San Juan County Explores School Partnerships to Expand Child Care Access

Selece Gathings, coordinator of the San Juan County Early Childhood Education Coalition, said conversations with local school leaders and state officials are intended to find practical ways to expand child care capacity after local providers and families responded to the state level roll out of universal child care. Many established providers in the county are reporting full capacity and maintaining waitlists, and several school operated centers closed in recent years because of funding problems and low enrollment.

Gathings said meetings with superintendents from Aztec, Bloomfield and Farmington have generated momentum for exploring on campus child development programs that would combine public school resources with state support. She described local attitudes as mixed, with business owners and directors expressing concern about operational strain while community advocates see large benefits. "I feel like in our county, we're torn with universal child care," she said. "There's a narrative from a lot of the owners and directors where it's a very business heavy, and then there's a narrative from a community aspect where this is amazing."

The coalition is positioning itself to identify where capacity can be created or increased rather than simply accepting current limits. Gathings reported that conversations with child care directors and state senators about available space and workforce needs yielded a unanimous assessment that the county currently lacks sufficient room and staff. "And it was a unanimous 'No, we don't have the room.' We don't have the workforce. We don't want this because we don't we can't handle it right now," she said.

Policy implications are immediate. If districts repurpose or reopen facilities as child development sites, district budget decisions, state funding flows and workforce recruitment will determine whether those sites remain viable. For families this could mean access to no cost on campus support and reduced stigma if programs are framed as child development rather than child care. For voters and civic leaders the choices will surface in school board meetings and county budget discussions, where priorities for facilities, staffing and long term funding must be resolved to translate the coalition's plans into classroom seats.