Hershey school proposes a PA network of six free early learning childhood centers with $350 million
By Bob Fernandez October 1, 2020
The Milton S. Hershey School for poor children, which has faced criticism over how few students it helps despite its riches, has proposed to spend $350 million on six centers throughout Pennsylvania to offer free infant and early childhood services to 900 kids.
The Early Childhood Resource Centers — if approved by a Dauphin County court — would be the first time the privately funded charitable school, with assets around $15 billion and 2,100 students, has offered to help impoverished children outside of its residential campus in rural Hershey.
The Hershey School controls the highly profitable Hershey Co. candy giant, which finances it with a torrent of stock dividends.
The plan requires the approval of Dauphin County Orphans’ Court to determine whether the project should be financed and is consistent with the Hershey School’s mission, which is guided by Milton and Catherine Hershey’s 1909 deed creating an orphanage and trade school.
In court papers on Wednesday, the charity’s attorneys said “circumstances demonstrate the impracticability” of using all of its cash for the residential campus, which has more than 170 group homes as well as schools for grades K-12.
“This is a major step forward,” Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro said Wednesday. “It demonstrates a new approach and a new direction for Hershey.”
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“Nine-hundred kids a year is a lot of kids for one entity to step forward and fund,” said Donna Cooper, executive director of Public Citizens for Children and Youth, a child advocacy group. But given the scale of the unmet needs in Pennsylvania, she said, “my real question is: Can they do more?”
Experts say early childhood programs are the most effective at building children’s social skills, improving educational outcomes, and breaking the cycle of poverty. In Pennsylvania, limited state funding means that most kids who need early childhood education don’t get it. In 2019, 64% of 4-year-old children in the state were not enrolled in publicly funded pre-K or Head Start programs, according to the National Institute for Early Education Research.
“I just have to believe that given the enormity of the Hershey corporate entity, there’s the opportunity to do much more, and there’s certainly much more need,” Cooper said.
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South Philly Review: Fiedler hoping to bring funding to childcare centers
June 3, 2020 by Mark Zimmaro
Local legislators are hoping to free up federal money to help endangered Pennsylvania childcare centers reopen after the pandemic.
State Rep. Elizabeth Fiedler, whose district covers parts of South Philadelphia, is introducing a bill with state Rep. Mary Jo Daley, a Montgomery County Democrat, to help workers and childcare centers weather the financial crisis. Fiedler is hoping to secure part of the $106 million in funding that the state received as part of the CARES Act.
“It’s imminent and it’s really important,” Fiedler said. “Right now, we’re seeing Philadelphia moving into somewhat of a reopening phase and we need to make sure childcare centers that are really at the heart of our economy and our families are able to open and have the support that they need. And quite frankly, they do not have that right now.”
There are 605 childcare providers who serve more than 44,000 children in Pennsylvania. The Start Strong PA and Pre-K for PA campaigns point to recent surveys that found nearly one-third of those childcare centers would not be able to reopen without funding.
“Pennsylvania has received $106 million in funding to support childcare providers through the Federal CARES Act,” Fiedler said. “And $51 million of that has been allocated, so there is money and we need to work very hard to get it out the doors to the folks who are in our communities and need it right now. Our hope is that this will draw bipartisan support. Children and childcare centers should not be a partisan issue. They are part of our lives across South Philly and across the state.”
Last week, Fiedler and Daley took part in a joint virtual policy hearing, which included state Sens. Judy Schwank and Lindsey Williams as well as parents and childcare workers from across the state. It allowed workers in the field to stress the importance of the funding.
The Children’s Playhouse Early Learning Center on Passyunk Avenue is one of those institutions that would be impacted. CEO Demaris Alvarado-Rodriguez said the center had more than 270 students before it closed on March 16. They expect only half to return when the state deems it safe to reopen. The fewer dollars coming in simply don’t stack up against fixed costs for most centers. Additional funding for extensive cleaning could help ease parents’ anxiety about returning their children to a safe environment.
“There is a significant cost to reopening our programs,” Alvarado-Rodriguez said. “In order to be able to successfully transition our students and families back from the pandemic, we need financial support, supplies and support from our legislators to ensure that our students are safe when they return.”
Read the full article here.
WHYY: Child care centers in Pa.: bellwether for how tricky it will be to fully reopen economy
May 18, 2020 by Miles Bryan
In some ways, Rachel Johnson is grateful for Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf’s mid-March business shutdown order: it took the agonizing decision over whether to close the child care center she runs with her husband out of their hands.
“It was sad and scary, but in a way, easy, because the choice was made for us,” said Johnson, 36, who runs Step by Step School for Early Learning in Centre County. “It was like, ‘Ok, we have to close.’ There was nothing to think about.”
Before the pandemic, Step by Step had three locations in the State College area, serving 300 children and employing 65 teachers. The business was able to get a waiver to remain open to serve the children of essential workers, but only 14 of them kept coming, forcing the Johnsons to lay off all but five teachers. The business got a federal Paycheck Protection Program loan, but the couple has struggled to pay their most pressing bills without violating its terms.
They’ve mostly gotten by on savings instead.
On May 8, their fortunes shifted: Centre County was one of the first 24 counties that Gov. Wolf moved into the ‘yellow’ phase of reopening. In that phase more businesses are allowed to open, as well as all child care providers. Thirteen more counties entered this phase on Friday and 12 more will on May 22.
The Johnsons reopened their center May 11, but it wasn’t a simple call.
“Our job is to provide [parents] with care so they can go and do their job” said Robert Johnson, Rachel’s husband. “[But] the financial aspect of it, if you would sit there and crunch numbers, it would not be an easy decision.”
The problem is demand: only a few dozen of Step by Step’s kids have returned so far. Most of their parents are still working from home, the Johnsons said, and many are uneasy about sending their kids into any kind of group setting. Meanwhile, the couple is still paying rent, mortgages, and utilities on facilities that can hold many more students. They’ve also rehired twenty of their teachers, allowing for a much smaller a student-to-staff ratio than normal — a costly decision — so the center can maintain small groups and minimize cross-contamination.
All this, Rachel said, has put them in a somewhat uncomfortable position.
“You almost look like the bad guy by trying to convince [parents] to send their kids back,” she said. “Going out there and saying ‘support your local economy’ is going to make you look bad if at the same time you are saying ‘put your kids in danger.’”
As idled businesses begin to restart and more employees return to the job across the state, child care providers in ‘yellow’ counties say they are reopening slowly, if at all. The pace is driven by new safety guidelines, and by nervous parents reluctant to send their kids out of the house. If the industry doesn’t see demand pickup or receive financial aid soon, advocates warn, providers could begin closing for good — possibly slowing the state’s economic recovery.
“Child care is a business, like all of the others that are struggling through this crisis,” said Jen DeBell, executive director of the Pennsylvania Association for the Education of Young Children. “But this business is the one that everyone else relies upon, to make sure families can work.”
Read the full article here.
Post-Gazette: Expect more cleaning, temperature-taking, and some masks when child care centers reopen
May 14, 2020 By: Kate Giammarise
Closed child care centers will be able to reopen Friday, when the region moves from “red” into the “yellow” partial reopening phase of pandemic mitigation.
Whether they all will choose to reopen, or have enough youngsters to reopen, is another matter.
Many providers are not planning to reopen on Friday, though they are planning on reopening within the next two weeks or so, said Wendy Etheridge Smith, director of the Early Learning Resource Center in Allegheny County. That’s due to both child care centers still ramping up to get ready and some parent hesitancy about safety, she said.
Most child care providers in Pennsylvania have been closed since mid-March, though some have been operating with a waiver and serving the children of “essential” workers such as first responders, or those who work in healthcare or grocery stores. Home-based child care providers, who generally care for a much smaller number of children at a time, have been able to operate uninterrupted.
Child care is “crucial to the daily functioning of our commonwealth,” said Teresa Miller, Pennsylvania secretary of Human Services, speaking on a call with reporters earlier this week.
“Child care is an essential infrastructure to our economy’s recovery. If we don’t have that, our economy doesn’t recover,” said Cara Ciminillo, executive director of advocacy group Trying Together.
About 20% of child care programs remained open in Allegheny County, with many of those being home-based providers, said Ms. Ciminillo.
For programs that do plan to welcome children back on Friday, state officials have been referring them to safety guidance from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Among the CDC recommendations — intense cleaning, modified drop-off procedures that allow for children to wash their hands as soon as they enter, and screening children upon arrival for fevers.
Read the full article 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.
