One Washer Away from Crying Myself to Sleep: Broken Economies of the Early Childhood Arena

As state and federal early childhood agencies increase their focus on expectations of high quality, many early childhood private providers are struggling to keep up with the changes. This research focused on the struggles and experiences of early childhood owners and/or directors' across the Wasatch Front. I used semi-structured interviews to understand their challenges and facilitated a 1.5-hour focus group to learn more about their aspirations within the industry. Overall, participants expressed concern about a new federal mandate to implement an early childhood quality rating system in Utah. They also expressed distress regarding increasing preschool policies. Both owners and directors held conflicting views that recognized the necessity of early childhood policies and regulations but also deemed these to be highly restrictive. The focus group became a space of discussing similar struggles amongst each other, rather than a session of shared aspirations. Participants seemed to be at a crossroads between the need for regulation and the increased monitoring of such regulations. One positive outcome of such changes involved the increase of program directors working together to prepare for upcoming Environment Rating Scale (ECERS-3) observations.