These maps display Early Care Locations in Summit County. Locations shown have a Step Up To Quality [3] rating of 3 to 5. The first map shows the early care locations and Zip Codes, the second shows the early care locations and Akron neighborhoods. These maps are created to show potential areas where children are not being served by child care centers. These maps are not meant to provide suggestions or guidance on choosing a child care center. These maps are interactive; you can zoom in/out, and use the filters.

The stars on the maps show the locations of Early Care Centers, with the colors representing the program types selected:  Licensed Child Care Centers, ODE Licensed Preschools, and Licensed Type A and Type B Family Child Care Homes. The areas of the maps are shaded so that darker shades means a higher percentage of residents experiencing poverty. The white circles in the center of the areas represent the population of children under 5 in the area; the larger the circle, the higher the population.

The current Early Care programs are recent as of 2024 from the Ohio Department of Education and Ohio Department of Job and Family Services [2]. The data for the area percent poverty and the number of children under 5 in each location is from the United State Census Bureau’s American Community Survey [1]. For the neighborhoods, the data was calculated using the centroid of tract level information with the centroids of the tracts being within Akron neighborhoods.

[1] https://data.census.gov/

[2] https://childcaresearch.ohio.gov/

[3] https://education.ohio.gov/Topics/Early-Learning/Step-Up-To-Quality-SUTQ