The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
Families grapple with preschool care during COVID
Blumenthal touts Child Care is Essential Act, which could aid struggling industry
MIDDLETOWN — Connecticut’s senior U.S senator stopped by a local day care Thursday to learn first-hand the challenges these agencies are facing while operating at reduced capacity, with fewer staff, and enforcing safety guidelines as they care for children during the pandemic.
Knowing many of these facilities, operating at 50 percent capacity during the COVID-19 outbreak, are struggling to remain open prompted the fact-gathering
visit by Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., to Town & Country Early Learning Center at 195 S. Main St.
The center is accredited by the National Association for the Education of Young Children, and accepts children from 6 months through pre-K age.
Director Judi Kenney said the main priority is the health and welfare of their young charges, parents, families and staff, some of whom are elderly.
Some of her teachers had to be let go due to COVID-19 closures, while others decided not to return to work for related reasons, she said.
Kenney’s mother is among them. “Every day, she says, ‘Can I come back?’ I said ‘No — you’re last on my list! I love you too much.’”
Blumenthal is pushing for Congress to approve the Child Care is Essential Act, which already passed the House. It would provide grants for the struggling industry. Day care and preschool facilities could use the money for personal protective equipment, sanitation supplies and personnel, as well as for mental health support for children and staff.
If it became law, the act would provide $50 billion in appropriations for the Child Care Stabilization Fund to award grants to child care providers during and after the COVID-19 public health emergency.
It establishes the fund within the existing Department of Health and Human Services Child Care and Development Block Grant program. These grants must be administered by the existing CCDBG lead agencies of states, tribes or territories.
Kenney lost a third of her employees when facilities such as hers were closed by the governor. Others have medical conditions, children in schools operating on a hybrid plan, and some even took jobs as nannies. “Some of them pay the same, if not more.”
She’s had to plan for two shifts daily — 16 hours total — because kids, grouped into 10 in each classroom, are not moving around.
“It’s great for kids and families, but stinks when you’re trying to keep your financial head afloat. That is impossible. The margins are so thin with child care,” she told the senator. “We want good quality but that comes at a cost.”
Flu season is on the way, Blumenthal said, which presents additional challenges because many of the symptoms echo those of COVID-19. “More and more activities are going to be indoors when the weather gets bad.”
Everyone is looking forward to additional methods of COVID-19 testing, one of which is a saliva test that can be self-administered at home, and is less time consuming and less expensive. It is under development at Yale University, the senator said.
Another problem is the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently recommended no testing for those who are asymptomatic. “It’s a recipe for disaster. It’s not based on science, it’s based on politics,” Blumenthal alleged.
This comes at a time in preschoolers’ lives when bonding is a crucial part of trusting adults other than their parents and loved ones, Kenney said. Teachers now struggle with trying to connect with the children with half their face covered by a mask.
At the Middlesex YMCA, some staff wear photos of themselves on their shirts so kids can see what’s under their face coverings, according to Candace Crane, vice president of youth development and community relations.
“It takes a couple days, but they get used to it,” Kenney said. “It is, unfortunately, a new norm.”
The YMCA has had to adapt to full-day care, for working parents while children are doing virtual learning, Crane said. “Finding staff to do that is incredibly difficult, but the parents need it. If they don’t have it, those parents aren’t going to work. That’s when everything falls apart.”
Many find themselves in a quandary — needing care while also figuring out whether it’s financially viable to leave their job and stay home.
“Child care is so expensive, and we do have our block grant subsidies for very lowincome families,” said Liz Fraser, policy director for the Connecticut Association for Human Services and Early Childhood Coalition organizer. “But there’s that whole group of people [who operate] between $50,000 and $80,000 [annual income].
The survival budget for families in Connecticut who don’t qualify for anything is already squeezed. “Everything is out of pocket,” Fraser told those gathered.
“[The issue] threatens to paralyze our economy,” Blumenthal said.
Still, the senator said, children “coming to a place like this can be enormously mindopening, developmentally significant. It can be a factor in determining a child’s future. Social-emotional learning is so important.”
“We want a healthy young generation growing up,” Fraser said. The goal is to avoid situations where a parent has to choose. “We want all children in a safe, nurturing environment.”
“These early experiences children have — including separation issues — are so important to take care of. We find they linger as children grow,” she said. For information, visit townandcountryelc.com, kaine.senate.gov and congress.gov.