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.
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.
