In Northern New Hampshire, the childcare issues are both familiar and unique

A mile-long dirt road, nestled in the woods on the outskirts of Franconia Notch State Park, separates Gale River Cooperative Preschool from its neighbors.

The school is hidden, not just because of the deep woods surrounding it but because it’s located on the grounds of a sleepaway camp. For 10 months out of the year, Copper Cannon Camp hosts 3- to 5-year-olds instead of the underprivileged youth who roam the grounds in the summer. The school took over an old cabin and the dining hall’s basement, and constructed its own yurt on the property to provide enough space for its 30 students.

It is the only early education program in the town of Bethlehem, N.H., and one of only about 35 located in the area surrounding and north of the White Mountains, known colloquially as the North Country.

Fifty-three miles up the road, The Country Day School in Colebrook, N.H., offers the only childcare programs, early education, and out-of-school time for the northwestern corner of Coös County. Just a 15-minute drive from a Canadian border crossing, the closest childcare program is over 40 minutes away, said director Katie Hopps.

Hopps said families come from all over, from Pittsburg, N.H., to Vermont. The community ranges from middle-class families to those who are “just making it happen,” oftentimes without a car.

“If you live four miles out of town, you’re hoping that your pal is going to give you a ride into town,” Hopps said. “Like that’s just kind of the culture here, because you don’t have those things.”

About half of New Hampshire families, particularly those in rural areas, live in what experts call a “childcare desert.” The Center for American Progress defines a childcare desert as an area where there are at least three young children, ages 0 to 5, for every one available licensed childcare slot. According to recent research, 46% of New Hampshire children are in a childcare desert, on par with the national average.

State licensing information shows that, among over 600 registered childcare programs, the North Country has a lower concentration of early childhood and out-of-school time programs than the rest of the state.

While Northern New Hampshire is known for natural beauty, vast wilderness, and year-round outdoor recreation, families there have fewer child-related resources and available care options. For the few providers and programs, being disconnected has led to reduced resources, staffing issues, and increased pressure on the importance of their work.

Limited but important availability for families

Despite operating in small towns, childcare programs in northern New Hampshire serve large communities. In areas where money, resources, and access are limited for families, the choice to prioritize early education is a weighty one, especially as children’s developmental needs arise.

Nicole McKay leads her early education program dressed head to toe in outdoor gear. As the director of Gale River Cooperative Preschool, a nature-based childcare program, she needs the clothing to accompany children during their daily outdoor activities and weekly hikes.

McKay said that while the community surrounding Bethlehem has some wealthy residents, many families are struggling financially and are prioritizing childcare so they can work and prepare their children for grade school.

“For some families, this is the only thing (their children) are doing,” McKay said. “This is their enrichment.”

Because of this, McKay tries to provide her students and their families with as many resources as possible in one place, including on-site occupational and speech therapy. Combining childcare, developmental therapy, and learning is common in early education. However, because waiting lists for these services can be months long in the North Country, McKay said she tries to make it easier for families to access these services.

“How we’re handling that is I have hired a private speech pathologist into small speech groups within our classrooms for the school year … then from there we do assessments twice a year. Then we take New Hampshire’s early learning standards, and we send narratives out to our families, so if there’s things that are being flagged, we have those hard conversations.”

Through the “close” relationship McKay builds with her students’ parents, they come to trust her. She believes it makes them more receptive to hard news about their child.

“It boils down to the connection that (parents) have with educators, right?” McKay said. “If we did not have that relationship with them or their kids, then the feedback is harder.”

As the executive director of Tamworth Preschool and Children’s Center, Lisa Sargent oversees childcare for children 18 months to kindergarten, as well as before- and after-school care services. The school is located across the street from the elementary school in the small town, and Sargent sees the value of having close-by care options for her family.

“All of my staff know all of my kids and all of the parents,” she said. “And when your child moves up to the next room, it’s just like moving from your kitchen to your living room.”

Programs lack monetary and supportive resources

Resources and funding for childcare businesses are limited in New Hampshire, especially as pandemic-era grant funding ran its course. Businesses had come to rely on that source of money and have been struggling to find a new, sustainable source ever since.

External childcare funding takes the burden off programs of relying solely on enrollment tuition to balance their budgets. Typical expenses for programs include diapers, food, toys, and staff salaries and benefits.

According to the New Hampshire Fiscal Policy Institute, licensed capacity, the number of childcare slots associated with a teacher working in a program, dropped nearly 13% between 2017 and 2024 due to low industry wages and teacher burnout. Higher salaries encourage providers to stay in the field, and without legal staff-to-student ratios, children cannot be enrolled in programs.

As the only childcare and out-of-school-time program in town, Sargent secured financial assistance from the town and county councils based on student enrollment. However, she said she never gets enough, because budget approval cycles do not align with the school calendar.

“(The budget committee) met in March,” Sargent said. “They will vote on whether or not they give us money. But we’ve had those kids since probably September of last year, and they may be moving on someplace else as of June. So that town is going to say, ‘Well, why are we going to give you money for these 10 kids when three of them are going to be there next year and the rest are going to be going to school?’ That’s where we come into a problem.”

At the state level, the majority of funds go toward the scholarship program. And while businesses benefit from childcare, they have been struggling to find appropriate ways to invest.

This is where a program’s decision to be a nonprofit or for-profit organization matters. Regardless of their tax classification, most childcare programs have slim margins. However, nonprofit organizations can be eligible for more grant funding, while for-profits rely on tuition costs and donations.

Chris Emond, chief executive officer of the Boys and Girls Club of Central and Northern New Hampshire, leads an operation of 20 afterschool programs and 13 early-learning centers spanning from Greater Concord to the North Country. Serving around 2,400 annually, the organization benefits from large donations and support from the nationwide network.

Emond has prioritized receiving long-term investments into the Boys and Girls Club because he is “always worried that (funding) just goes away.” He has tried not to rely on federal grants, which the organization can do.

“We need to be around forever,” he said. “So how do you make the organizations sustainable forever, not just next year forever? The way you do that is you take chances to build your business, but you’re not being crazy about it.”

Using this method, Emond has been able to take the administrative burden off of teachers so they can focus on teaching rather than paperwork. The organization has business development, human resources, and billing departments, offices that most smaller businesses do not have.

“All that kind of business stuff is taken care of. You’re just hiring staff out there to actually work with the kids.”

Hopps and Andrea Dauphinais, former director-turned-consultant of The Country Day School, said that because the large towns in Coös County are widely dispersed geographically, one of their unique challenges is creating “a cohesive network of providers.”

“The community kind of makes up for those resources that you lack, but it would also be nice if the resources were there,” Hopps said.

Prevailing community ties

In what the North Country lacks, providers say they gain in community. There is a reciprocal relationship between childcare programs up north and the communities they serve. Programs help by offering care, and communities return the favor through donations, teaching space, or a helping hand.

Gale River Preschool relocated to Copper Cannon after being forced to leave its former farm location in Sugar Hill, N.H., due to ownership changes and a rent increase. After reaching out to nearby organizations, McKay came to an agreement with the camp to use the space at a discounted rate.

“The dynamic really helped each other,” she said. “We’re helping upkeep the property and working as a team with them, and they’ve let us expand and they charge us very minimal compared to what other people would be paying in rent. The small town mentality has been really, really helpful. It’s been an asset to us.”

To increase staffing, McKay continued a tradition of recruiting parents and training them to become “like-minded childcare providers.” The school pays for parents to complete their required training and has a family-first mentality in the workplace.

“Their families come first, just like our families who enroll here, their kids come first. But so do my staff’s families,” she said.

If a teacher’s child needs to be pulled out of school early due to illness, McKay always ensures that enough support staff is scheduled to accommodate such situations.

“Kids get sick, lead teachers get sick, I get sick. So then that person can go wherever they need to go, and we’re all trained. We all do the same schedule in each classroom, despite age differences.”

To not take qualified teachers away from small programs, Emond tries to recruit former childcare providers who have left the field. He said he relies on staff connections to the community to fill the ranks.

“They are actively in the community, networking and finding out where people are, or they’ve lived there so long,” he said. “We’re literally bringing somebody that kind of gave up a few years ago because they’re just like, ‘This is tough’ and you bring them into a different situation with a different organization.”

Despite efforts to address individual childcare challenges in Northern New Hampshire, overall challenges remain consistent with the rest of the state. Childcare is often dubbed “the workforce behind the workforce” because the industry allows parents to work by caring for and teaching their children, and providers say they need outside assistance to continue providing the service.

“People need to realize that without childcare, you don’t have a lot of other stuff. … It’s not the same as it was back in the ‘50s and ‘60s, and there was a parent at home and a parent at work,” Sargent said. “And I think people need to know that it’s not just we want to make more money or whatever. If we weren’t here, what would you do? What is having us here worth to you?”