4 minute read
Edmond Life and Leisure - April 24, 2025
Oklahoma can’t afford to lose another child care spot
By Carrie Williams Executive Director, Oklahoma Partnership for School Readiness
From April 2024 to March 2025, Oklahoma lost a staggering 4,213 licensed child care slots. That number isn’t just a data point—it represents thousands of families scrambling to find care, parents forced to cut back work hours or quit their jobs altogether and young children missing out on early learning opportunities that shape their futures.
The decline is part of a long-term trend. Over the last decade, Oklahoma has seen a sharp reduction in child care capacity, particularly in family child care homes. Between 2017 and 2020, licensed capacity fell by more than 30,000 available spots. While there were some gains postpandemic, April 2024 marked a renewed and significant downturn. Today, the gap between the number of children who need care and the number of available, affordable and high-quality slots is wider than ever— and growing. In fact, since October of 2024, Oklahoma is losing on average 621 child care slots per month.
This isn’t just a child care issue. It’s a workforce issue, an economic issue and, most importantly, a child development issue.
Oklahoma’s economy depends on working parents. When they can’t find or afford care, they often have to leave the workforce or reduce hours, which puts pressure on businesses, weakens our labor pool and slows down local economic growth. According to the Prenatal-to-3 Policy Impact Center, states that invest in child care reap economic benefits in the form of increased parental employment and productivity, reduced absenteeism and improved child outcomes.
The first five years of a child’s life are the most critical for brain development. Neural connections form at a rate of more than 1 million per second during this time, laying the foundation for learning, behavior and health. High-quality early care and education settings don’t just keep children safe while their parents work—they nurture language development, social-emotional skills and cognitive growth. When children have access to stimulating environments with responsive caregivers, they’re more likely to enter kindergarten ready to learn, read at grade level by third grade and graduate high school. These early investments ripple forward, improving outcomes in education, health and even reducing involvement in the criminal justice system.
The loss of child care capacity since April 2024 should serve as a wake-up call. Oklahoma has made real progress in recent years through public-private partnerships, strategic funding and innovation—but we risk losing momentum without urgent action.
We must prioritize policies and investments that support both the supply of and demand for high-quality care. That includes funding stabilization efforts for providers, expanding the early childhood workforce pipeline and ensuring families can access affordable care options in every community.
The Oklahoma Partnership for School Readiness remains committed to supporting providers, communities and families but we can’t do it alone. We need continued leadership from the Oklahoma Legislature, coordination across agencies and ongoing partnership with the private sector. Most importantly, we need to treat child care as the essential infrastructure it is—just as critical to our economy as roads and broadband.
We can choose to lead the nation in building a stronger early childhood system. But we must act now—because our children can’t wait and neither can Oklahoma’s future.
About OPSR:
OPSR was created to help Oklahoma families access the early care and education, family support, and health and mental health services they need to support their children during their most critical period of development from birth through age 5. OPSR facilitates collaborative planning and decision-making to increase coordination between programs, to maximize the use of public and private funding, and pursue policies that improve learning opportunities and environments for Oklahoma. To learn more visit www.okschoolreadiness.org.
