After announcing the move in early September, the state says the policy is expected to save parents $12,000 per child a year.
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. – “We’re just, we’re on the ground, braced for whatever happens, because we’re going to move as if we, as if everything is the same,” said Best of the Southwest Daycare Owner in Las Cruces, Valeria Holloway.
Yet on Nov. 1st, with the state’s first-in-the-nation launch of universal child care, not a single early child care center will be the same.
Holloway calls her job a calling — but she’s also calling it one of the most uncertain times in her career. Meanwhile, other care centers, like one in Rio Rancho, have told parents they, too, are in the dark from state officials.
“I love the whole idea,” said Holloway. “We all are in love with it, but I we never really had enough staff in that world above us to get our contracts fast or background checks fast. So it’s going to be, I like, I always try to explain to you, it’s going to be like a hurricane. We’re like, OK, we’re going to brace for this.”
Holloway told KOB 4 this rollout is a first step, not a finish line. But she says without much direction from the state on how to prepare, and just 11 days to go, they’re preparing the best they can before the floodgates open for day-one enrollment.
Meanwhile, on Monday, covenant schools in Rio Rancho wrote to parents telling them they’re still deciding on how they’ll participate. They’ll make that decision once they get updates from the New Mexico Early Childhood Education and Care Department. — which they haven’t received yet. They wrote, “Once official information becomes available Covenant School will review the guidelines and decide how we will be moving forward with the program.”
After announcing the move in early September, the state says the policy is expected to save parents $12,000 per child a year.
However, Holloway says that without clear guidance, it’s nearly impossible to plan on if they’ll opt in. It looks like they’re far from alone.
