Kelly’s Learning Center in Las Cruces was one of a few early childcare centers in New Mexico that closed on Monday as part of a nationwide protest for early educator pay parity.

A Day Without Childcare is a national day of action organized by Community Change Action, a group advocating for more livable wages and other improvements to early childhood educators. Kelly’s Learning Center, in Las Cruces, held a press conference on Monday as part of the Day Without Childcare event to discuss the problems early childcare providers in New Mexico face. Merline Gallegos, the director of Kelly’s Learning Center, said through an interpreter that early childcare is in a crisis because early childhood educators can go to work in retail stores and make more money. 

“They’d rather go to other jobs that pay much better,” Gallegos said.

The Early Childcare Education and Care Department is currently considering a program that would provide supplemental income to infant to toddler teachers. The legislature provided $5 million to ECECD for a pilot program for the next three fiscal years and the department is still in the design phase of that program.

But the providers and advocates at the press conference said they are concerned that ECECD will only provide raises to early educators who have degrees in higher education and not consider experience as a reason for improved wages.  

ECECD is still considering the program but the agency said through an email that “for too long early childhood educators have been underpaid relative to the importance and impact of their work.” 

“These women and men are educating New Mexico’s youngest learners during their most critical and rapid period of brain development, and their compensation and credentials should reflect that. New Mexico has made improving wages and credentials one of its top priorities, implementing a range of programs and initiatives including pay parity for PreK teachers, wage supplements, enhanced subsidies, free college education, student stipends, and incentives for bilingual educators,” Micah McCoy, public information officer for ECECD, said in an email to NM Political Report.

Olga Grays, a licensed provider in Las Cruces, said she has her own children to help with her daycare center. Her son, Joel Herrera, said he grew up with his mom taking care of other people’s children and that when she first started about 10 years ago, she earned $1.25 an hour, even though Grays has a degree. Herrera told NM Political Report that now that he is grown, he still works with his mom but he can only afford to do so because he has another income source. 

Isaiah Amaya, a former early childcare educator, said he worked for Kelly’s Learning Center prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. But, he said he had to leave the field because the pay was too low.

Lori Martinez, executive director of Ngage New Mexico, a nonprofit in Doña Ana County, said early childcare educators support the economy by providing childcare so other workers can go to jobs, but early childcare educators are often paid just $25,000 a year. Martinez said early childcare educators are treated as babysitters but that they deserve to be paid a dignified wage.

A representative from U.S. Sen. Martin Heinrich’s office, Sylvia Ulloa, spoke during the press conference to say that Heinrich is in support of early childcare workers and that the state needs to build out the infrastructure needed to improve early childcare wages. Heinrich’s statement said that the largest impact of early childcare falls on women of color. Heinrich is a Democrat who represents New Mexico.

Grays said that she gets up at 4 a.m. to receive her first child of the day, who arrives at 4:30 a.m. because the child’s mother works an early shift.

She said she has kept children overnight as well but is often not paid for extras like that. She said she does it because of the relationship she has with the children and the families. 

Gallegos said she would like to see early educator skill taken into consideration for wage increases. 

“This is the most important basis for teaching,” Gallegos said. 

Grays said some of the teachers she has learned from the most were the ones who lacked higher education but had long experience with children. She said that having a high turnover of early childcare educators is hard on the children because they build trust with a specific teacher and then have to be reintroduced to a new teacher frequently. 

Angela Amaya, 12, is the daughter of Isaiah Amaya who was also at the press conference. She told NM Political Report that when she attended early childcare, she was given an educational foundation and she learned to read while in preschool. She said early childcare also helped her bilingual skills. 

“It helped with starting school,” she said.