State and local leaders met with child care providers in Durham to talk about solutions to what lawmakers call a "child care crisis" in North Carolina.
Sen. Natalie Murdock, D-20, headed the State of Child Care in NC Roundtable session that took place at Kate's Korner on Blackwell Street in downtown Durham. Kate's Korner is an early childhood learning center. The founder, Kate Goodwin, was in attendance.
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Alongside Goodwin were other child care providers who have had success with public and private partnerships, as well as those who have had to close because of the lack of state support.
The roundtable also included Senator Sophia Chitlik, Representative Zack Hawkins and Representative Vernetta Alston.
During the two-hour roundtable, Murdock handed off the majority of the discussion to the providers in the room, all of whom shared their grievances with how child care providers are treated in the state.
Dee Dee Fields from the National Domestic Workers Alliance said child care providers are not expendable, should not be disrespected and should not be looked at as uneducated.
Fields continued, "For years, advocacy efforts have often felt like little carrots being dangled in front of us. Promises of reform, promises of funding, but rarely the collective political will to deliver a true lasting win for child care providers. That's us."
Devonya Govan-Hunt with the Black Child Development – Carolinas (BCDC) presented three findings that she has seen rise over and over from families and educators in these conversations:
- Affordability is out-of-reach for families. Govan-Hunt explained, "Families are stuck in the middle, earning too much for help and too little for sustainability."
- The workforce is exhausted and underpaid. She said, "Early educators are the backbone of the system, yet many earn wages that do not reflect the skill or responsibility or impact of their work.
- Access is uneven and inequitable. She added, "Rural communities, infants and children with identified special needs, and families working non-traditional hours face the steepest barriers in too many communities."
Murdock emphasized that five percent of child care facilities have closed in the state since 2019. More recent data showed that 47 facilities closed in August 2025 while only 22 opened in the state.
About 18,000 children are currently on a waitlist for childcare subsidies.
Murdock said, before this meeting, that because the state legislature did not pass a budget last year, child care facilities and children have not received any funding from the state. She added that any "mini budgets" or funding packages passed by the legislature have not included child care or early education support.
"Without giving getting those additional supplements from the state, it is really, really bearing ahead with our child care facilities," she said in a previous interview with WRAL News. "That is funding that they need, funding that they depend on."
Murdock opened the floor to questions to the roundtable Thursday and asked both the providers on the panel and the audience about what lawmakers should know before they are expected to discuss a budget in April.
Fields asked for increased pay for child care providers and professional educators. She said, "If you're working as a professional educator—that's what we are—and we still qualify for Medicaid, food stamps, something's wrong. Because that means we're not earning enough money to take care of our families."
Almost all of the panelists agreed on the extent of higher wages for child care providers and educators.
Rep. Hawkins alluded to this ask, saying child care is an issue that affects the economy in N.C., which he reminded is the number one state to do business in.
He said, "With a top state in the country for workforce, top state in the country for doing business, we have to make sure that everybody can participate in that level of economy."