Express-Times: LTE: Many child care centers will need government help to reopen
April 22, 2020
As a former preschool teacher and child care center director, it was my dream to open my own high-quality center. After two years of planning, my dream was realized when I opened the doors of Bright Beginnings Montessori Academy in September 2019.
In March, because of COVID-19, I closed my doors, and like other small business owners, I’m continuing to pay rent, utilities and insurance on an empty building. I’m currently working on achieving a STAR 3 rating, which designates high-quality child care in Pennsylvania. Being able to choose a high-quality site is what families deserve, now more than ever, when they are able to safely return to work.
I want nothing more than to be able to reopen when this crisis has passed, but I’m concerned about how my program will survive. It’s estimated that we could lose up to half the childcare capacity in the state. If I have to close my doors permanently, how will the families that relied on me to care for their children be able to return to work? I urge my legislators to include childcare in the stimulus package. The health of our economy depends on these funds.
Ibis Fernando
Bright Beginnings Montessori Academy
Northampton
Read the LTE here.
Reading Eagle: LTE: Child care centers crucial to reviving our economy
April 18, 2020
I’m the owner of Tiny Thinkers Academy, a child care center in Blandon. Prior to our doors shutting in mid-March because of COVID-19, we cared for 63 children ages 6 weeks to sixth grade and employed 23 staff members. We opened our doors in June 2018. This shutdown has been extremely difficult because we haven’t even turned a profit yet due to startup loans.
Yet as a small-business owner, I am still responsible for my center’s financial obligations of rent and utility payments in order to maintain it for when we do reopen. The pandemic has exposed the fragility of the child care system as a whole, which operates on the slimmest of margins.
Though we did file a waiver to remain open, only two children of essential workers needed care, meaning it wasn’t financially possible for us to open our doors.
The parents who rely on my center, are not considered essential workers and have the ability to work from home are doing so with crying infants and toddlers in need of attention. Once they are permitted to return to their workplaces, they will need centers like mine to return to their jobs. Once we are past this health crisis and businesses reopen, child care will be needed more than ever in order to help restore our workforce and economy.
Emily Hartman
Maidencreek Township
See the letter to the editor here.
Observer-Reporter: LTE: Pa’s child care providers must be saved
April 6, 2020
Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, many groups cautioned about the lack of affordable, high-quality child care for Pennsylvania’s working families and the impact on our economy. When families can’t find child care or afford it, that serves as a barrier to employment. Groups like the Pennsylvania Early Learning Investment Commission and ReadyNation estimated that the economic impact of insufficient infant / toddler child-care cost our commonwealth $2.5 billion annually. In short, the economy depends on working families and working families depend on child care.
Today, that child-care system is largely shut down like most sectors of our economy, causing real problems for essential workers across the state. This economic shutdown is also exposing the fragility of the child-care system. According to a new survey, nearly one-third of child-care providers indicated that they would go out of business if this economic shutdown lasts for more than a month. This begs an important question, “How will Pennsylvania families go back to work when businesses reopen if child-care providers do not?”
As leaders consider immediate economic stimulus options for the commonwealth, efforts to stabilize child-care providers must be a priority. Stimulus funding must be prioritized to strategically position our commonwealth for a speedy and robust economic recovery. As such, Pennsylvania’s child-care system must be saved.
State representative, 48th District
The Fred Rogers Co.
Read the LTE here.
PennLive: OpEd: Frontline workers in the coronavirus need dependable child care
By Stephanie Doliviera April 6, 2020
The current COVID-19 crisis is requiring unprecedented action by both the public and private sectors to not only support our front line workers leading the public health response, but also to support those employees that continue to provide essential, often behind the scenes, services to our communities.
We at Sheetz are pleased to be doing our part by offering additional compensation as an effort to further support our more than 17,000 frontline employees who are working tirelessly through the COVID-19 crisis. We know that our employees, and their families, are the heart and soul of our business.
with essential workers. Today, according to a new survey, roughly 80 percent of all childcare providers in Pennsylvania are closed – impacting an estimated 305,000 children. This leaves essential workers in a pinch.
Finding and affording quality child care was a problem prior to this current crisis – often serving as a barrier to employment for many potential workers. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation recently estimated the economic cost of insufficient child care in Pennsylvania to be $3.5 billion annually.
Stephanie Doliveira is vice president of Human Resources, Sheetz, Inc. and co-chair, Pennsylvania Early Learning Investment Commission.
Click here to read the full oped.
Morning Call: Lehigh Valley child care centers could collapse under coronavirus. Will federal aid rescue the industry?
April 4, 2020 By: Anthony Salamone
Jennifer Butz-Smith marked her business’ 15th anniversary last month quietly.
“It came on March 18,” Smith, the owner of Horizon of Learning day care in Emmaus, said recently, “So it came with all the other stuff. We didn’t even get a chance to celebrate.”
“It’s 15 years of my heart and soul, of keeping this going,” she said. “Then it comes down to, ‘Oh my goodness, all this is happening.’”
Smith is like hundreds of child care providers and workers in the region. Their future is uncertain as they hang on in fear that their centers — like so many smaller businesses — might be unable to manage through the health crisis.
The state last week approved waivers that allowed some 700 child care facilities to operate to serve children of essential workers. Smith’s facility is among some 70 in and around the Lehigh Valley, according to the Department of Human Services.
For her center, it meant reopening for 10 children among her working families who needed child care; she said she has not taken on new clients.
But like many operators, she’s had to curtail operations and cut staff; Smith said she laid off eight of her nine employees, leaving one teacher and herself for the children’s facility that normally handles 60 children from early childhood to fifth grade.
Has she been experiencing sleepless nights, or nightmares? No, the upbeat Smith said, but, “It’s always on my mind. You are responsible, not only for people’s children, but the livelihoods of my staff. They depend on me that they can pay their bills. That’s the added stressor.”
Lehigh Valley Children’s Centers closed for a week for cleaning and then reopened three of its 30 sites, two in Lehigh County and one in Northampton County, for children whose parents work in essential businesses.
Remington White, a support staffer at the center, said he decided to come back to work, where he’d receive extra pay.
“Our essential employees, they need to do their jobs to keep us up and running as a country, as a community,” he said. “It’s my way of contributing through these hard times.”
White said there are fewer children per staff member, and they’ve been doing activities that call for more sitting down than running around to keep children apart in this era of social distancing.
Read the full article here.
