BY BRAD OPPENHEIM PHOTOS PROVIDED
» West Lafayette has plans for a new center
» Ivy Tech program meets a need
An unmet need for early childhood education (ECE) in the Greater Lafayette region has led to a surge in demand for early childhood educators, and now, efforts are underway to close the gaps.
In West Lafayette, the issue prompted the city’s Redevelopment Commission to initiate the West Lafayette Early Childhood Education Gap Analysis, highlighting the need for improved access to high-quality childcare services in the region.
The study, released in 2024, identifies significant gaps in ECE availability, especially for infants, and emphasizes the importance of collaboration among community stakeholders to address these challenges.
The report found that ECE providers described a challenging business environment, reporting the largest barrier to expansion is the lack of ECE workers who are willing to work at the current wage levels. Community leaders also reported that the current demand for childcare outpaces the supply of available seats.
West Lafayette plans for new center
A site analysis identified two potential sites for a new childcare center in West Lafayette, including the former Happy Hollow Elementary School and a site on Kalberer Road.
The Happy Hollow site has access to public transportation, and the Kalberer Road site is closer to areas with higher concentrations of ECE-eligible children and families facing childcare access challenges.
The city also outlined initial plans to develop an Early Childhood Education Center as part of its broader strategy to expand access to quality childcare.
On a county level, data from the Brighter Futures Indiana data center (December 2024) indicate that about 8,715 children under age six in Tippecanoe County may require care, while only 6,893 licensed childcare seats are available.
Christy Wegner, director for Early Learning Workforce Coalition at Ivy Tech Community College, says while this was accurate before December 2024, recent changes have impacted availability.
“The Office of Early Childhood and Out-of-School Learning (OECOSL) instituted a waitlist for Child Care Development Fund (CCDF) vouchers in December 2024, which now includes 32,000 children from low-income house-
holds,” she says. “Additionally, reimbursement rates for providers were reduced, resulting in a $140,295 loss for Tippecanoe County providers. These cuts have led to enrollment declines and program closures, which means many of the 8,715 seats listed are not currently available.”
Demand also has shifted dramatically in the past year due to CCDF cutbacks.
“Previously, parents waited up to a year for a seat; now, many providers operate at two-thirds capacity or have closed,” she says. “Families are making difficult choices—such as leaving children home alone or sacrificing rent payments to cover childcare costs. OECOSL has announced no new vouchers for 2026 and no guarantees for 2027, worsening the situation.”
The Early Learning Workforce Coalition, funded by the City of
Lafayette, IU Health Arnett, Purdue University and the Community Foundation of Greater Lafayette, is collaborating with business and community leaders to develop solutions.
Wegner says the coalition’s second CEO Roundtable will take place in January to continue these discussions.
Additionally, several local partners, including Greater Lafayette Career Academy (GLCA), Right Steps, Ivy Tech and the Community Foundation of Greater Lafayette, received a Lilly Endowment Gift VIII grant to create a career ladder for early childhood professionals.
Ivy Tech programs address needs At Ivy Tech’s Lafayette campus, the Early Childhood Education program is designed to both inspire and prepare future professionals with a desire to pursue a career in this
field, focusing on childhood development and growth and adult-child relationships.
Housed within the Ivy Tech School of Arts, Sciences & Education, the program is dedicated to preparing and strengthening adults to work with children from birth through age eight, supporting their physical, cognitive, social-emotional and language development.
Heather Bernt-Santy is an assistant professor for Early Childhood Education and program chair for the ECE Program at Ivy Tech’s Lafayette campus.
“Many of our students already work in childcare settings, Head Start programs, part-day preschools, and kindergarten, first or second grade classrooms, while others are working on early childhood credentials as high school students,” Bernt-Santy says.
She’s no stranger to the field of early childhood education herself with more than three decades of experience working in childcare centers as a teacher and director, operating her own family childcare home, teaching speech/language preschool and serving as a youth development director in a school age program. With that background, she’s able to connect what students are hearing and learning in classrooms to real, daily work in the field.
“Qualifications for work in early care and education programs range from requiring a high school diploma all the way to needing a bachelor’s degree, so many people enter the work not knowing if it will truly be a good fit for them,” she says. “these factors lead to a high turnover rate, which is disruptive not just for those employees but also for the children they are working with.”
While some of those factors can only be influenced by the person experiencing them, the program helps prepare students to face challenges head on with knowledge, field experiences and practicum placements and student support services such as food access, technology assistance, transportation resources and mental health supports.
A variety of technical certificates such as early Childhood Education, Infant/Toddler, Home Visitor and Business Administration certificates are offered, along with an Associate of Applied Science degree in Early Childhood Education, and an Associate of Science degree in Early Childhood Education for students looking to transfer to a four year college.
“We urge anyone working with young children to pursue and Early Childhood Education credential or degree, regardless of regulatory requirements, to ensure they’re truly prepared for the work,” Bernty-Santy says. “These pathways are specifically developed to meet educational qualifications for a variety of early care and education settings, including state licensing regulations, Paths to Quality quality rating system qualifications and national accreditation criteria.”
Flexible schedules
As for active childcare providers looking to return to the classroom, traditional scheduling and course modalities may not be a practical option. To accommodate busy lifestyles and tricky schedules, most ECED courses are offered in the evening or on Saturday mornings, and many are available fully online.
“We also have three different modalities for students to take courses that are not fully online, such as Virtual Instruction (instructors and
students are all on Zoom for each class session) and Learn Anywhere (the instructor is in a classroom on Ivy Tech’s campus, and students can choose to come to campus or to join the class by Zoom),” Bernt-Santy says.
For those in need of financial support as they navigate their path to credentialing or a degree, the TEACH scholarship covers 80 to 90 percent of all costs for the student as well as offering bonuses for completing milestones.
“I actually received this scholarship to fund my associates degree in Early Childhood from Ivy Tech several years ago,” says Bernt-Santy. “Ivy Tech has amazing advisors for our Early Childhood Education students to help them navigate course selection and degree requirements. As the program chair in Lafayette,
I also meet with students as they work through their process.”
The ECE curriculum is largely guided by the principles of Developmentally Appropriate Practice and other key recommendations from the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC). Bernt-Santy says the curriculum incorporates three core considerations of developmentally appropriate practice:
» What do we know about typical child development, age by age?
» What do we know about the needs and development of the individual children we are working with at any given time?
» What do we know about the family, social and cultural context of each of the children we work with?
Thanks to a grant from the Lilly Endowment, the Lafayette campus also is working to establish relationships with childcare centers and family childcare homes in its nine-county region. These sites will host Model Classrooms with trained Mentor Teachers to support students completing field-based course assignments or practicum experiences. The grant is set to end in 2026, but the goal is to find ways to sustain the work.
Additionally, Ivy Tech is partnering with Right Steps Child Development Centers and the Greater Lafayette Career Academy on another Lilly funded program. Students at GLCA are enrolled in dual credit Early Childhood Education classes in pursuit of Child Development Associate credentials or Technical Certificates and are working as apprentices with mentorship at Right Steps childcare centers.
“We are really looking forward to our Model Classroom project, as this will allow us to better ensure that the placements students are assigned to align with the way we are teaching our Early Childhood courses, and that they are placed with a supervising classroom teacher at those sites who has been trained to coach and mentor those students skillfully,” says Bernt-Santy.
Looking ahead, Ivy Tech may begin offering microcredential or badge pathways in the next couple of years as part of a stateside initiative. Plans are also in the works to offer additional Technical Certificates focused on Developmental Specialists and Early Childhood Literacy. ★
Learn more If you’re interested in learning more about the program, visit ivytech.edu/programs
For more data about early childhood education in Tippecanoe County, visit the Brighter Futures Indiana Data Center: brighterfuturesindiana.org/ data-center
