Infant, toddler care severely lacking on Island

There is a significant lack of childcare on Martha’s Vineyard for toddlers and infants that is leaving many families scrambling for accommodation. And even when there is space, costs can be a significant burden. 

With the summer season approaching — the height of the year for families to earn a living — the need for affordable childcare is even more dire. 

According to reporting by The Times that included interviews with childcare advocates, workers, and Island families, there are only two licensed providers on the Island that primarily supply care for infants 15 months old and under. Combined, the two provide only 10 spots in total, a staggering differential compared to the estimated 150 children born each year on the Island. Waitlists are so long that parents are told to sign up for a spot as soon as they know they are pregnant.

“If you snapshot the Island … what it reveals is that there’s far more demand than there is access to licensed early childcare spaces,” said Lindsey Scott, director of MVYouth, a nonprofit that organizes donor-funded childcare grants and subsidies. “There is a way unmet demand for infant care.”

Of the two licensed providers, one is an at-home center run by Tisbury resident Courtney Fitzgerald that has space for three babies. Aside from Fitzgerald, a larger program at Martha’s Vineyard Community Services (MVCS) provides care for seven children under 15 months. 

And then there are prices. The lowest possible cost for infant care is $80 a day at MVCS, and with the Martha’s Vineyard Commission’s calculated median family income of $112,000 a year, the average family is spending nearly a quarter of their salary on childcare. 

The Martha’s Vineyard Commission has also found that many Island residents are severely cost-burdened by housing, with more than 50 percent of their paychecks going toward those costs. In other words, the cost of housing and childcare combined account for three-quarters of the average family’s paycheck. 

Maranda Post and her husband Ben are one family feeling the strain of a lack of daycare. The couple moved to the Island in 2020. They started a business in 2023 when their first child, Theodore, was almost 1 year old. When she couldn’t find care for her newborn son, Post took it as a sign to stay home with him and value those first few months together. 

But with the cost of living on the Island rising higher each year and their business gaining traction, by the time they had their second child, Ella, their outlook had changed. The strain of work and home responsibilities made one thing clear — they need daycare for their children so they can work. 

While Theo has a spot at Martha’s Vineyard Community Services (MVCS), Ella remains on a waitlist for infant care. The family is hopeful she’ll get into the program by September, but they have their doubts.

“It’s been a struggle,” Post said. “While we’re very fortunate that we get to spend these very, very precious moments and months with our little girl, it does make being a working parent difficult when we don’t have very many options for infant childcare.”

The Posts are just one example of a young family who moved to the Island in 2020 looking for safety and security. They both worked from home at the time, like many more who relocated. 

The year-round population on the Island has boomed by about 25 percent since the pandemic but childcare centers have not increased in the same manner, and have been unable to meet the demand. 

Scott, with MVYouth, has been tracking some of these population dynamics since 2019. In her research on childcare centers, she found daycare-age children — ages 3 to 5 — to be a population that was more adequately served, with many centers catering to that age group. Island-wide, there are 22 licensed early education and care programs that serve 444 children, but most of those are 3- to 5-year-olds.

The concern of supply is highlighted through the waitlists at various childcare centers — MVCS and home centers have extensive waitlists regardless of age — but it’s reportedly longer the younger a child is. Specifics on how long the waitlists are were not provided by centers, but they did clarify that space only opens up when a child ages out of a program, meaning lists are often years long. 

Jillian Sedlier, a parent whose 4-year-old daughter is enrolled in MVCS daycare, is an officer in the Oak Bluffs Police Department who is stationed at the Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School. 

As a working parent, Sedlier wanted licensed childcare for her toddler. But due to long waitlists and low availability, she had to wait 2½ years for acceptance into the program. She said that through persistence she learned as an officer, she was lucky to get her daughter into the center, and that she called MVCS often to check on their status. 

“Everyone says when you get pregnant, make sure you get on the waitlist,” Sedlier said. “You always feel that much better when it’s at a licensed preschool … [But] it’s different for every child. It’s different for every parent.”

Cost variability: Grants and cost burdens

There are options for families who are looking to supplement their childcare costs in the form of three different subsidies and grant programs, such as the Bailey Boyd — a statewide program that serves families who fall in the 80 percent AMI (area median income) range or below. In Massachusetts, that pans out to $80,450 a year in a two-parent household, and on the Island, addresses low- to middle-income earners.

State voucher programs are for those at or below 50 percent AMI, catering to lower-income families, many of whom are also enrolled in SNAP programs, are unhoused, or have otherwise extenuating circumstances. And there’s Head Start — a program that assists low-income families and their preschool-aged children — as well as centers across the country. The program was under threat recently after leaks from President Donald Trump’s administration outlined a plan to cut Head Start. But as of May, it was confirmed to be included in the 2026 administrative budget. 

To address middle income earners, Slough Farm introduced a new subsidies program last year. Families earning between 80 and 125 AMI are eligible. 

Donna Creighton, who has been a childcare provider at her home for 36 years — Children’s Haven Family Preschool — said a few of the families she works with use grants to supplement costs. 

“Childcare is still a struggle,” she said. “[The grant] offsets their tuition … [and] it does help make it affordable for them.”

Grants and subsidies for parents are often the deciding factor of affordability. Paying even 10 percent less on childcare ensures more money can be put away for their child’s health and well-being.

Licensure sets the standard for care, experts say

Joanne Lambert, the family childcare network provider for MVCS, is the primary resource for licensing assistance on the Island. After a 24-year career as a home childcare provider herself, she’s now moved on to assisting those who are interested in entering the field. After she retired, it was partly because of her concern over the shortage of licensed providers for young children that she stayed in the field. 

According to Lambert, the only time a license isn’t needed is when a babysitter or nanny goes to the family’s home to care for a child there. But once a child leaves their home to be cared for elsewhere, the legality and responsibility switches, and accreditation is required by law. 

A childcare license is one of the most frequently evaluated, with state assessors showing up at childcare centers unannounced to do safety checks. If a fork is on the counter instead of a childproofed drawer when an assessor arrives, it’s put in a state report online as public record. 

For parents, checking state licensing websites and past reports can be a source of information for any safety concerns. There’s a difference between a simple alarm from the state, and a more intense failure to comply, such as an incident with a child and caretaker. On the Island, licensed care centers have passed most of their checks, with incidents ranging from a broken childproof lock to a misfiled progress report. 

The benefit to a license, according to Lambert, is not just the official documentation, but also the peace of mind for providers themselves. In moments of crisis, she said, people fall back on their instincts. If those instincts include proper training, a safe outcome is more likely. 

According to a representative from the Massachusetts Department of Early Education and Care (EEC), the state organization who oversees licensure, childcare accreditation is an important process for ensuring safe practice. “The licensing and monitoring process establishes state standards for the safety, well-being, and educational development of children in licensed programs,” they said. 

Financial assistance exists for providers, too

Lambert said there are multiple grants, programs, and experts who offer support to prospective childcare providers to ensure they’re trained, licensed, and their home is appropriately built. 

MVYouth offers a capital needs expansion grant, totaling $450,000, with most of the individual grants sitting around $50,000 or less. The grant is specifically for building additions onto homes, adding bathrooms, walls, safety measures, or anything else that brings a home childcare center up to the standards required for a license. 

“There’s support for licensure … and there’s the demand here for this type of care,” Lambert said. “If you want to get licensed, I have gathered the information. I will come to your house, look at [it] and let you know what I think.”

Lambert said she is happy to assist those who are interested in providing this type of care and navigating accreditation. She and other childcare providers regularly work with ACE (Adult and Community Education) MV to work with those interested in the childcare field. 

Lambert has a passion for keeping local children safe, educated, and happy, and to her, licensure is part of that mission. But even with all the hard work put in by her and her colleagues, the unmet needs of infants and toddlers have remained a part of the reality of childcare for young local families, and worsened since the pandemic. 

“Everything that we’ve done has brought us to this place where we’ve realized we have a real gap in care,” Lambert said. 

Heather Quinn, the division director at MVCS Early Education Center, said it’s up to the whole Island community to address this gap in services. No single center can provide care for this age demographic appropriately, but multiples could, and she said she’d like to see more programs open up to address these challenges. She also pointed to the options available for K-12 public schools, and the funding delegated in those programs. 

For childcare centers, their income is directly determined by childcare costs. Lowering costs for parents means paying the teachers less, and higher salaries — which could be an incentive for more teachers in general — means higher costs for locals. But for K-12 public schools, a higher salary for a teacher is worked into the overall budget for the year, not coming directly from parents. 

“Early-education care programs are not funded in the same way K-12 schools are … [that] puts us in a position of having to pass that on to families … [so] childcare feels often inaccessible, and the programs often struggle to achieve a balanced budget,” Quinn said. 

“We have to approach problem-solving in a really community-based way … Home providers play an integral role,” she continued.

Home childcare providers 

Fitzgerald — who runs the only at-home childcare center on the Island that specifically caters to infants — takes pride in her ability to watch over the youngest generation of Islanders. But due to license requirements and a knowledge of her own limits as just one person, she only takes in three children at a time. And she’s seen firsthand what licensed care in a home environment can mean for a family.

“I care about all of them — the parents and the babies. Most are first-time parents,” Fitzgerald said. “I wanted it to feel like they were dropping off their child with someone who was practically family.”

She, like many childcare providers on the Island, is hopeful that more spaces can open up to help address the demand.