The expansion of Missoula’s free preschool programs has reduced the demand for child care for that age group, financially affecting some providers.
However, the overall demand for child care is still high, with Missoula County short thousands of openings, according to state data tracking the population of children and the capacity of providers.
Larger child care centers that serve a range of ages often rely on older children to help subsidize the higher cost of care for infants and toddlers, said Grace Decker, coordinator for Montana Advocates for Children.
“When there’s a free opportunity in the community for 4-year-olds, parents will choose it,” she said. “It may take a while for those child care providers to make shifts to serve other children. It’s not a one-to-one because the financial model doesn’t work to do it that way. That means the slots we need in Missoula are going to be even harder to sustain without some sort of investment that comes from beyond parent tuition.”
Missoula County Public Schools began offering early kindergarten in 2019 and expanded from two classrooms to five in 2023, the Missoulian reported at the time.
In 2023, state lawmakers passed a bill allowing districts to enroll eligible 4-year-olds in early literacy programs. After state law changed the funding for the programs in 2024, the Missoula school district added more early literacy classrooms to serve about 150 children, the Missoulian reported.
As the 2025 session enters its final weeks, lawmakers continue to debate a series of bills directing millions in state dollars toward making child care more affordable and accessible for Montana parents.by Alex Sakariassen04.15.2025
Expansion of afterschool programs run by the city’s Parks and Recreation Department may have also changed the demand for child care for older children, but there’s no statewide data on those types of programs, Decker said. Finding affordable afterschool care is still a challenge for many families, she said.
The shift in 4-year-olds mostly affects larger daycare centers with 16 or more children, which tend to care for more 3- to 5-year-olds, Decker said. Home-based programs can more easily weather the change because they are using a mixed-age model and can add younger children without changing the environment and equipment, she said.
A decrease in preschool-age children at Fort Courage Child Care over the last couple of years has hurt the Missoula nonprofit financially, said Stephanie Brunner, its executive director. The daycare serves children 6 weeks to 6 years old but doesn’t really make money off younger children because of the number of staff required to watch them, she said.
Fort Courage has a capacity for 106 children, with a current average of 75 to 80, Brunner said.
“There definitely is a downward change in children of preschool age,” she said. “I don’t know what that’s from, but I think it’s a combination of preschool programs in the school system and the cost.”
Brunner said the daycare might need to advertise its open spots, something it hasn’t done before. If financially necessary, it could ultimately increase prices or decrease staff hours, she said.
Fort Courage is offering more options for families who only need daycare two or three days per week, Brunner said. The child care is also moving kids up into its preschool classrooms right when they turn 3 instead of waiting for kindergarteners to leave for public school, she said.
Brunner said she is an advocate for the school district’s preschool program and Fort Courage will change as needed.
Heather Foster, CEO of the Missoula Family YMCA, agreed that the early literacy programs are “incredible” for the community but have caused a meaningful shift in enrollment at large child care centers.
A decrease in enrollment of 4- and 5-year-olds has affected the daycare’s financial model, Foster said. The organization is fortunate to have other revenue to help pay for the center, which is not the case for all daycares, she said.
This change in demand led the developer of the Scott Street-Ravara housing project to ask the city to remove a requirement to build a daycare facility on the commercial portion of the property. The Missoula City Council initially approved the request last week, but Mayor Andrea Davis on Monday sent the item back to the council for further consideration after hearing concerns from several council members, she said.
The purchase and sale agreement between the city and the developer Ravara required the daycare, something the Northside neighborhood requested during planning, said John Adams, the city’s strategic projects administrator, during Wednesday’s council meeting. The developer put in a “good faith effort” to bring a daycare to the site, including discussions with the YMCA and other providers, but found it’s not economically feasible right now, Adams said.
Foster told Montana Free Press the Y met with the development group a couple of times going back to 2021, to share information about the organization’s child care and the financial model it was using to build the new center. The group had some conversations about the Y potentially operating the space, she said.
When Ravara again reached out about the project last year, the Y had just opened its new, larger daycare center and was not full or financially able to take on a new location, Foster said. The YMCA has since seen the shift in demand at its two child care centers, which still have waiting lists for infants to 3-year-olds, she said.
“I think as a community, as a state, we collectively need to continue to do things to support and subsidize child care because it’s very important,” Foster said. “Because when you do shift out more older kids that help the financial model, it’s very difficult to operate an infant to 3-year-old center. I haven’t seen math that would make that work.”
After Ravara asked the city to waive the daycare requirement last fall, the developer and city explored building a facility for Parks and Recreation youth programs at the site, Adams said. Neither a smaller nor a larger facility made sense financially, the city found.
“We’re at the point where holding on to that requirement is hindering or hamstringing Ravara’s ability to complete design and solve for financing on the market-rate parcel,” Adams said.
Some city council members said while they are disappointed plans for the daycare did not work out, they understand the rationale for the decision.
“If they have extra capacity at these daycares, they’re not going to be willing to open another one. It’s common sense,” said Council Member Amber Sherrill. “While I’m happy they have capacity, I’m sorry this is the outcome, and I know it would have been nice for the neighborhood to have this.”
The city had not scheduled the meeting to further discuss the project as of Tuesday.
While not involved in the Ravara project discussions, Decker said similar developments can consider creative options to include child care, other than building one large facility.
National data suggests daycares have to serve 120 kids before they can break even and make a profit on tuition alone, and that assumes a large number of older children in the mix, Decker said.
One example of an alternative is the Missoula Child Care Advantage, a network of smaller daycares that share a location and administrative services, Decker said. Developers could also build houses intended for at-home daycares and offer below-market rent, she said.
“It seems logical that other businesses might be able to pay a little more to help subsidize rent for child care because what they get in return is a ready-made clientele of families with children coming and going every day,” Decker said.
As new publicly funded, free programs expand, Decker said the question becomes how to shore up the state’s child care system without making it more fragile.
The state Legislature is considering several bills to address the economic challenges of the child care system, including a proposal to make child care more affordable for child care workers.
Decker said investment in the system is needed at every level, including from employers and local, state and federal governments.
“Child care is a broken business model, so there’s not going to be a market solution we can cross our fingers and wait for,” Decker said. “Parents are going to continue to feel the stress of there not being enough child care and it being too expensive when they find it until we make those investments.”
This story was originally published by Montana Free Press at montanafreepress.org.
