TYLER, Texas — Schools around East Texas are searching for the best ways to reopen while protecting teachers, staff, and students. They may have an example they can learn from.
Child care centers have both succeeded and failed during the pandemic.
According to data from the Texas Health and Human Services Commission, 1,816 licensed child care facilities have reported 3,132 cases of COVID-19 to date. About two-thirds of those cases occurred in staff members.
Terrence Ates, the public information officer for NET Health, declined to give specifics but said in a statement.
“NET Health has been contacted for guidance recommendations regarding preventing or limiting COVID spread from child care facilities within our 7-county region of COVID surveillance, for there have been a few facilities that have had employees and/or children who have been diagnosed as COVID-positive.”
However, Dr. Joan Altobelli, Vice President of Licensed Child Care for YMCA of Austin, believes the financial challenge facing child care providers is a much greater threat.
“It’s a real precarious situation now, after being in Austin for 30 years, that the YMCA is on the verge,” she said.
YMCA of Austin is one of many child care centers that are struggling to remain viable. Instead of watching 3,000 children as it would in a typical summer, it only has 400.
“All the child care centers that are trying to remain open, having to maintain a ratio [of staff to children], is causing many to lose money," Altobelli said. “Especially with school-age kids, the ratios are much smaller, only 10 kids, where there used to be allowable over 20 for school-age kids in one group. So, they not only don’t have, the smaller businesses don’t have that many rooms to divide the kids up in.”
While revenues shrink, expenses keep rising, in part of because of the need for PPE for children and staff, and in part because YMCA of Austin, like many others, will fill a void created by online learning during the upcoming school year.
“While virtual instruction’s going on, we’ll be providing full day care with support for the virtual instruction,” Altobelli said.
Altobelli says two school districts in the Austin area have reached out for guidance on procedures that help reduce the spread of COVID-19. Alesha Brandt of Adventure Kids Playcare says she recently had a meeting with Fort Bend ISD in order to match their schedules, so staff members can assist children with online classes.
“We’re trying to gain as much information as we can right now,” she said. “To create a schedule that’s going to work and to train our staff on what they’re going to need to do to help children connect, and be successful in their academics.”
Brandt, Altobelli, and Tedra Jackson with LMNOP Children’s Academy in Carrollton all say they had very few cases of COVID-19 in their facilities. “Well, I feel like it’s the regimen of us taking temperatures, doing the survey when they come in the building in the morning, and all of the extra disinfecting processes and everything that we are doing,” Jackson said.
Other operators have not been so fortunate. According to the state, the total number of positive cases from child care centers more than tripled during the month of July. On June 29, HHSC reported 817 positive test results. By July 28, that number had swelled to 2,810. About 15% of all licensed child care facilities in Texas have reported at least one positive case.
“I think teaching children the proper hygiene and talking about it with them is really what’s going to make that impact,” Brandt said.
“I just feel like it’s so important that everyone take this serious, and that everyone continue to follow all the best practices and the protocols, and that they need to make sure that they are requiring masks and that they are requiring hand washing and all of those things,” Jackson added.
“We learned about how one center does airplane arms,” Altobelli said. “To teach the kids to be this far away from other children at the very least, and kids do twirl around and try to keep that in mind as a measure. And we also encourage positivity about wearing the masks, and how they’re superheroes that are stopping the spread of the virus. And they have very creative masks and we complement them on them, just like they were a new pair of sneakers, and they feel really proud that they’re contributing.”
Altobelli says many child care providers are expanding their services in advance of the school year even though they expect revenues to stay flat because of the importance of their work. She says children are adaptable enough to be okay whether their day care center is open or closed, whether their classes are in-person or online. But without the availability of child care, many parents would have to make tough decisions.
“Because it’s the parents whose livelihood is yet again disrupted by having to make other arrangements or actually stay home,” she said.
However, parents have fewer and fewer options. According to HHSC, more than 27% of all child care centers in Texas have shut down during the pandemic.
Given the financial challenges brought on by the pandemic, the child care industry hopes Congress will provide relief funds to keep providers in business. The House of Representatives has passed the Child Care is Essential Act, which would provide $50 billion in grants. It awaits a vote in the Senate, which Altobelli hopes comes soon.
“Because, without day care,” she said, “we’re setting ourselves back for workers and families in poverty. We’re setting ourselves back 30 years. It really is the backbone of the progressive nature of society. And women in particular, who are affected by not being able to go to work consistently.”
While that would provide short-term relief, she believes child care centers will need to be funded by taxes if they are to survive long into the future. “Child care is just like school-aged children who need a formula-driven, free education,” she said. “These day care centers need the same kind of funding. Day-to-day, we are teaching children every day, and teaching lessons that may extend beyond their walls."