Maria Sayers and her husband based their decision to buy a home on Wilmington Island largely on the area's quality schools when they relocated from Athens in 2002.
But Sayers said the family did not begin to consider their childcare options until she became pregnant with their son, Osten, who's now 2.
She wound up placing him and her infant daughter, Marci, at The Sanctuary Child Learning and Development Center on Whitfield Avenue, even though it meant driving 30 miles across town to get to her downtown Savannah job.
"What we found is, yes, we were in a great school district, but the best choices for child care were not in our area," Sayers said. "The provider we found that had the best track record in the area of supervision was on the other side of town."
Area parents, day care providers and referral agents agree the options for finding affordable, quality child care in Chatham County are limited. They say the crunch gets tighter for those seeking top-notch infant and toddler care.
Bright from the Start, the state agency charged with regulating Georgia day cares, defines quality care as those centers receiving few agency citations for violations and adhering to state and national accreditation standards.
Meanwhile, at least three area providers are expanding to meet the constant demand for quality care in Chatham. Among them is Savannah Christian Day Care/Preschool, which on Monday will open its new $2 million, 24,000-squarefoot facility on Chatham Parkway.
The state agency charged with regulating day cares is rolling out beefed-up regulations over the next few months in an effort to improve child care in Georgia. That agency revoked the license of a Savannah day care after a child died there in April 2007, said director Ruth Rushing.
"I think there is a lack of quality day cares in this area," she said, explaining the center's waiting list. "Parents are looking for something long term and not to have their child bounced from place to place."
Chatham County has more than 470 licensed day care providers of various types.
Of those, 92 are day care learning centers. Among them, only four are licensed to care for 19 children or more and he accredited by the National .Association for the Education ofYoung Children, the gold standard of quality in early childhood education.
Each of five area providers has been designated a Georgia Center of Distinction, the state's high-quality mark for care of children ages 4 to 6 weeks.
What's more, Bright from the Start issued more than 800 rules violations to Chatham County day care centers during the past year. The violations included incomplete criminal background checks for staff, prohibited disciplinary practices, lack of child supervision and inadequate child-tostaff ratios.
Parents eager to claim one of the few available spots at local quality day cares often face long waiting lists, pricey fees or inconvenient travel distances, said Jannett Mathis, a counselor at Early Start Child Care Resources and Referral of Southeast Georgia.
The agency, based at Savannah Technical College, helps match parents with their day care needs.
"They say it's hard for me to find a good provider and that I feel uncomfortable leaving my child with them," Mathis said.
"I sympathize with them. We really don't have that many in the area that qualify in that category. I tell them to keep on looking."
Quality at a price
Affordable child care is hard to come by, particularly in Georgia.
A July study published by the National Association of Child Care Resource & Referral Agencies found that Georgia parents pay more on average each year for day care than for tuition at the state's public fouryear colleges.
Statewide, the average annual cost of care for one infant at a licensed learning center costs $6,845, or
$8,889 a year at an accredited center, the report stated.
The average annual cost of care for a 4-year-old child at a learning center was $5,674, or $7,208 at an accredited center.
In Chatham, families pay an annual average of $3,780 for infant care at a" home-based day care and $4,800 at a learning center, according to Bright from the Start. The average annual cost of toddler care was $3,840 at a licensed residence and $4,440 at a learning center.
Some area learning centers charge as much as $6,720 a year for infant care and $6,000 for 4-year-old care. The cost of a year's worth of homebased care in Chatham can reach $6,000 for infants and $4,800 for 4-year-olds.
For many families, the high price puts quality care out of their reach, Mathis said.
"They have to use providers that would not be their first choice, but it's affordable. Maybe it's a neighbor down the street who will basically just babysit their child," she said. Parents who can afford quality child care often wind up waiting for available spots at their top-choice centers, she added.
Georgia Southern University professor Lisa Muller said the long wait her family encountered at Savannah Christian is part of what attracted them.
Muller was pregnant with her son Jadon when she and her husband began investigating care options in September 2007. The couple got Jadon into Savannah Christian in February. His first class starts Monday.
"I had already known ... that we would have to start looking when I was pregnant," she said. "We didn't even really consider places unless, through word of mouth, we had heard good things about them."
Providers add space
The size of Savannah Christian's new building rivals a small elementary school. When it opens, the center will be able to care for 294 children, a 50 percent increase in its licensed capacity.
Rushing, the director, said the center typically cares for about 200 children, but 237 children are enrolled this fall.
Security-coded doors and cameras peering from hallways and classroom ceilings are a few of the building's built-in safety features.
The center offers 3-year-old children a computer lab, and its library houses more than 1,000 books centered on the educational curriculum. There's also a large activity room for singing and group play and an outdoor bicycle track.
"It's the Taj Mahal," Rushing said during a recent tour. "But it's not the building that's important. It's what is inside the building that is the ultimate factor."
Bible Baptist Day Care recently opened a new facility on Skidaway Road that will allow it to care for 169 children, a 28 percent increase in its licensed capacity.
Director Joe Lipski said the center's former site had a six-month waiting list of about 30 children.
"We will be able to fill those needs and a few more," he said.
Waiting list
St. Paul's Lutheran Preschool on West 31st Street plans to open renovated space in January to double its infant and toddler care.
The center needs the space to accommodate the volume of parents on its waiting list, said director Patricia Murray.
"I have been here since March 2002. Since then, we have always had a very substantial waiting list for anything in diapers," Murray said. "I have always said this area is really lacking in infant and toddler care."
Some parents on the center's wait list hire a short-term nanny, she said. Others wind up placing their children where there is available space.
"Some of them are settling for less quality than they want for their children," Murray said.
"It's not the building that's important. It's what is inside the building that is the ultimate factor."