We knew when our little one was born that we wanted to incorporate early childhood education through Seeds of Learning. Days after he was born, we called Seeds to put him on the long waitlist. We were told that waiting to put him on the waitlist would decrease our chances of him attending Seeds when he turned 18 months.

I’ve been involved with Seeds in different capacities since before they built the current building that houses their wonderful toddler and preschool programs. I’ve also been involved with community indicator projects since graduating college that iterated how important early childhood education programs are to the fabric of a community. I feel I know how blessed we are to have a NAEYC accredited early childhood education center in Pagosa Springs.

The options for child daycare are bleak for families in Pagosa. There are limited number of daycare providers and even a smaller contingency of licensed daycare providers. There is a Headstart program and a Christian preschool. That’s about it for Pagosa.

Of these daycare providers, there is very limited capacity for infants and toddlers. For some families, a stay-at-home parent is a cheaper alternative than putting a child in daycare. And for some families, like ours, staying at home isn’t an option, especially when we run our own business.

The only viable option we found while waiting for an opening at Seeds was an unlicensed daycare provider. This is always a heart wrenching decision for a mother. I know in speaking to mothers of children that also attended this home daycare, they had felt similar to the way I felt about it, uneasy.