TUCUMCARI — Michelle Chavez doesn’t have room for any more kids.
Chavez runs Turquoise Child Development Center, one of Tucumcari’s two child care centers. The other is a Head Start program, a federally funded facility that primarily serves young children whose families live in poverty.
For years, Chavez has worked to bring child care to as many families as she can. But the small community she lives in and the miles of red tape involved with starting up a day care has sunk other providers’ bids to open new facilities, she said, leaving her center as one of the only options for families who need her services.
All of the 40 slots in her center are filled, and all of the 46 slots in the center she plans to open in 2026 are filled, too. And still, Chavez has a waitlist over 100 children long.
As part of a push to make good on Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham’s promise to offer no-cost day care and prekindergarten for children in all families across the state, regardless of household income, an initiative that started Nov. 1, the New Mexico Early Childhood Education and Care Department has mobilized to expand capacity — which parents, business owners and policy analysts long have argued is woefully insufficient, especially in rural communities.
The agency planned to stand up dozens of new child care facilities, enough to serve some 12,000 children.
But data obtained by The New Mexican show the agency’s progress was minimal in the months leading up to the start of free universal child care, with statewide capacity in licensed facilities and registered homes increasing by just 10 slots between July and mid-December, and a wide disparity in options between urban and rural areas.
Early childhood department spokesperson Julia Sclafani wrote in an email to The New Mexican the change in slots between July and December is “a minor fluctuation consistent with normal market dynamics.”
She pointed to a “longer-term picture” of “substantial progress,” including a 20% increase in child care capacity since the start of the coronavirus pandemic. The department expects growth to continue amid recent policy changes and funding increases, Sclafani added.
“These results tell us that investments in the child care sector are working. Providers are responding to the improved rates and stronger support, and families are able to access quality care,” she wrote.
Little expansion progress
As of the beginning of July, 1,766 licensed and registered day cares were in operation across New Mexico. While both licensed and registered facilities are regulated by the early childhood department, the precise regulations they must follow differ slightly, with licensed facilities facing a higher bar when it comes to zoning requirements, fire safety and other health and safety rules.
By Dec. 18, that number had grown by 31 more facilities, 12 of which were licensed providers and 19 of which were registered.
Meanwhile, capacity in licensed facilities saw a decrease of 66 child care slots during the same time period.
As of the beginning of July, licensed day care centers had the capacity to care for 71,410 children, with slots for children under 2 in licensed facilities at 12,368. By Dec. 18, New Mexico’s licensed child care capacity was 71,344, with 12,576 slots for children under 2.
While the state added 208 child care slots in licensed facilities for children under 2, the number of slots for children over 2 dropped by 105.
Additional capacity in registered child care homes made up the 66-seat loss in licensed facilities — but only by 10 extra seats. Registered home capacity expanded by 76 child care seats between the end of July and Dec. 18, growing from 2,736 to 2,812.
Much of New Mexico’s child care capacity is concentrated in urban areas, data from the Early Childhood Education and Care Department shows. More than 550 licensed and registered child care facilities operate in Albuquerque alone, with dozens more in the surrounding communities of Rio Rancho and Los Lunas.
Communities farther from New Mexico’s urban center have far fewer child care options. Just 16 child care facilities operate in Española, while there are 12 in Gallup, nine in Hatch, eight in Taos and five in Los Alamos. More than 40 small towns and villages throughout the state have just one child care option available.
Meanwhile, there’s no shortage of demand — in just under three weeks from the official launch of the initiative Nov. 1, the early childhood department received 4,378 new applications for child care assistance, said Sandy Trujillo-Medina, director of the agency’s Early Care Education and Nutrition Division.
As of Dec. 9, 6,206 families had been newly approved for state-subsidized child care, the agency has separately reported.
Sclafani, however, argued the “short-term fluctuations” in child care capacity are “typical in the market as providers adjust capacity, move locations, or make changes to their classrooms and staffing to account for seasonal changes in demand.”
“The department’s data system is designed to track longer-term supply trends rather than week-to-week variations, as its primary function supports licensing and compliance processes,” she wrote.
‘Heartbreaking’ impacts
In practice, the state’s dearth of child care capacity serves as a source of stress for providers and the families they serve.
The lack of child care availability in Quay County has driven families to other communities, forced parents to quit their jobs and pushed some to drop out of college, said Chavez, the operator of Turquoise Child Development Center.
“It is definitely heartbreaking. It’s devastating to hear some of these stories,” she said. “… When you have a heart for children, you have a heart for teaching, it makes you want to do more. It makes you want to be able to help them. And that’s what we are trying to do.”
Gabby Perez, who has taught at Turquoise Child Development Center for nearly five years, also said she had high hopes for being able to expand the center’s services and reach more families.
“I hope that we’re able to bring in as many kids as we can, because it is such a hardship, and I feel for these parents that do not have child care,” Perez said. “I mean, it’s heartbreaking.”
One of those parents is Alyssa Martinez, who has two boys — one 6 and the other 18 months old. Martinez tried to get ahead of the game and enroll her youngest in day care as soon as he was born.
But even that didn’t work; her son has been on Chavez’s waitlist for a year and a half. So Martinez has put her goal of earning a bachelor’s degree and becoming a teacher on hold so she can stay home and care for her son.
“Maybe within the next couple months, when school starts back again, hopefully I can get him in the day care and hopefully be a teacher by then,” she said.