Talent Pipeline Management Childcare Mini-Cohort Report November 2025

Introduction

B.O.L.D. 2026 (Big Opportunities for Leaders to Deliver) is a five-year regional economic strength and resiliency initiative of the Greater Arvada Chamber of Commerce focused on growing our talent to meet the needs of employers and job seekers. The third B.O.L.D. goal is to increase childcare capacity to enable caregivers to join/rejoin the workforce and give children the quality early learning experiences they need to thrive. To achieve this end, offerings must be affordable and within reasonable proximity to home and work and will require both accommodative public policy and direct action.

The Greater Arvada Chamber is working towards this goal in a variety of ways, from leading targeted programs like our Family-Friendly Workplace program to playing key roles in regional initiatives piloting collaborative solutions, and taking positions on legislative efforts that impact childcare. 

One barrier to accessible childcare is not having a strong pipeline of jobseekers entering and staying in the early childhood field. As we looked across the landscape at work currently happening, we identified the opportunity to partner with Triad Bright Futures and Bright Futures Roadmap partners to address these challenges, given their focus on strengthening the early childhood workforce and their existing provider network.

Apex Park and Recreation District, Goddard School of Arvada, Jefferson County Head Start, Jefferson County Public Schools, and Jovie agreed to participate in an employer collaborative focused on better understanding capacity and retention issues. Recognizing there are other significant organizations in this space, this partnership is just the starting point, and we hope to engage additional organizations as the work evolves. 

Starting in June 2025, the collaborative invested time and resources in understanding the critical talent issues, their root causes, and brainstorming creative solutions. They agreed to use the Talent Pipeline Management (TPM) process in a “mini-cohort” format to drive the conversation and discovery as a starting point, with the opportunity to dive deeper in the future. The TPM process enables us to examine the entire talent supply chain, identifying where employer and education provider responsibilities intersect and where potential bottlenecks may occur.

Before we began, we researched previous reports and available information to ensure this group was building on what already existed and creating added value. This report provides an overview of the work accomplished so far, including aligning on critical pain points, roles, and skills, aggregating demand, and leveraging the power of collaboration to come up with creative recommended solutions.

Executive Summary

After three meetings, the five employers agreed to focus on Early Childhood Teachers (ECTs) and Assistant Teachers as the most critical talent challenges to address. They then began a deep dive into the skills and experiences required for these roles, as well as Teacher’s Aides, if applicable. They also shared their hiring projections for 2025 – 2027, which were aggregated to establish the total need. There were 97 openings across both roles: 32 ECT openings and 65 Assistant Teacher openings. 

The Greater Arvada Chamber of Commerce and Triad Bright Futures partnered with five local childcare employers to better understand and address the workforce challenges that affect childcare access and quality across Jefferson County. The goal: to strengthen the early childhood talent pipeline, improve retention, and expand childcare capacity so more families can access reliable, high-quality care.

Critical Pain Points Identified

Employers across the cohort consistently cited similar barriers to maintaining a qualified workforce:

• Low pay and expensive healthcare limit teacher retention.
• Minimal coaching and mentoring lead to burnout and high turnover.
• Complex, time-consuming credentialing requirements make entry and advancement confusing.
• Limited awareness of career pathways prevents new people from entering the field.

As a result, many centers must rely on temporary staff, which can affect quality and consistency and require a significant amount of time and attention to manage.

Demand Outpaces Supply

Labor market data show that Jefferson County has roughly 1,226 open childcare teaching roles (742 Assistant and 484 Lead Teachers). However, most of these are replacement positions, not new ones—meaning that current hiring efforts only maintain existing capacity, rather than adding new seats.

High turnover remains a concern, driven by low wages, burnout, and limited advancement opportunities. Even when new teachers enter the field, many do not stay long enough to reduce staffing shortages.

In 2023, 825 students completed early childhood education programs in the Denver Metro area. However, only 286 of those completions were in Jefferson and Adams Counties. It’s unclear whether the remaining 539 graduates from Denver and Arapahoe Counties are willing or able to commute or relocate to work in JeffCo or Adams. Combined with unknown turnover rates and uncertainty about whether these graduates are upskilling or new to the field, the local pipeline may appear strong on paper but could be insufficient to meet long-term workforce needs.

Next Steps

The cohort developed 15 recommendations, grouped into shorter-term “Quick Wins” and longer-term
“Heavy Lifts.” The ideas show that change will need to come from coordinated regional action at the state and local levels, but do provide childcare center administration with changes they can make in their own facilities when they are ready.

The Greater Arvada Chamber and Triad Bright Futures will review the feasibility of each recommendation, engage additional partners, and create an implementation plan in early 2026. An updated report will follow once actions are underway.

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Detailed Report

Critical Pain Points

Childcare centers struggle to maintain levels of qualified staff to keep their doors and classrooms open, often requiring them to employ temporary staff with minimal qualifications, which creates challenges with quality and consistency. Employers agreed that the top pain points in attracting and retaining qualified teachers are:

• Low salaries
• Expensive healthcare
• Inadequate teacher support – minimal coaching and mentoring, contributing to high mental health impacts and burnout
• Lack of awareness of career pathing opportunities
• Length of certification processes 
• Cost of certification 

Demand Outcomes Identified

The five employers selected Assistant and Early Childhood Teachers (ECT) as the most critical jobs to focus on. To understand the data around these roles, the group reviewed Labor Market Information (LMI) from Lightcast™ for Jefferson County (JeffCo) 12-month period of July 2024 – June 2025.

		LMI Data for Jefferson County
Cohort Role	LMI Role Name	Unique Job Postings (UJP)	Employers Competing (EC)	Median Posting Duration (Days)	Compensation Avg.
ECT	Preschool Teachers, Except Special Education	484	97	24	$43,153
Asst. Teacher	Teaching Assistants, Except Postsecondary.	742	141	21	$35,759

For JeffCo, Lightcast projects a total of 1,226 open roles (484 Lead and 742 Assistant). However, as the LMI does not include a breakdown of new versus replacement or full-time versus part-time roles, the employer cohort also shared their projections for 2025-2027 roles. These are broken down by role and level below and include new, replacement (due to promotion, retirement, or other turnover), part-time, and full-time roles. 

*Note: Jovie only hires people who can qualify as Aides, so this data is from four employers.

	Employer Cohort Actuals						LMI Data
Role	New FT	New PT	Replace FT	Replace PT	Total Open	Open Roles/Cohort Employ	UJP	EC	Posting /EC
ECT	4	4	21	3	32	8	484	97	5
Asst. Teacher	0	6	30	29	65	17	742	141	6

Comparing open roles per Cohort Employer to LMI open roles per employers competing shows that LMI only provides part of the picture. LMI doesn’t reflect turnover rates, and employers reported that they sometimes post a single job for multiple open positions. Extrapolating suggests the actual demand is likely higher than the LMI data indicates, increasing the urgency to build a stronger candidate pipeline. According to the Common Sense Institute of Colorado’s Childcare Opportunity Index, Jefferson County has fewer than one slot per child under six, with the most significant gap in infant and toddler care, validating the need to add seats. Data will continue to evolve as employers provide updates and adjust the projections periodically as needed.

Challenges in Increasing Enrollment Capacity

It is important to note that actual openings are heavily weighted towards replacements and not new positions, which means meeting this employer demand maintains the number of available seats but does not necessarily increase it or build additional capacity to meet parental demand. Common causes of teacher turnover include burnout, deciding the work is not a good fit, inflexible work schedules, and teachers leaving the workforce to parent their own children. In some cases, teachers return to the field when their circumstances change, but many leave it altogether. Continuous backfilling and the need for temporary workers are time-consuming and stressful

In the third TPM meeting, employers discussed factors preventing them from adding classrooms, even if they could count on stable staffing. These include:

• Center licensing costs and regulations 
• Facility and space constraints 
• Waitlists at specific centers are not long enough to make financial sense to expand

Credentials and Skills Navigated and Aligned

Employers shared nine job descriptions covering a range of childcare roles, including Teacher’s Aide, detailing the skills and requirements at each level. The postings varied in detail, but overall they matched the Competency Framework and Credential Pathways created by the Colorado Department of Early Childhood (CDEC).

The group noted some clear opportunities to improve the system:

• Use more of the official CDEC language in job postings so that terms are consistent.
• Make credentialing pathways easier to understand.
• Increase transparency by showing how pay aligns to skill level and credential.

Key Credentials in Colorado 

The credentialing system can be challenging to navigate, even for those already working in childcare. Requirements may change, there are several different qualification pathways, and the information is spread across multiple documents and websites. A cohort participant cited an ECE Colorado Facebook page where people ask for clarification and are not always provided consistent answers. A general understanding of the options is summarized below.

1. Early Childhood Teacher (ECT) Qualification

• What it is: A state licensing requirement to serve as a lead Early Childhood Teacher and to be left alone with children.
• Assistant Teachers aren’t required to have this, but centers have more staffing flexibility and parental desirability if they do, so these candidates are in high demand.
• How to earn it:
  • At the entry level, becoming an Assistant Early Childhood Teacher requires two early childhood courses (one must be Introduction to Early Childhood, Guidance Strategies, or Pyramid Plus).
  • Full ECT certification involves 18 credits of coursework or equivalent training.

2. Early Childhood Professional Credential (ECPC)

• What it is: A professional credential issued by CDEC. It’s the most commonly used pathway to becoming ECT-qualified, but it’s only one of eight possible pathways. Colorado offers a state-level refundable tax credit for people with this credential.
• How it works: Candidates earn “points” across four categories:
  1. Formal education (more points for ECE-related courses).
  2. Ongoing professional development (CEUs, trainings in the Colorado Shines system).
  3. Experience (about 1,820 hours = 1 year of full-time work).
  4. Competencies demonstrated (through Colorado Shines classroom assessments).
• Levels: ECPC has six levels. Levels 1–2 are entry points; Levels 3–6 reflect higher education and experience.
• Expiration: The credential must be renewed after three years since professional development points have a time limit while formal education points remain permanent.
• Connection to job roles:
  • Currently, an Assistant Teacher is considered ECPC Level 1.
  • An ECT is equal to Level 2.
  • If they have strong enough staffing to do so, some centers require Level 3 for lead roles, which becomes a differentiator when attracting parents.

Before COVID, teachers needed Level 3 to qualify as ECTs. The requirement was lowered during the workforce shortage. This has created pay compression where ECTs with a Level 2 credential are asking to be paid what a Level 3 would earn. Work on aligning pay to credential levels instead of titles would help the field stay focused on experience and quality of teaching.

3. Colorado Teaching License

• What it is: A state license requiring a bachelor’s degree, specific courses, and additional requisites.
• When it’s needed: Not usually required for childcare centers, but in Jefferson County, Head Start programs require all Lead Teachers to be licensed.

4. Additional Competency and Qualification Information

Childcare staff often need certifications in:

• CPR / First Aid
• Standard Precautions
• Medication Administration

Approved trainers are listed in the Colorado Shines Professional Development Information System (PDIS).

Talent Supply 

After aligning on the key skills and certifications required at each level, the employers discussed where they currently find talent and the quality of those sources. They provided positive feedback on hires who had completed the formal coursework required for the ECT qualification, so looking at the program completion data from educational institutions highlights the gap between the number of hires their top sources produce and their demand.

Education Program Completion Data (Lightcast™ 2023)

The Denver Metro Area had 825 completions in the Early Childhood Education and Teaching program in 2023, with 286 in Jefferson County and Adams County. 

Early Childhood Education and Teaching (JeffCo and Adams Counties): 286 Completions

1. Front Range Community College (218)
2. Red Rocks Community College (51)
3. Colorado Christian University (17)

Early Childhood Education and Teaching (Denver and Arapahoe Counties): 539 Completions

1. Community College of Denver (219)
2. University of Colorado Denver /Anschutz Medical Campus (111)
3. Community College of Aurora (92)
4. Arapahoe Community College (87)
5. Metropolitan State University (30)

Of these providers, employers in the cohort highlighted the programs at Red Rocks Community College, Front Range Community College, and Arapahoe Community College as having strong programs that train high-quality employees in early care and education, though they don’t have relationships directly with these programs.

A deeper dive is required to understand whether those completing courses in Denver and Arapahoe Counties would be willing to take roles in the JeffCo/Greater Arvada area, or whether factors such as commute, the need to work close to their own children’s schools, and openness to relocating limit the course graduates JeffCo childcare centers can expect to attract. A deeper dive would also clarify whether these graduates are upskilling or new to the field, filling open roles.

Additional Recruiting Information

Centers use job boards regularly, but the strongest source of hires, with or without previous childcare experience, are internal referrals and parents of former students. The cohort employers hypothesize that this is because they start with a built-in community that can provide support and clearly communicate expectations, resulting in a stronger sense of connection and commitment to do their best. Additional investigation into what makes these groups most successful could highlight potential changes to education program curriculum and/or centers’ onboarding processes to replicate those factors with job board applicants.

When discussing the previous work experience of strong employees, the cohort found commonality in hiring veterinary technicians, with 5-7 employed in just two of our cohort’s centers. Previous care careers in general are a good fit (healthcare, swim and dance instructors, sports coaches, camp counselors) because of their professional experience, track record of working with kids, and understanding of what the job will really be like.

Supply-Demand Analysis

Bringing all of the information together to define the current staffing status lays the foundation for brainstorming and prioritizing solutions. Based on Lightcast™ data, 825 program completions in Early Childhood Education and Teaching across the Denver Metro area roughly match the 742 projected Assistant Teacher openings over the next two years. While this indicates an adequate short-term supply for basic classroom coverage, it does not account for geographic distribution, turnover, or long-term retention. Only 286 completions occurred within Jefferson and Adams Counties, and it is uncertain whether graduates from Denver and Arapahoe programs are willing or able to commute or relocate to work in this region.

Moreover, the consistency and depth of professional development and coaching vary widely across centers. Without clear, structured growth opportunities, new hires may not advance into higher-skill roles or remain in the field long term. ECTs, in particular, require additional classroom hours and credentialing, which adds complexity to career progression.

As previously noted, most openings are replacement positions, not new ones. Meeting current demand will therefore maintain existing childcare capacity rather than expand it. The one example of adding capacity in the local area is Apex Center, which  is opening a new toddler program for ages 18 months-3 years in October 2025. Therefore, to achieve the B.O.L.D. goal of increasing childcare availability, the region will need a mix of solutions—some focused on internal center operations such as training, mentoring, and retention, and others at the regional level, including policy, funding, and workforce pipeline strategies.

Key Learnings and Takeaways

Childcare providers are extremely busy, continuously navigating staffing challenges and addressing daily crises, so it was important that the TPM Cohort produce new, actionable learnings. Based on the group’s reactions and depth of discussion, the key learnings are summarized here:

1. The consistent calls for more “funding” can be specifically and actionably categorized in the following buckets:

• Compensation
  • Annual raises + bumps for credentials; more investment with longer tenure
• Professional development
  • Tuition reimbursement
  • Additional and/or more senior staff to enable adequate coaching support
• Healthcare
  • Covering rapidly rising premiums
• Raising awareness & attracting talent
  • Messaging of purpose-driven work with career advancement opportunities 
  • Simplify and broadly and clearly communicate pathways and tuition support resources 
  • Time to build relationships with active and passive candidates
• Daily perks: Sparkling waters, snacks, swag

2. Employers realized and embraced the idea of thinking about teacher retention at the system level, not just for their own individual facilities, and committed to continuing to engage with each other and other stakeholders with that mindset.
   
3. Credentialing:

• Pay is currently aligned to titles rather than credentials, which doesn’t recognize differences in teacher experience and skills, compresses pay scales, and diminishes the value of gaining additional credentials. 
• Navigating credentials is confusing even for current educators due to multiple pathways, changing requirements, and dispersed information.
• Completing formal coursework sends a positive signal to potential employers about commitment and transferable skills such as time management and discipline.

4. Hiring:

• Current hiring primarily sustains—not expands—childcare capacity in Jefferson County.
• Internal referrals and parents of former students are the strongest hiring sources, often producing the most committed and effective staff. Workers with experience in other care fields (e.g., veterinary techs, coaches, swim/dance instructors) often adapt well to early childhood roles.

Recommendations

Increasing capacity will require actions at the state, regional, and center-levels. Fresh ideas for solutions came up throughout the three sessions and in one-on-one conversations with cohort participants. The cohort categorized 15 ideas into Quick Wins and Heavy Lifts, then prioritized the recommendations, keeping in mind the goals of increasing the number of seats and improving regional and center-based retention. The results are below by category, and in order of aggregated priority.

Quick Wins

1. Align with existing initiatives (e.g., Childcare KAPS Council) to coordinate strategies and share solutions.
2. Study Apex’s expansion case to identify success factors, barriers, and replicable lessons for other centers considering growth.
3. Explore group purchasing options to reduce health, dental, and vision benefit costs through pooled buying power or creative models.
4. Simplify and publicize career pathways and tuition-support resources to position early childhood teaching as a profession, not just a job.
5. Develop partnerships for reflective supervision to strengthen staff support, professional growth, and overall quality of care.
6. Map education-employer relationships to understand which college programs provide strong pipelines and how smaller centers can replicate them.
7. Engage local businesses to offer staff perks or discounts, creating community partnerships that boost retention and visibility.
8. Provide staff childcare priority to help employees balance work and family needs while improving staffing stability.

Heavy Lifts

1. Establish a trained substitute pool within centers or networks so float staff know children and can step in seamlessly when full-time openings occur.
2. Quantify upskilling costs by documenting current credential levels by center / region and estimating funding needed for staff to reach the next tier.
3. Adopt “hire-now, train-on-the-job” models to fill positions quickly while building quality, confidence, and a culture of continuous learning through a formal development plan.
4. Map the regional ecosystem’s different hiring requirements and internal growth opportunities, creating an Employer Referral Network supporting teachers to grow and remain in the industry.
5. Analyze hiring successes (e.g., vet techs, internal referrals) to identify repeatable recruitment and retention strategies.
6. Align pay structures with credential levels to reward skill growth and encourage professional advancement.
7. Launch an industry branding campaign that highlights early childhood education as purpose-driven, career-focused, and accessible through clear entry pathways to attract more potential employees.

Next Steps

The Greater Arvada Chamber and Triad Bright Futures will assess the feasibility, capacity, and existing structures and work with other local organizations to support the implementation of the highest-priority recommendations. An updated report will be provided once implementation is underway.