Express-Times: LTE: Closed child-care services need support to get through COVID-19 crisis
By: Gail Reaser April 2, 2020
My business partner and I have owned and operated The Children’s Garden for 16 years. Since this time we’ve achieved and maintained a Star 3 rating, which designates high-quality child care in Pennsylvania. Since the COVID-19 outbreak, like so many of my colleagues in early learning who are also small business owners, we’ve had to close our child care center.
We want nothing more than to be able to reopen when this health crisis has passed, and provide child care and early learning in a caring and high-quality environment for the 75 families counting on us and our staff of teachers to return to work.
I’m worried about how our economy will recover if child care centers close for good. The COVID-19 crisis has exposed the fragility of the system. We’ve always operated on the slimmest of margins, but this will force so many to shut their doors for good.
Child care is an industry upon which all other industries rely. We are all doing our best to keep people safe by closing down our businesses. The likelihood of these valuable community assets reopening without some support is very low.
Once we are past this health crisis and businesses reopen, early care will be needed more than ever in order to restore our workforce and economy. Without some sort of stimulus the threat of child care centers closing for too long is that they may never reopen.
Gail Reaser
Northampton
Read the Letter to the Editor here.
CBS 21: PA childcare providers call for economic stimulus
March 24, 2020
The statewide shutdown has put an economic strain on an important industry: childcare.
Childcare leaders in Pennsylvania are calling for an economic stimulus to prevent collapse of the industry in PA.
“Childcare centers … are on a very thin margin,” said Donna Cooper, Executive Director of Public Citizens for Children and Youth. “And when they were ordered closed… providers were no longer capturing co-pays.”
An extended shutdown puts nearly one-third of PA childcare providers at risk of closing permanently.
Find the article and video here.
Post-Gazette: Pennsylvania child care centers at ‘breaking point’ due to mandated COVID-19 closures
By: Kate Giammarise March 24, 2020
Child care providers throughout Pennsylvania — most of which have been temporarily closed since last week — say they might not be able to reopen for business without direct and immediate state aid, should the closure last beyond a month.
On Tuesday, several statewide child care advocacy groups said action is needed from the governor and legislature to preserve child care for essential workers during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic — and to ensure the system’s survival for when all families are able to return to work.
The system is “truly at a breaking point,” said Cara Ciminillo, executive director of Pittsburgh-based advocacy organization Trying Together, speaking Tuesday on a conference call with reporters.
Providers are being hammered by a combination of an already fragile infrastructure and staffers who often earn low wages, combined with the sudden halt of tuition payments from parents and the prospect of an uncertain and potentially prolonged period of closure.
Gov. Tom Wolf ordered child care centers closed statewide for two weeks as of last Tuesday along with other “nonessential businesses,” though centers that serve the children of workers deemed essential — such as first responders and front-line healthcare workers like nurses — can apply for waivers to remain open.
As of Tuesday, the state had processed and approved 670 waivers, said a spokeswoman for the state’s Department of Human Services.
In the meantime, child care advocates Pre-K for PA and Start Strong PA are asking the state to continue to pay the subsidies it would normally pay as part of the Pre-K Counts and Head Start programs, in addition to $17 million to compensate for lost co-pays, $100 million in lost tuition payments from parents, and $50 million to extend programs like Head Start into the summer.
About one-third of the agencies that responded to a survey by the Pennsylvania Child Care Association said they would not be able to reopen if the state-mandated closure lasts beyond a month. That will harm any economic recovery, they said.
Read the full article here.
Pennsylvania Capital Star: Childcare providers seek $100M in aid to ride out COVID-19 pandemic
March 24, 2020 by Elizabeth Hardison
Before the COVID-19 pandemic brought much of southeastern Pennsylvania to a standstill, Latonta Godboldt could typically expect to tend to 13 children each day at her home-based daycare center in North Philadelphia.
These days, attendance at Small Wonders Family Child Care has dipped to three students. Godboldt says she can continue paying her staff for now, but she and countless other child care providers wonder what’s in store as Philadelphia residents and suburbanites remain under strict orders to stay at home.
A coalition of advocates on Tuesday asked state lawmakers to authorize more than $100 million in stimulus aid for the state’s ailing childcare sector, which they say could collapse as the COVID pandemic disrupts business and employment across the Commonwealth.
“Our economy is dependent on the childcare sector being up and able to take children,” Donna Cooper, executive director of Public Citizens for Children and Youth, said during a conference call with reporters. “If anyone has an expectation of the economy returning to normal without a healthy childcare sector … they are fooling themselves.”
Childcare centers across the state were forced to close their doors starting on March 13, when Gov. Tom Wolf ordered a statewide shutdown of daycare centers and schools to slow the spread of the coronavirus virus that causes COVID-19.
Home-based providers, such as Godboldt, were able to keep operating. Some child care centers secured waivers to stay open, even as enrollments dwindled.
But many centers shut their doors entirely, either to protect the safety of their staff or because they fear being sued if they continue to operate during a statewide emergency.
Childcare providers say their incomes could evaporate as more workers face layoffs and furloughs that leave them unable to pay tuition.
Wolf extended the closure for schools and daycare centers through April 6 on Monday. Advocates say a prolonged shutdown could be disastrous for childcare centers, which have long been plagued by high costs for labor and facilities.
If approved, advocates say a $100 million appropriation from the state’s General Fund would help centers that rely on tuition payments maintain their payroll and overhead costs until the COVID pandemic abates.
Read the full article here.
Pennsylvania’s Child Care System in Urgent Need of Stimulus to Prevent Collapse
Survey shows extended economic shut down puts nearly one-third of PA child care providers at risk of closing permanently
HARRISBURG, PA (March 24, 2020) – Principal partners of the Pre-K for PA and Start Strong PA advocacy campaigns called for swift action by PA policymakers to save the state’s child care system. Advocates touted a recent survey by the Pennsylvania Child Care Association showing that of the 605 child care providers responding (serving more than 44,000 children across the Commonwealth), nearly one-third indicated that they would not be able to reopen if the state mandated closure lasts for longer than one month.
“Child care is an ‘essential service’, and without this frontline workforce our state would not be able to effectively respond to this pandemic,” said Diane Barber, Executive Director of the Pennsylvania Child Care Association. “What is most startling about the survey results is the frightening reality that when non-essential businesses are able to reopen, child care providers may not. Stimulus funds are urgently needed to stabilize our child care system ensuring that programs survive to play an undeniably critical role in our economic recovery.”
Supporters of Pre-K for PA and Start Strong PA are calling for Governor Wolf and the General Assembly to enact the following emergency appropriations as part of any stimulus package to stabilize Pennsylvania’s child care system:
- Continue to pay child care subsidies and contract payments to Pre-K Counts and Head Start Supplemental Assistance Programs for the duration of the crisis.
- Provide $17 million to compensate for the share of revenues that would otherwise have been collected as copays until child care services are restored to normal.
- Provide $100 million to support the continued financial viability of child care providers that rely in part, or in full, on tuition payments directly from parents.
- Appropriate $50 million to extend Pre-K Counts and Head Start programs through the summer to stem early childhood learning losses for students.
Additionally, advocates are calling on PA policymakers to take action to ensure the sustainability of the child care sector and protect the health and wellbeing of children by:
- Passing legislation to impose an immunity from tort liability associated with claims related to COVID-19 to all Commonwealth certified child care providers that are authorized to continue to operate pursuant to the Governor’s Executive Order / Declaration of Emergency.
- Prohibiting any adjustments to employer unemployment compensation experience ratings associated with any claims paid as a result of child care centers’ compliance with Commonwealth COVID-19 guidance or directives.
- Decreasing the risk of subsequent infection by requiring every child care and other early childhood education program to attend free training on the practices needed to sanitize all spaces in which children and early learning staff are working before programs can be reopened.
“We appreciate that for those providers receiving state child care subsidy, the Governor mandated that those payments will continue through April 30,” said Jen DeBell, Executive Director, Pennsylvania Association for the Education of Young Children. “However, we know that for the majority of providers, that funding stream is either not available to them or not enough to sustain them. That’s why we are collectively calling on Pennsylvania lawmakers to take swift action to prevent the collapse of our child care system.”
“The COVID-19 crisis has exposed the fragility of the child care system that many have warned about for years,” said Cara Ciminillo, Executive Director, Trying Together. “Prior to the COVID-19 outbreak, working families struggled to find and afford high quality child care. This problem was identified by the Keystone Workforce Command Center as a major barrier to workforce participation. If nearly one-third of Pennsylvania’s current providers close permenantly, this will most certainly jeopardize our economic recovery.”
Pre-K for PA and Start Strong PA represent thousands of early learning providers and supporters across Pennsylvania. From birth to age 5 early learning is happening, and our coalition of advocates is committed to ensuring that families can access it in high-quality, developmentally appropriate settings. For more information visit www.prekforpa.org and www.startstrongpa.org.
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