‘We are in a crisis’
Shanoah Washington-Davis didn’t know the little boy she was caring for had tested positive for COVID-19 until she started feeling sick.
The longtime licensed child care provider was forced to temporarily shut down her Largo, Florida, home business in April. She ended up in an intensive care unit, on a ventilator, as she fought the virus. When she was released weeks later, many of the children she cared for had transferred to other care providers.
Washington-Davis said she understands why the boy’s mother hadn’t said anything. The child was asymptomatic, and she was desperate to keep working at her job as a nurse.
Still, the 28-year-old caregiver is now struggling to pay her car insurance bill as she tries to make ends meet and keep her business open.
“The world does not function without child care providers,” Washington-Davis said. “But I’ll tell you, we are in a crisis. The crisis of our life.”
The nation’s private child care industry, already struggling with high turnover and tight margins before the pandemic, is being pushed into a precarious position as providers deal with staffing shortages, constant disruptions from coronavirus quarantines and threats to workers’ health from the virus.
Their worsening issues have meant even fewer open seats and continued uncertainty for parents searching for care for their young children.
“We are seeing less access,” said Lindsay Carson, CEO of the Early Learning Coalition of Pinellas County. She said she’s heard stories of desperate parents having to drive across town to find an available child care spot.
Carson and others say the child care industry’s woes could have a profound economic impact by keeping parents from going back to work.
But Carson said the number of providers who say they are on the verge of insolvency is on the rise.
One of the biggest problems, she said, is finding enough workers.
Like employers in other service industries, child care providers say they’re having trouble recruiting employees to work in a lower-wage job that requires face-to-face interaction, in this case with unvaccinated children.
Nationally, the median wage for child care workers is a little more than $12 an hour, according to 2020 data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Hillsborough’s Early Learning Coalition estimated that its providers are seeing about a 10% shortage compared with normal staffing levels — a significantly higher figure than pre-pandemic times.
Citrus Park Day School in Tampa has a waiting list of more than 100 children, and two empty classrooms sitting ready, said Surely Moreno, director and co-owner. The problem is finding enough child care workers to staff them.
“Parents are calling, requesting tours. Everybody is going back to work,” Moreno said. But she has to turn them away, even though she could sorely use the income. “I’ve never had a problem before with not being able to staff.”
Many of the job applicants have never worked with children, she said, and are still asking for more than the $12 an hour she can offer. Raising pay would likely mean raising tuition, something she worries her families can ill-afford.
“As an owner, I’m not making money at all,” Moreno said, noting that her costs for things like a gallon of milk or cleaning supplies have risen during the pandemic.
Deb Ballinger, executive director of R’Club Child Care Inc. in Pinellas County, said her organization has raised its starting hourly rate by 50 cents to $11 and has offered referral bonuses to staff and parents. It’s advertised job openings on billboards and buses.
Still, she said, there have been times lately that she’s had to keep a classroom closed due to staffing.
A September survey of providers that work with the Early Learning Coalition of Pinellas County found that 52% reported having waiting lists of children due to staffing scarcity.
The same survey reported that 16% of providers said they were at risk of insolvency or closure because of inadequate staffing.
Carson said she’s heard of facilities that have closed infant rooms amid staffing shortages to move workers to the sometimes more profitable 4-yearold rooms. Families of the youngest children, infants through age 2, already are the most likely to be on waiting lists for care, she said.