San Mateo City Council approves child care center expansion

The school could help alleviate the county’s backlog of child care slots. According to county data, there are about 9,000 children who need but cannot access care, with thousands of families on waitlists.

While some nearby residents were initially concerned about increased traffic around the expanded facility on Carey Lane, Head of School Neely Norris said it would help families, about half of which have kids at both sites, minimize trips back and forth between the Carey Lane site and Alameda de las Pulgas. 

“We had a lot of conversations about how we could support those families by potentially bringing our preschool closer to the campus,” Norris said.  

The project also comes at a time when the county is ramping up discussions on potential ballot measures and policy changes that would expand child care subsidies for middle-income families, streamline the child care application process and boost wages for child care workers. 

Currently, the vast majority of child care subsidies are state-funded and as such, only families making up to 85% of California’s median income — about $93,000 for a family of three — typically qualify. That hurts expensive counties particularly hard like San Mateo County, where the median annual cost of preschool-aged care costs about $25,000 per year, according to data from the U.S. Department of Labor. 

The Planning Commission recommended approval of The Carey School’s recent proposal in December, and the City Council also voiced its approval, voting unanimously to advance the project during a meeting Jan. 12. 

“To me, the benefits outweigh the costs, and indeed, I think we’re rather fortunate that this school location provides some benefits and overall alleviation of congestion due to the fact that many parents are using little Carey and big Carey together,” Mayor Adam Loraine said. 

The new building would comprise six classrooms, accommodating up to 75 children from 2 to 5 years old and 16 teachers.  

Norris said the school hopes to construct and open the new site by fall 2027.