Child Care

Gov. Kim Reynolds proposed several child care policies during her Condition of the State address Tuesday night. But she is not calling on lawmakers to expand free full-day preschool, as education leaders have asked.

Gov. Kim Reynolds is awarding new grants for businesses to expand child care access for their employees. Johnson County is also expanding a program that provides additional help for families that receive child care assistance from the state.

A pilot program that combined public funds with private donations in ten Iowa communities increased child care capacity without raising prices for families, according to a report released Tuesday by the Iowa Women’s Foundation and the Common Sense Institute.

State officials announced a new website Thursday with the goal of making it easier for Iowans to find child care.

Sixteen- and 17-year-olds would be allowed to care for infants and toddlers at child care centers without direct supervision under a bill that advanced Tuesday in the Iowa House of Representatives.

More Iowans could qualify for government-funded help with paying for child care under a bill awaiting the governor’s signature.

Johnson County and Iowa City are putting American Rescue Plan dollars to work on the child care crisis by paying workers more.

The child care gap across the country is more than 30%, meaning the need for quality child care far outweighs the supply — and it's worse in rural areas.

Many children from toddlers to teens are dealing with social and emotional challenges because the pandemic. This hour we’ll talk about how kids have been affected and how kids, parents, teachers and caregivers are coping.

This year, the state expanded the number of children a daycare worker can oversee at a given time. The idea was to give more flexibility for providers and add more child care slots for towns in need. But that additional capacity doesn’t appear to have solved the labor side of the equation.