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Access to Early Childhood Education and Care in Hawaiʻi

Explore Our Maps

This site provides maps showing the density, cost, and quality of ECE seats in communities across the state.

Users can search by age group, geographic area, and commuting distance.

ECE More Information

Affordable, conveniently located, and high quality early childhood care and education (ECE) supports the well-being of children, families, and communities. Working parents need childcare, while strong ECE programs give young children a solid foundation for healthy development and lifelong learning.

Equitable deployment of ECE resources requires an accurate understanding of where needs are greatest. This is even more important now, as Hawaiʻi moves towards universal access to ECE by 2032, starting first with children in underserved communities. This web tool provides the fine-grained data needed to inform the planning and strategic expansion of ECE services. Policymakers, advocates, and ECE providers are among the intended users.

This web tool uses maps to tell the story of Hawaiʻi’s ECE landscape. Where are ECE seats located? Are there enough seats? Are they affordable? And are they of high quality?

User-selected maps show information about ECE providers and four different ECE access indexes:

  • Seat Density
  • Cost Burden
  • Quality
  • Overall Access

Users can choose to select data for ages 0-4, 0-2, or 3-4. They can also choose to view data at the level of census tracts or individual housing lots, and for different distances/commuting times from home to ECE site.

The ECE access indexes are family-centered, i.e., they show different aspects of ECE services within a set commuting time or distance from a typical family home. The indexes also adjust for supply and demand, as calculations include both number of ECE seats and the number of young children living nearby.

Instructions for Navigation

To use the map interface:

  1. Choose the map type or ECE access index from the left sidebar using the accordion.
  2. Select whether to view data at the census tract or housing lot level by clicking the top center buttons.
  3. Pick your desired catchment area and age group from the top bar using the dropdown menus.
  4. If desired, set the cross-index and demographic filters at the top of the map window to customize the data display.
  5. Adjust the map layer opacity using the slider at the bottom left of the map window for better visualization.
Map Use Instructions

Hawaiʻi at a Glance

There are 11 children under age 3 for each infant-toddler seat located within 5 miles of their home and 1.6 children age 3 to 4 years for each nearby preschool seat.

The average cost of a nearby seat is almost 14% of the area’s median family income.

On average, 51% of nearby seats are in programs likely to be of high quality.

Data Sources

Note: The ECE data used to create the map are from the 2022-2023 school year and do not reflect changes since that time nor the effects of the Maui wildfires.

  • Executive Office on Early Learning. (2022). Public pre-K classroom location and capacity. [Unpublished data].
  • Hawaiʻi State Public Charter School Commission. (2022). Charter school preschool classroom location and capacity. [Unpublished data].
  • State of Hawai‘i Department of Human Services Child Care Office and PATCH. (2022). Licensing and market rate survey, October 2022 update. [Unpublished data].
  • U.S. Census Bureau. (2022). 2016-2020 American Community Survey 5-year estimates, Table B01003: Total Population. [Dataset]. Available at https://data.census.gov/cedsci
  • U.S. Census Bureau. (2022). 2016-2020 American Community Survey 5-year estimates, Table B09001: Population Under 18 Years by Age. [Dataset]. Available at https://data.census.gov/cedsci
  • U.S. Census Bureau. (2022). 2016-2020 American Community Survey 5-year estimates, Table B17024: Age by ratio of income to poverty level in the past 12 months. [Dataset]. Available at https://data.census.gov/cedsci
  • U.S. Census Bureau. (2022). 2016-2020 American Community Survey 5-year estimates, Table B19125: Median family income in the past 12 months (in 2016 inflation-adjusted dollars) by presence of own children under 18 years. [Dataset]. Available at https://data.census.gov/cedsci
  • U.S. Census Bureau. (2022) 2016-2020 American Community Survey 5-year estimates, Table B23008: Age of own children under 18 years in families and subfamilies by living arrangements by employment status of parents. [Dataset]. Available at https://data.census.gov/cedsci
  • U.S. Census Bureau. (2022). 2016-2020 American Community Survey 5-year estimates, Table C16002: Household language by household limited English speaking status. [Dataset]. Available at https://data.census.gov/cedsci
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