Op-Ed by Susan Brown, CEO of nonprofit Kids Co. She advocates for the child care workforce and sustainable, commonsense early learning policy. Published by the Seattle Times March 13, 2026.
In a Jan. 13 op-ed, “Here are real solutions to WA’s child care crisis,”Catherine Lehmann-Reide highlighted the “breaking point” facing Washington’s early childhood educators. As the founder and CEO of Kids Co., with nearly 40 years in this field, I can attest that her description of the exhaustion and financial instability in our industry is painfully accurate. However, to truly solve the child care crisis, we must move beyond the rhetoric of “bad actors” or “labor law violators” and address the structural “no-win” scenario created by the state itself.
Child care providers are currently trapped between two conflicting sets of state mandates: Department of Children, Youth, and Families licensing and Labor & Industries employment laws.
Washington mandates strict staff-to-child ratios to ensure safety. If a teacher in a preschool classroom needs a mandatory 15-minute break or a 30-minute meal period, their departure from the room often immediately puts that classroom “out of ratio” per DCYF standards.
To follow L&I (giving the break), the provider must risk a DCYF licensing violation, which can lead to fines, a downgraded “Early Achievers” rating, or even license revocation. To follow DCYF law (staying in ratio), the provider risks an L&I complaint.
The only solution is to hire “floaters” to cover these gaps. But with extremely thin margins, and a state budget that chronically underfunds the true cost of care, most centers, especially nonprofits and small, minority-owned businesses, simply cannot afford these extra positions.
We are seeing a disturbing trend of using these systemic failures to target vulnerable providers. Allegations of fraud and racist attacks against Somali child care providers don’t solve the shortage; they exacerbate it by driving essential educators out of the workforce. When we blame these small businesses without acknowledging the impossible regulatory environment they operate in, we aren’t “protecting” families, we are closing the very doors those families rely on.
In my four decades of experience, I have seen young, enthusiastic child care teachers enter our centers only to leave when they realize the math doesn’t add up. We are asking providers to deliver a public good on a private, shoestring budget while navigating a labyrinth of red tape that adds hidden administrative costs to every child’s tuition.
The 2026 Legislature passed 2SHB 1128, which establishes a new Child Care Workforce Standards Board. While the intent sounds noble, this board is a textbook example of administrative redundancy. Gov. Bob Ferguson could prevent this redundancy by vetoing the bill. We already have:
· L&I oversight, which already enforces the nation’s highest minimum wage ($17.13) and employee break laws.
· DCYF provider subcommittees within the Early Learning Advisory Council that already advise on licensing, subsidy rates, etc.
· Active workgroups, such as the HB 1648 Staff Qualifications Workgroup, which is currently streamlining requirements.
Creating a new board adds a line item to the state budget at the exact moment lawmakers are grappling with a $2 billion shortfall. Proposed cuts to the Working Connections Child Care subsidy could force families to lose access to care. It is nonsensical to fund a new oversight board while simultaneously defunding the subsidies that keep centers open and parents employed.
If Washington leaders want to save child care, they must do more than just “not cut funding.” We need these specific policy shifts:
· Reconcile conflicting mandates: The state must create provisions that allow for brief supervised ratio shifts during mandatory staff breaks. We cannot continue to penalize providers for following one state law at the expense of another.
· Fund the true cost of quality child care: The state’s subsidy rate-setting tool must be updated to accurately capture the actual cost of compliance including the cost of the “floater” staff required to meet labor laws.
· Protect existing funding: Reject cuts to early learning especially attendance-based reimbursements.
Child care is the “workforce behind the workforce.” When providers are forced into a regulatory tug-of-war, it is the parents, the children and our economy that suffer the consequences. It is time for Olympia to design a system where following the law and staying in business are finally the same thing.
