FOR THE KIDS
Child care workers push ahead despite pandemic
On a recent morning in Midtown, a driveway bustled with cars making contactless deliveries. But this was no ordinary cargo. It was the drop-off line at Cradles 2 Crayons Early Learning Academy, where a steady stream of parents waved goodbye to their preschoolers and headed to work.
Inside, teachers marshaled their charges into art-filled classrooms, whose walls were lined with the evidence of their studies: alphabet posters, collages and crayon drawings. If you stick around long enough, you might overhear a refrain spoken among the teachers: “The day can take care of itself. We do child care.” The pithy phrase captures a sad reality: Child care workers are a linchpin of the American economy, yet are rarely treated as such.
Few businesses are more essential. But as many as a tenth of all child care centers nationwide shuttered for good last year. Worker shortages have made it increasingly difficult for preschools to retain staff in an industry plagued by low wages, grueling hours and a heightened risk of catching COVID-19.
The pandemic has only magnified the industry’s inherent problems.
The average child care worker earns $11 to $12 an hour, or about $25,000 a year, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. That figure is woefully insufficient, said Melanie J. Johnson, president and CEO of Collaborative for Children, a Houston-based advocacy group. She noted it’s less than someone could make restocking shelves at Costco.
“The solution is to stop pretending these are babysitters,” she said.
Finding teachers was never easy, but the pandemic has made it much harder. With little ability to pay more, owners have been hesitant to push for vaccination among staff for fear of alienating workers. While child care workers were among the
earliest cohorts to be eligible for the vaccine in March, many hold-outs remain.
Linda Draper, the director of Blossom Heights Child Development Center in west Houston, encouraged all her workers to get vaccinated when shots became available. As of last month, the entire staff was inoculated. But it wasn’t easy.
When some staffers expressed hesitation, she discovered the most convincing argument was also the simplest: Do it for the kids. At the other end of the spectrum, Draper said some teachers left because they were afraid of COVID exposure, especially since preschoolers are not likely to be vaccine eligible until 2022. Left scrambling for new teachers, she was forced to reduce the number of classes at a time when there are more than 200 children on the school’s wait list.
“I don’t know if I can do this many more years if I have to keep hiring and training staff,” Draper said.
On a clear, sunny morning last month, Draper walked a winding path through Blossom Heights’ playground, where 1- and 2-yearolds enjoyed snack time. She watched as a team of four staffers corralled their charges to a pair of tiny picnic tables for the meal. A rogue toddler played in the mud kitchen while another zoomed by pushing a toy car. To some, the scene may have looked chaotic. To Draper, it was her life’s calling.
A third of all child care providers considered leaving or shutting down their programs due to staffing shortages and low wages, according to a recent study of more than 7,500 providers. Among minority-owned programs, more than half were considering permanent closure.
Experts say the collapse of the child care industry would be disastrous for the economy as a whole. Build Back Better, the trillion-dollar bill currently before Congress, includes a provision for universal free preschool for all 3- and 4-year-olds. If approved, it would be the largest such investment in a century, funneling $250 billion dollars to pre-kindergarten education, an intervention that could have benefits that extend far beyond the early childhood years.
For years, early childhood education advocates such as Cody Summerville, executive director of the Texas Association for the Education of Young Children, have been calling for state and federal investment to improve care without over-burdening families. The case for preschool is clear: Research shows it leads to lower crime, higher graduation rates and increased earning in adulthood. The Center for American Progress estimates that federally funded preschool for all 4-year-olds would, in time, boost the U.S. economy by $83 billion each year.
Should the bill pass, Texas’ fragmented child care system — seven state agencies oversee policy — could complicate the distribution of federal funds, Summerville said. That is a good problem to have. The bill is built on a “solid understanding of how early childhood works,” he said, and “recognizes the cost of true quality.”
Deon Davis, the owner and director at Cradles 2 Crayons, can’t imagine closing her school. She feels an obligation to working parents and, after 17 years, said she still has “a burning fire in my soul” to prepare her pintsized patrons for elementary school. Yet there were days when she surveyed her mounting expenses and wondered, “How am I going to meet payroll?”
As Davis drained her personal savings to stay afloat last year, her landlord posted a “for lease” sign near the playground in the front yard.
One year later, enrollment is up and Davis is optimistic. But the pandemic has laid bare the inescapable puzzle at the center of her business: high-quality care is expensive, and profit comes at the expense of children’s wellbeing. This conflict was on full display inside the Cradles 2 Crayons nursery that October morning.
It was nap time in the darkened nursery , where one teacher tended to five babies. Sophia Davis was seated on the floor with a child in her lap as she kept close watch over the four others sleeping in their cribs. As the school’s assistant director, “Miss Sophia” was filling in while they search for a new teacher. The position pays more than the school recoups from the infants’ tuition.
In other words, babies are a money-losing prospect.
Any other business might raise its prices. But Cradles 2 Crayons, like most child care providers, cannot gouge parents, many of whom are already stretched thin financially.
The average American twoparent household with with two young kids devotes about 25 percent of its income to childcare, according to an Economic Policy Institute analysis. In Texas, full-time child care for a 4-year-old is nearly equal to tuition at a public college.
Even as her costs ballooned, Davis said she hasn’t raised her prices during the pandemic out of a sense of “compassion” for parents, many of whom continued to pay the $1,3000 monthly tuition when the school temporarily closed early last year.
Davis started the school when her daughter was a toddler. Seventeen years later, she remains committed to equipping children for elementary school and empowering her staff to think of themselves as teachers, not babysitters. Recent trials have only strengthened her resolve.
“We just keep being safe, smiling and showing up everyday,” she said.