State Sen. Charlane Oliver (D-Nashville) is not giving up when it comes to child care aid.
When she brought legislation to address child care access struggles in the state in 2024, all three bills were voted down in the Tennessee General Assembly.
But during the following legislative session, Gov. Lee added $6 million in recurring funds to the state’s budget to better fund the Department of Human Services’ Smart Steps child care voucher program, which subsidizes the cost of care for low-income families. He also raised the income threshold for qualifying families to 100 percent of the state median income, up from 85 percent.
Looking at scarcity, cost burden and workforce issues — and how the state will try to dig out of it
“The point of doing these bills is so I can elevate the conversation,” Oliver tells the Scene. “Gov. Lee ended up funding that legislation — not telling me, of course — but I take credit for it.”
Nationally, many child care centers were able to stay afloat through the height of the pandemic because of American Rescue Plan funding. From 2022 to 2024, Metro Nashville approved more than $5 million in additional funding to stabilize 12 centers serving low-income families in the city. The Nashville Early Education Coalition launched in 2024 to continue that work.
Early childhood education for low-income families is sustainable only with ongoing public investment, according to a July white paper from United Way of Greater Nashville in conjunction with the Nashville Early Education Coalition. The report also found that most child care providers are not paid a living wage.
When preparing to open the Royal Table Learning Academy in North Nashville earlier this year, Flarrie and Amir Mahamed spent more than $20,000 for a pair of fire-rated doors to meet licensure requirements. The state’s child care enhancement grants start at $4,000. In addition, Royal Table couldn’t get such a grant because they were not yet licensed, Flarrie tells the Scene.
Flarrie and Amir Mahamed, Royal Table Learning Academy
The mother-son duo started Royal Table as a nonprofit five years ago — the LLC was a gift to Amir for his 18th birthday — but the pair had served the community for years prior. Flarrie taught disaster preparedness classes following Nashville’s historic 2010 flood. The two have teamed up on summer camps and after-school programs, in addition to teaching entrepreneurship and STEM classes at area high schools and the Davidson County Juvenile Detention Center.
Flarrie was surprised that young mothers were dealing with the same issue she faced when Amir was young — a lack of access to reliable child care. An Alabama native, she didn’t have family nearby, and at one point she told her boss she would have to quit if Amir could not stay at the office with her after school. She did not qualify for child care vouchers at the time.
In their previous work in community service, Flarrie and Amir were affected by children who were from North Nashville — the same neighborhood Amir grew up in — but struggled with reading, or even landed in juvenile detention. Some studies show that children who participate in preschool are less likely to be involved in crime as an adult, they learned, so child care seemed like the next logical step.
“I don’t believe in childhood behavior issues,” Flarrie says. “There’s something they’re not getting.”
Royal Table accepts vouchers, operates on a sliding scale and is working toward a certification from Early Head Start — a federally funded program that serves children from birth to age 3. They hope to partner with companies to provide child care to their employees, and eventually offer classes for parents.
“I think that the majority of the community, if they had better resources for jobs and how to apply and how to interview — that’s life-changing,” Flarrie says. “You can come here, get that type of thing, and your child’s going to the child care center — two in one.”
Amir made the move back home from Chattanooga in 2021. He and his mother work 12 hours a day, from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m., but he says he can’t imagine doing anything else.
“My goal was always to help people the best that I could, whether it be in child care [or something else],” says Amir. “‘Do you need school supplies? What do you need? How can I be a resource?’ One day you just lock in and get serious. I just want to be someone who is remembered as a resource, not someone who used people to get where I wanted to go.”
Flarrie and Amir Mahamed, Royal Table Learning Academy
Oliver says her goal for next year’s legislative session is addressing regulatory barriers for child care centers. She’d like to see the state offer a recurring fund for any child care center to stay open, pay a livable wage and lower the cost of tuition to families.
A report from the Tennessee Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations in response to Oliver’s 2024 legislation recommended that the Department of Human Services reestablish meetings between child care providers and the state Fire Marshal’s Office to discuss licensing requirements. The report also notes that state and local fire officials should also coordinate inspections of child care facilities, and that the General Assembly should eliminate state and local business taxes for child care businesses.
These findings, along with stories from providers and parents, will inform Oliver’s legislation. In Tennessee, she says, there are added stakes: With the state’s abortion ban in place, more children will be born.
“It gets expensive, and child care businesses don’t bring in enough revenue to cover that,” Oliver says. “The state needs to step in, because I believe just like infrastructure is our roads, child care is infrastructure — it should be treated as a public good that the state invests in so that everyone benefits.”
