hilary Roberts-King said.

According to a December report from the state comptroller’s office, the number of child care workers in Maryland fell by over 26% between 2019 and 2022, one of the sharpest declines in the nation. New workers aren’t entering the fragile field, which demands more training and experience than higher-paying competitors like Amazon. The challenges are hurting the economy and likely hitting mothers the hardest, the report said.

Members of the Maryland General Assembly are taking aim at the critical workforce shortage. Through a number of bills, they’ve proposed solutions such as boosting access to health care, hiring substitutes and clearing paths to starting in the business.

“These are small businesses that are providing a critical service for other employers throughout our community. For families and employers, this is giving parents the ability to go work,” said Del. Jessica Feldmark, a Howard County Democrat. “We need to be supporting it as much as we can.”

Helping teachers get health care

One bill calls on the state education department and the Maryland Health Benefit Exchange to help child care professionals obtain health insurance through the exchange or Medicaid. It also asks those partners to help day care teachers who lose Medicaid coverage with finding alternative health insurance and helping to make sure their health plan options meet their budgets.

Chris Peusch, executive director of the Maryland State Child Care Association, said it’s a step in the right direction as the state looks for no- or low-cost ways to support the child care workforce.

Child care providers that receive government funds to cover more than two-thirds of their operating expenses would be eligible to participate in the State Employee and Retiree Health and Welfare Benefits Program. That could include private day cares participating in the state’s pre-K expansion.

Setting up a pool of substitutes

When the weather turns bad and students in the public school system stay home, day care and preschool teachers may need to call out of work to watch their own children.

“Substitute teachers are an important part of child care because we’re never closed,” Roberts-King said.

To serve nearly 250 kids, Downtown Baltimore Child Care employs 100 teachers. Each of them gets paid time off, so the centers have to tap into their pool of 15 substitute teachers every day, Roberts-King said. She added that it’s “difficult if not impossible” to hire substitutes.

The situation is often worse in home-based day cares and preschools, known collectively as family child care, where the owner is also the teacher. Their substitutes are often a spouse, parent or adult child — the same people they would need when they have a family emergency. The only solution to a personal emergency may be to shut down for the day.

Proposed legislation would create a pool of pre-vetted, trained substitutes to fill short-term gaps.

“It’s a simple, common-sense way to support working parents, keep child care businesses running smoothly, and make sure kids have the consistent care they deserve,” Sen. Shaneka Henson, an Anne Arundel County Democrat sponsoring the Senate version of the bill, said in an email.

The pilot program would run in fiscal years 2027 through 2030 at the cost of $375,000 a year, which Henson said is “a small price to pay compared to the economic impact of child care closures on working families and businesses.”

Lowering restrictions on home day cares

Family child care has been on a steady and sustained decline, according to the comptroller’s report. Tiffany Jones, who owns Precious Moments Family Childcare in Montgomery County, said many at-home day care owners are women of color who don’t make enough money to become homeowners.

They live in fear of their landlord selling the house or deciding they don’t want a child care business operating there, said Jones, who is also president of the Family Child Care Association of Montgomery County. Closures can be devastating for caregivers who are attracted to family child care for lower costs, smaller settings or accommodations for irregular working hours.

A bill sponsored by Baltimore County Democrat Del. Michele Guyton, with 19 co-sponsors, would keep landlords from “prohibiting or unreasonably limiting” family child care inside rental homes, though it also authorizes them to charge an additional month’s rent for a security deposit than is typically allowed.

Another bill focuses on keeping condo and homeowners associations, as well as local zoning regulations, from prohibiting or restricting family child care businesses. The bill would also keep those organizations from restricting the number of children who can enroll.

“Caring for children is about as residential of a use as you can have,” said Feldmark, the bill’s House sponsor.

Under both bills, child care businesses would still need to meet licensing requirements imposed by the state’s education department.

Speeding up hiring

Del. Bernice Mireku-North said a number of refugees have entered the state who are qualified to become early childhood educators but may have left some documents behind.

The Montgomery County Democrat introduced a bill that would help reduce the burden for those and other teachers by allowing them to earn a GED within two years on the job, as long as they complete 90 hours of training within six months. Currently, teachers need a high school diploma or GED before they can start working in child care centers. This law would create an alternative probationary pathway for teachers to complete requirements while working in the field, Peusch with the Maryland State Child Care Association said.

“It is expanding a lane to get into the field,” Mireku-North said. “It increases not just the workforce opportunities for more eligible applicants, but it might create some diversity of the workforce as well.”

About the Education Hub

This reporting is part of The Banner’s Education Hub, community-funded journalism that provides parents with resources they need to make decisions about how their children learn. Read more.