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Hawaii lacks a state-funded preschool program, something that Gov. Neil Abercrombie is making a top legislative priority this year.

But the state isn’t the only one falling short when it comes to early learning opportunities. The private sector is lacking, too.

There are in Hawaii. But just a handful are located at work places, providing convenient day care options for working parents.

Local advocates of early childhood education say that high-quality onsite child care programs could help close the state’s Many children are at a disadvantage when they start kindergarten, lacking social skills and academic fundamentals.

Onsite company-sponsored day care has been common in the rest of the country for years. In some business sectors — including technology, higher education and healthcare — it’s often a prerequisite for potential employees.

About of the companies listed in CNN and Fortune magazine’s 2012 offer onsite child care services. Nationally, as many as 10 percent of all companies provide such services to their employers.

“The workforce demands it,” said Fran Durekas, founder of , which provides at onsite and near-site centers throughout the country. “And as companies are growing, they’re looking at what benefits are going to attract the top talent employees.”

But in Hawaii, there are few onsite day care centers.

The University of Hawaii at Manoa; Honolulu, Kapiolani, Hawaii and Kauai community colleges; and Castle Medical Center in Kailua are the only local employers that have centers open to their staff, according to data provided by .

But the campus centers give priority to students who are parents over faculty and other employees who need chid care. And waiting lists are common.

The UH’s center has 145 spaces. Thanks to a recent expansion, about 40 percent of the students enrolled at the center are children of UH employees. That’s up from only about 25 percent last year.

There are obvious perks for the parents: convenience and reliability, the ability to easily check in on your child during the day.

But proponents of onsite centers point out that they also benefit the employers.

Research shows that employees are more invested in and focused on their work when they know their kids are being cared for nearby. They also have higher attendance and a stronger rapport with their colleagues, according to Durekas.

But “other than at the top-notch companies like Google and places like that, not too many folks pay attention to it as far as all the research on productivity, work satisfaction, absenteeism,” said Wayne Watkins, director of .

Many businesses are also jumping on the trend to gain a competitive advantage over other companies. Both Watkins and Durekas stressed that offering the benefit of an in-house day care center is an important recruitment and retention tool for employers.

“When there’s a dependable, quality child care connected to work, that’s an indication of their [the employers’] family awareness,” Watkins said. “Often that then translates into a general attitude that people come in the context of a family.”

Onsite Centers Serve Several Purposes

Research suggests that early education is a crucial building block in child development, particularly because 85 percent of a child’s brain development occurs before the age of five. Early learning programs teach children critical motor, intellectual, social and self-care skills.

“It’s the basic stuff that our kindergarten teachers need of kids coming in,” said Deborah Zysman, executive director of , a local early education advocacy group.

Hawaii is one of 11 states without a publicly funded preschool program. And 42 percent of the state’s children enter kindergarten never having gone to preschool, according to the newly formed state

Nearly all preschools in Hawaii are private, which means children whose parents can’t afford the tuition are at a disadvantage by the time they enter kindergarten.

Parents in Hawaii on average pay $750 a month to send one child to preschool, according to Zysman. Onsite child care centers are often subsidized by the employers.

In general, Hawaii’s costs for chid care are much higher than some places on the mainland, according to :

Kindergarten students who have no prior education perform much more poorly on basic skills assessments, are less successful in subsequent grades and are more prone to crime as adults, studies show.

Every dollar invested in high-quality early education services in Hawaii produces $4.20 in savings by reducing spending on social services and the justice system, according to the early learning office.

Abercrombie is pushing for an initiative that would ultimately offer state-funded preschool services to all of Hawaii’s 4-year-olds, but the program first needs to secure funding from the Legislature this year. He held a press conference Wednesday to launch the effort.

But critics aren’t confident the state will pull through.

“We say we value our kids, but look at the budget,” Zysman said. “There’s no money in early education. We’re just getting a lot of lip service.”

So Why No Employer-Sponsored Child Care?

Katy Chen, executive director of , a nonprofit group that connects parents with child care options, said she didn’t know why so few employers offer onsite child care services.

While Hawaii is dominated by small- and medium-sized businesses, many companies — including First Hawaiian Bank, Bank of Hawaii, Alexander & Baldwin, Kaiser Permanente, Hawaii Pacific Health and Hawaiian Electric Industries — employ well over 2,000 people.

They have enough employees to make such programs worthwhile, Chen said. “To me that would be a natural extension (of the companies) … Maybe they just feel like they’re not in the business of running a child care center.”

And according to CCLC’s Durekas, companies typically need to employ at least 1,500 people to justify the investment. (Alternatively, many smaller businesses have when their employees find themselves in a bind with sick children who need tending to.)

But employers face numerous challenges when it comes to providing onsite day care, including lack of space, high costs and a limited number of professional, high-quality daycare operators.

The onsite centers would also choose to comply with national , adding to the cost.

CCLC, which provides early learning and child care programs to companies in , helps employers figure out how to best overcome those obstacles. CCLC assesses a company’s needs, assists it in setting up a center and guides it in determining how much money should be invested.

Durekas stressed that CCLC is accredited and uses an early learning model based on research and best practices.

Any onsite child care provider in Hawaii would have to do the same, Zysman said, pointing to widely held misconceptions that early childhood programs are devoid of constructive activities.

“It’s not just babysitting.”