This is part of Raising Colorado, a CPR News series examining how families are navigating a child care system many say is broken — and why it matters to everyone.
Montrose police chief Blaine Hall remembers trying to recruit a highly skilled officer from another state. The pay seemed fine. The mountain town on Colorado’s Western Slope has plenty of appeal. The deal breaker?
No child care. Montrose is in a child care desert, and that means at least three children for every licensed child care spot.
“It’s absolutely affected our ability to recruit,” Hall said.
The shortage was showing up across the region. From city hall to the regional health center and public schools — too many workers couldn’t find care, and employers felt the fall out. That became the pitch for a new city-led child care center.
A city press release puts it plainly: “The project reflects Montrose's broader effort to treat child care as critical infrastructure rather than simply a private family responsibility.”
After several years of effort, Montrose opened a new city-led child care center for 50 infants, toddlers and preschoolers in May.
One detective finds relief
Montrose Police detective Bridget Clarkson carries a box of baby supplies into the new center, called Little Adventures, on a recent May morning.
“Formula’s in here … he doesn’t take a pacifier but sometimes it helps so I wanted you to have one of those,” said Clarkson as she introduced her toddler and baby to their new teacher.
Clarkson kneels to her toddler, already engrossed in stacking blocks. Her infant is sleeping. It’s the first day in a new child care center. Clarkson sees her moment. With a quick, “Love you!” she slips out.
Clarkson feels something she hasn’t felt in years: relief.
"This has been the goal, to figure out how to balance the job that I'm passionate about with the well-being of my kids and my family," Clarkson said. For her first child, it wasn’t this easy.
Why the city stepped in
City officials say the need became impossible to ignore after a child care needs assessment and community surveys repeatedly identified access to care as a major challenge. After years of supporting other child care providers, the city decided to step in and lead, said Montrose Community Development Director Jace Hochwalt.
When a state grant was denied in 2024, leaders pressed on, identifying a city-owned building. Voters approved a lodging tax increase, dedicating 17% of new revenue to early childhood. A community initiative, Unify Montrose, also raised awareness.
The city-led center will prioritize city employees (who qualify for a 20% discount), first responders and partner-organization staff before opening to the broader community.
After securing funding for renovations on a city-owned building, officials teamed up with Access Early Education Foundation, a nonprofit with experience running employer-based child care centers across western Colorado.
Is public private care the future?
Jennifer Knott, executive director, believes so.
“It’s a win for the community because it opens up additional child care spots which frees up other spots at other centers,” Knott said. “It's a win-win for the employers because they can provide a retention and recruitment tool.”
Chrissy Simmons, an early childhood consultant and a key advocate in the region, said the traditional model of fully private centers is fundamentally flawed.
“It never worked. It's not profitable,” Simmons said. “People don't get in it to make a bunch of money ... It is a losing battle. The only way that childcare centers can continue to support the needs of a community is through collaborative efforts between public and private funding.”
The center's extended hours — 6:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. — were designed specifically around the schedules of workers whose shifts do not fit the traditional workday.
The burden at home
That challenge is familiar for Clarkson. When she raised her first child, now 16, she was constantly stressed about pickup times, backups and emergency contacts, relying on a patchwork of babysitters and family.
“My emergency pickup list is always just pages long because who knows when I'm going to have to call somebody and figure it out,” Clarkson said. “But that also poses its own stress, putting that weight on your family members.”
Child care concerns can follow officers to work, lingering in the back of their minds while responding to calls or handling investigations.
“There’s an added level of stress when you’re not confident about where your kid is or how long they can be there,” she said.
Today, after dropping off her children, she feels different.
“I feel excited about where my kids get to be during the day, which opens up so much mind space for me to be able to go to work and be excited about what I'm doing there also.”
Jen Larklan and her husband waited for about a year to find a full-time child care spot in Montrose. Before the new center opened, she leaned on her retired mother to help cover the gaps (her mother still watches a younger child at home.)
Larklan, a physical therapist, often works outside of business hours. The new center’s extended hours ease pressure on her husband, who had to handle most drop-offs and pickups.
“This takes a lot of the load off of him,” she said.
“Hey bubbles, where’s your sissy?” parent Samantha Michael says, as her son jumps into her arms at the end of his first day at the center. Her daughter is having such a good time she doesn’t want to leave.
Michael, a city utility worker, began searching for care after her sitter became unavailable. Though it costs twice what she paid her former sitter — a friend— she said her kids are ready to be around peers.
“My daughter’s preschool age, so good for her to socialize and get my son out to socialize with other kids his age as well,” she said of her 2- and 4-year-old.
For Michael, the center offers reliable, secure care. She once had to pick up her kids from a sitter because of family problems at the home.
“I had a hard time trusting people, especially with private sitters … that was always something that scared me.”
Michael needs the extended hours because she works 6:30 a.m. to 5 p.m.
“I don’t know of any other facility that’s open this early,” she said.
The center, though, can’t help all who need it
While the new center benefits city employees and those able to pay full tuition, many parents working multiple minimum wage jobs still can’t afford care.
"I think our region has done a great job addressing availability," said Kathleen Merritt, executive director of Bright Futures, which works to improve access to childcare in the region. "I think where there's still a lot of work to be done is in the affordability realm."
The town’s largest provider, Maslow Academy and Bright Beginnings, is seeing that firsthand. Executive director Leann Distel says a county freeze on state child care subsidies for low income families has locked out many families, even as seats remain open. The result is a ripple effect for the center’s working families, including mail carriers, bank tellers, waitresses, and city trash collectors.
“It hurts our economy,” Distel said.
Her centers cut staff hours, while some families reduced work hours or turned to cheaper, informal care.
She’s seen families bring extended relatives to town “so that grandparents and aunts and uncles or somebody can help watch the kids during the day,” she said.
Staff retention is another struggle, as child care centers compete with retailers offering higher wages and benefits.
Distel said restoring the subsidies is critical.
The gap that remains
Home care providers like Trinity Sandoval help fill the gap. She owns Cozy Cloud Childcare, opening her trailer home to families struggling day to day. She is currently unlicensed, which is legal. She has a big waitlist.
“I have a lot of single moms that can’t afford childcare.”
She wants to give families a place they can trust, at a price they can manage. She remembers being a mom at 17 and working nights after her mom got off work to care for her child. She charges $35 to $55 a day, depending on the family’s circumstances.
The stories she hears reflect the reality for many Montrose families: some parents leave jobs, others work opposite shifts, and one mother she knows patched together childcare with gig work.
"She was working for Uber and DoorDash," she said, with a child in tow.
Sandoval wants to open a child care center one day but the path forward is tangled in licensing, insurance and strict building requirements.
City officials know there is still more work to do because child care affects work, housing, recruitment, public safety and family stability.
Montrose police chief Blaine Hall said the new center has been a “huge help” to his officers and “it allows us to be competitive in recruiting so that we can get top-notch talent here. He said the investment pays off for residents who don’t have kids, by helping workers at the health center and school district and helping stabilize the community.
For detective Bridget Clarkson, the new center won’t just help essential workers; it helps families, too.
"I feel so much relief," she said. "This is going to improve just overall family life, mental health, job satisfaction … it's just going to eliminate a lot of stress.”
