Ratios & classroom transitions · 2025–2026
The License Plaque Is Not Your Capacity: 2025–2026 Staffing, Ratios, and the Classroom Transition Cascade
Staffing shortages and age-band move-ups shrink the seats a center can actually offer — often below the number on the wall.
September 2026 · 10 min read · Title page
33%
Share of estimated infant-care demand met by licensed infant capacity in Montana in 2025. Statewide, licensed capacity of all ages met 46% of estimated demand.
Montana’s 2025 child-care supply study put licensed capacity at 46% of estimated demand, and infant capacity at 33%. The gap is not a slogan. Infant rooms are where ratios are tightest, teachers are hardest to hire, and a single resignation deletes seats that the license still lists.
Ohio providers said the same thing from the other side of the enrollment desk in 2025: 60–80% of center-based respondents named finding and keeping employees as a limit on growth, and open-ended comments pointed at ratio and group-size rules. The evergreen version in a single center is smaller and sharper. Four infants are enrolled. The plaque says ten. Two teachers and a 1:4 band means eight. Drop one teacher and the room is full — or over.