Construction is finishing up on a new child care center in College Park slated to open later this summer.
The University of Maryland Child Development Center will serve 120 children from ages six weeks through five years old, with an infant classroom, a toddler classroom for two-year-olds, a preschool classroom and a kindergarten prep classroom.
Located at 4601 Calvert Road, the child care center is bright and airy with lots of glass and views of the grass and trees on the nearby Calvert Hills playground. It will serve mostly children of students and staff of the university, with at least 14 slots set aside for children with no ties to the college.
The child care center is part of the university’s Greater College Park initiative to attract faculty and staff and turn the area into one of the great college towns.
Before the pandemic, only 23 percent of mothers and 3 of fathers stayed at home full-time with their kids, meaning there were about 6.6 million U.S. children in some kind of child care or preschool.
