Daycare closures: Emergency & Snow Day Closing Procedure for Center-Based and Family Child Care Networks

16,000 Shuttered Child Care Programs Push the Sector Closer to Collapse

16,000 Shuttered Child Care Programs Push the Sector Closer to Collapse

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Nearly 16,000 child care programs across 37 U.S. states have permanently closed since the pandemic began, representing a 9 percent decline in the total number of licensed child care providers, according to a new report published this month by Child Care Aware of America.

Though perhaps less severe than some of the worst-case scenarios laid out in early 2020, the loss of thousands of providers reflects an ever-worsening crisis in the field of early care and education, accelerated by—but not originating with—the arrival of COVID-19.

These closures are sure to have major effects on everyone touched by the child care industry, says Mario Cardona, Chief of Policy and Practice at Child Care Aware of America, a national membership association that works to improve child care and the early childhood profession and that conducted the survey which was the basis for the new report.

The decline in child care providers—8,900 of which provided center-based care and 7,000 of which were family child care programs—represents many more thousands of jobs lost along the way. Some of those early childhood educators sought and found other positions in the field, Cardona notes, but others may have decided to look elsewhere, determining that the challenges and stressors in the field had become hard to justify.

“The labor is intense. The work is intense. Health issues continue,” Cardona says, rattling off reasons an early childhood educator might leave for a job in, say, retail or the service industry, where worker compensation has increased during the pandemic. He also notes that the health and risk calculations for early childhood educators and providers remain quite different from that of the rest of the public. Kids from birth to age 4 are still not eligible to receive a COVID-19 vaccine, and mask-wearing only commonly begins after age 2.

Abbie Lieberman, a senior policy analyst on the early and elementary education policy team at New America, a Washington, D. C.-based think tank, pointed out the way closures are affecting children and families as well.

“Families all over the country are experiencing the realities of these closures,” Lieberman said by email. “Child care programs that they may have relied on for years, that they know and trust, have gone out of business and they are scrambling to find a new program that meets their needs.” The situation is more severe and disruptive in communities where child care spots were already limited; more than half of the U.S. population is estimated to live in child care deserts.

“For young children, continuity in care is important,” Lieberman added. “Disruptions in care can make for difficult transitions as children adjust to new providers and situations.”

More than just constraints on availability, the cost of child care has also increased materially, outpacing the rate of inflation on consumer goods. In 2020, the national average price of child care was $10,174 for the year, a 5 percent increase from 2019.

Source: Child Care Aware of America

The rising costs of child care can, in part, be attributed to the pandemic, Cardona explained. It was neither free nor cheap for child care providers to put in place mitigation measures over the last two years. The cleaning supplies, protective gear and other safety efforts came at a price. And sometimes, programs would have to beef up their staff or lower their enrollment to get within more palatable teacher-to-child ratios during the worst outbreaks. Other times, lower enrollment was a natural byproduct of the pandemic, and providers, already operating on tight margins, were forced to offset the losses and additional costs somehow.

Though the average cost of child care has risen significantly, it was unaffordable for many families well before the pandemic. The report’s findings track a trend from crippingly high costs a couple of years ago to cripplingly higher costs today.

Child Care Aware examined the burden of child care costs regionally across the U. S. as well as state-by-state. In California, a married couple with an infant could expect to pay nearly 17 percent of their household income on center-based child care. In Rhode Island, it would cost nearly 12 percent of a married couple’s household income to place their infant in family child care.

Out of four U.S. regions—the Midwest, Northeast, South and West—the report revealed that the average cost of center-based child care for an infant exceeds the average cost of housing in three of them. The only exception is in the West, where housing costs—average monthly rent or mortgage payments—slightly surpass child care costs. In all four regions, annual child care costs exceed the cost of one year of in-state tuition at a public four-year college.

Source: Child Care Aware of America

What this means is that middle-class families are left to work out a nearly impossible financial situation on their own, Cardona says.

“Families are paying so much for care that it impacts family planning; it impacts whether and when they can purchase a home,” he explains. “If you remove that barrier for families, it provides so many options that they don’t currently have.”

The report highlights a number of woeful realities in the child care sector, but none of them are new. The pandemic has worsened the situation considerably and pushed these issues into the public discourse.

“Families cannot afford to pay any more, and child care providers cannot afford to charge any less,” Lieberman writes. “Providers are already struggling to stay afloat, and the workforce is underpaid. Providing a safe, quality environment costs money. The most viable way to lower the burden on parents and ensure that providers stay in business is to invest public funds in child care.”

Both Lieberman and Cardona expressed hope that early childhood provisions of the federal Build Back Better bill, which includes efforts to reduce the cost of child care on families and to improve the early childhood profession, may yet become a reality.

The bill, which has stalled in Congress, would limit child care costs to 7 percent of income for middle-class families (compared to the 10 to 20 percent many families currently pay) and guarantee access to free, universal pre-K for all 3- and 4-year-olds in the U. S., among other forms of assistance for the field.

“It would make a radical difference,” Cardona says emphatically. “It would change the way we support young families. It would address issues related to supply, compensation for educators, affordability for families. … and it would represent a shift in the way this country values early care and education.”

State and local efforts do exist, and they can make a difference. New York is currently considering universal child care at the state level. In Washington, D.C., local officials have signed off on a plan to give one-time payments between $10,000 and $14,000 to child care workers as part of a larger effort to boost their pay.

Still, short of a federal solution, experts say, providers will likely continue to close their programs. Families will continue to be saddled by the inordinate costs of paying for care. Child care workers will continue to need public assistance to get by, if they don’t exit the field altogether.

“Our country should have addressed this market failure a long time ago,” Lieberman said.

Her colleague Laura Bornfreund, director of New America’s early and elementary education policy team, put it more bluntly.

“There has never been a U.S. child care system,” she said by email. “There have been funding streams to help some families meet their child care needs. But even what was previously in place was inadequate. And, now both because of our country’s past failure to put a real system that works for all families in place, years of disinvestment in what was in place, and the current state of child care because of the pandemic, there is a crisis. It is on the brink of collapse.”

NC child care access and COVID-19 closures by county

As the state responds to the COVID-19 pandemic and plans a gradual reopening, early childhood advocates are pointing to the necessity of child care moving forward.

“The bottom line is that if child care programs don’t receive the financial support they need to reopen, it will make it incredibly hard for North Carolina’s families to go back to work when this crisis is over,” writes Michele Rivest, policy director at the NC Early Education Coalition.

About 43% of the state’s child care centers and homes have closed, according to a brief released this month by the NC Justice Center’s Budget and Tax Center titled “NC without child care: Emergency support to state’s early education infrastructure needed now.” And about a third of North Carolina centers responding to a survey by the National Association for the Education of Young Children said they would not be able to reopen after a closure of more than two weeks without government investment.

Even before the pandemic, the state’s child care system did not meet all families’ needs. A Center for American Progress report in December 2018 found that 44% of people in North Carolina were living in a child care desert, defined as an area where there are more than three young children for every licensed child care slot. 

The following map shows the percentage of children living in child care deserts, by county, pulling from the same 2018 data from the Center for American Progress, reported out by the NC Justice Center.

Next, take a look at how the percentage of child care centers/homes that have closed varies by county. The data are from the NC Partnership for Children as of April 14, 2020, reported out by the NC Justice Center.

Centers’ decisions of whether to close, Rivest said in an interview, have considered a variety of factors: the health of workers, children, and their families; the financial viability of operating without revenue from private-paying parents; and the demand of essential workers in their community.

Centers that remain open had to complete a state application to meet certain health and safety guidelines and commit to serving children of essential workers. The state also announced it would continue paying centers subsidy rates and NC Pre-K payments, whether they were open or closed.

“Those that stay open either had a demand or they decided there would be some money coming from the state some time and it was worth it to them financially to try to stay open and get whatever income they could without permanently closing their doors,” Rivest said.

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Finally, look at the following map to consider both child care access and COVID-19 closures by county. Counties are color-coded based on access, then shaded based on the degree of closures. Darker shades imply more closures.

Counties with high access to child care (defined as less than 34% of children living in child care deserts) are green. Counties with medium access (34-66% of children living in child care deserts) are purple. Counties with low access (more than 66% of children living in child care deserts) are red.

Closure levels were broken down for the map similarly. High closures, represented by the darkest shades, are defined as more than 66% of centers/homes closed. Medium closures, represented by the medium shades, are defined as 33-66% of centers closed. Low closures, represented by the lightest shades, are defined as less than 33% of centers/homes closed.

A dark green county, for example, has a low percentage of children living in child care deserts but a high percentage of COVID-19 closures. If centers reopened there, the county’s system would be relatively accessible to children and families.

A light red county has a longer-term accessibility problem but has not seen as many closures.

A dark red county indicates a pre-existing problem of accessibility in the county, which has been deepened by COVID-19 closures.

Rivest said this final situation is where she predicts the most hardship in rebuilding the early education system. Counties with more deserts, Rivest said, often have smaller populations, fewer private-paying parents, and lower subsidy rates for centers. Add to that the uncertainty of how many parents will go back to work – and when – during an economic recession.

“That’s what I think is going to be our greatest challenge, is how do we bring child care back, re-open child care, in an equitable way?” she said. “And I think those higher-desert counties will have the greatest difficulty and need the most financial support.”

The COVID-19 crisis, Rivest said, has illuminated ways the previous system did not provide equal access across the state.

“When we reopen and rebuild, we need to do this in a much more equitable way than our previous system — or our current system — which is really very ad hoc,” she said. “It’s very market-driven, and it’s the North Carolina you look at right now. You have some counties and some people that have low access to resources, whether it’s health care or child care. And somehow we’ve got to level that field out a little bit.”

News

Early Childhood

Coronavirus

Liz Bell

Liz Bell is the early childhood reporter for EducationNC.

How kindergartens work in emergency situations

20.01.2022

When parents send their child to kindergarten, they hope that he will go there every day on weekdays if he does not get sick. But there are always failures – water, electricity, heating are turned off in the gardens, accidents happen. We understand how kindergartens work in emergency circumstances and what parents can count on.

What the law says

The working conditions of the kindergarten are prescribed in SanPiN: there must be drinking water in the garden, hot water in the catering department, toilets, laundry, swimming pool, medical unit. If there is no cold water, then this creates an unfavorable epidemiological situation and may affect the health of children and adults.

If there is no cold water in the kindergarten, then children cannot go to it. Also, the head, in agreement with the Department of Education, can generally suspend the work of the organization.

If there is no hot water in the kindergarten, then children can go to it. To do this, it is necessary to ensure the washing of dining and kitchen utensils, compliance with the rules of personal hygiene of children and the sanitary condition of the premises. That is, if employees can wash dishes, toilets and heat water for handwashing.

How do kindergartens work in summer?

It is more difficult with electricity – nothing is said about this in SanPiN. If the work of the kitchen and other departments is not disrupted due to a power outage, then the children can go to the garden or at least stay in it until the end of the working day.

If an accident occurs in a kindergarten, for example, the kitchen is flooded, then its work is suspended. Because the operation of the kitchen can lead to fires and other problems.

If an infectious disease is found in a child from kindergarten, then the group is closed for quarantine. In this case, everything depends on the diagnosis. With chickenpox, quarantine is announced in the group for two weeks: the children go to the garden, but every morning they are checked and watched so that there are no signs of illness.

What should parents do if the garden is closed

As a rule, if the kindergarten is closed for half a day or a day, then the organization can issue certified certificates to parents, which they can provide at work. If the garden cannot work for more than one working day, the manager collects lists of those who definitely need a duty group. Such children are distributed to other kindergartens, taking into account their location.

Playground in kindergarten according to SanPiN and GEF

What should caregivers do if the kindergarten is closed

Even if children do not go to the garden, teachers can continue to work if the head has not made a decision to close the garden. If such a decision is made, then teachers work at home. The order to close the institution should say what exactly teachers should do in order to work out the load. The money must be paid in full.

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Quarantine in kindergarten: concept and features

What is it? Quarantine in kindergarten is a last resort, which is taken in case of excessively frequent cases of illness. A similar mode can be activated for various reasons: influenza, SARS, acute respiratory infections, coronavirus, and so on.

How to enter? To declare a quarantine in a preschool educational institution, knowledge of the number of cases is not enough. The head of the institution must issue an order and announce his intention to employees and parents. And then the action plan depends on the disease that caused the temporary closure of the kindergarten.

Contents:

1. What is quarantine in kindergarten
2. Algorithm for introducing quarantine in kindergarten
3. Transfer of children to another group during quarantine in kindergarten
4. What teachers should do during quarantine in kindergarten
5. Peculiarities of quarantine in kindergarten due to COVID-19
6. Frequently asked questions about quarantine in kindergarten

What is quarantine in kindergarten

Quarantine is an anti-epidemic measure, the main purpose of which is to prevent the spread of infectious diseases. These diseases include coronavirus infection, influenza, tuberculosis, scarlet fever, chicken pox, etc.

Quarantine measures can be announced on the territory of a city, region, and even a state. This extreme measure can be used in the event of a large-scale spread of infections that threaten the life and health of people. Quarantine is also introduced at the level of a single institution. In the season of rising incidence, we often hear that due to the increase in the number of people with influenza or SARS, a specific class, school or group of kindergarten is closed for quarantine.

In our country, there is a clear procedure for introducing quarantine. It regulates at what percentage of cases the organization should start implementing anti-epidemiological measures. Depending on the identified disease, the period for which quarantine will be declared and measures to prevent the spread of a dangerous infection are determined.

If within a week five children attending one group of the kindergarten are diagnosed with influenza or SARS, the medical worker of the preschool educational institution is obliged to report the situation to Rospotrebnadzor. The decision to introduce quarantine will be made if the number of sick people out of the total number of pupils exceeds 20%.

The minimum quarantine period is seven days. For such a time, the group is closed in case of revealed facts of influenza, SARS, AII. Quarantine for scarlet fever and diphtheria in kindergarten also lasts seven days.

With meningococcal infection, its duration is 10 days, with whooping cough – 14, poliomyelitis – 20. The quarantine period for chickenpox and measles in kindergarten is three weeks. The longest period a group can be closed for is 35 days. In this case, we are talking about viral hepatitis.

With the continued increase in the number of cases, the quarantine period may be extended. Information about this should be brought to the attention of parents in a timely manner.

Quarantine in kindergarten is introduced on the basis of the order of the head of the preschool educational organization. This local act should indicate the start and end dates of the anti-epidemiological measures, as well as those responsible for the implementation of sanitary and epidemiological measures.

When dangerous infections and the scale of their spread are detected, the decision to declare a quarantine may also come from the executive authorities and Rospotrebnadzor.

Algorithm for introducing quarantine in kindergarten

In accordance with the current norms of SanPiN 3.3686-21, during quarantine in kindergarten, each child is admitted to the group after an initial examination, which makes it possible to exclude the presence of signs of viral and respiratory diseases. The identified symptoms are recorded by the health worker of the preschool educational institution.

Attendance during this period is especially important. All information about the reasons for the absence of the pupil is clarified immediately and recorded in a special journal.

At the end of the work shift, the teacher provides the attendance report and information on the number of sick people to the head of the preschool educational institution. The head of the kindergarten compares the percentage of absentees due to illness with the standard and decides on the need to introduce sanitary and epidemiological measures.

When quarantine is introduced in certain groups in the kindergarten, the following procedure is observed:

1. The available data is immediately transferred to the PEI health worker.
2. Guided by the content of order No. 726n/740, the health worker sends a corresponding notice to the department of the Center for Hygiene and Epidemiology FBUZ, with subsequent transfer of data to Rospotrebnadzor.
3. Local authorities are informed about the situation .
4. The head of the preschool educational institution issues order to start quarantine.
5. Under the guidance of a medical worker, a program of anti-epidemic measures is being developed, the purpose of which is to minimize the risks of spreading the infection.
6. Educators inform parents about the reasons for the introduction of quarantine and its timing.

Any measures aimed at preventing the risks of the spread of infection in the preschool educational institution are carried out in strict accordance with the norms of Federal Law-52 dated 30. 03.1999 “On the sanitary and epidemiological well-being of the population.”

How long quarantine is introduced in kindergarten and how many days it will last depends on a number of factors. The deadlines are indicated in the order for the institution, which is drawn up by the head of the preschool educational institution, but with the continued spread of the infection, appropriate additions are made to the document, and the timing of the anti-epidemic measures is increased.

Transfer of children to another group during quarantine in kindergarten

In certain cases, healthy children from the quarantined group may be transferred to another children’s group. The head, together with the health worker, can make such a decision under the following circumstances: the child has not been in contact with sick children and has the appropriate vaccination. An important circumstance is the availability of free space in another group.

If the pupil did not visit the children’s group for seven or more days before the start of quarantine, you can raise the question of his transfer to another group. Otherwise, it is likely that the disease has not yet manifested itself. This means that the child can get sick and pose a threat to those with whom he will be in contact.

Contact children must be at home during the quarantine period. It is not worth enrolling them in private kindergartens, since in this case you risk not only the health of your child, but also the health of other children.

What teachers should do during quarantine in kindergarten

After the group is closed, not only children, but also teachers are quarantined in the kindergarten. It is impossible to involve teachers who worked in a closed group in activities with other children, so they are forced to do things that exclude contact with pupils outside the quarantine group. First of all, this is general cleaning, which is carried out on the first and last day of quarantine, the processing of toys, furniture and teaching aids.

If quarantine is declared for SARS, then these employees are not forbidden to appear in other kindergarten premises, but their contacts with people are strictly regulated. Quarantined teachers can leave the group only in a medical mask, replaceable shoes and a light-colored coat. They are not allowed to communicate with other employees.

Regular monitoring of their health should be carried out by a PEI health worker.

Being at the workplace during the quarantine period, educators also maintain current documentation, fill out health sheets, draw up work plans for the coming period, and, if necessary, remotely interact with parents on the organization of the educational process.

Admission of children to the group after the end of quarantine is carried out with a certificate of health. For sick children, the certificate also contains information about the exemption from physical education. Sometimes they indicate the terms of the medical withdrawal from preventive vaccinations.

Features of quarantine in kindergarten due to COVID-19

Coronavirus infection spreading in a preschool institution is also the basis for quarantine. The procedure for its introduction is standard, but at the same time, one sick person is enough to start an anti-epidemic measure. Quarantine periods are longer. The minimum number of days is 14, but most often it lasts longer – up to 30 days.

Detection of this viral infection in a kindergarten can lead to the closure of the entire kindergarten. This situation is possible if the sick pupil was present at the event, where there were children from other groups. If there were no such contacts, quarantine is introduced only in the children’s group that he attended, and will apply to educators working with this group.

Some employees are in contact with a large number of preschool children. Classes with children from different groups are conducted by physical education teachers, music workers, speech therapists, etc. If a coronavirus infection is detected in one of them or in food service workers, the entire kindergarten will be quarantined.

If there are cases in the families of pupils, children are also sent to quarantine. The groups they attended are not closed.

Frequently Asked Questions about Quarantine in Kindergarten

1. Are kindergarten employees required to warn parents about quarantine?

On the day of receiving official information about the diagnosis of a sick child, employees are required to inform parents about the disease in question and how long the quarantine in the kindergarten can last.

2. Can I bring my child to kindergarten after the start of quarantine?

If a child attended kindergarten before the quarantine was declared, which means that he was in contact with a sick child, you can take him to kindergarten.

If the child was not in the kindergarten on the day the carrier of the infection was detected, they have the right to refuse to visit this children’s group, transferring him to another group for a while.

Sometimes parents of children who have not been vaccinated are denied access to daycare because of the increased risk of infection. A typical situation is when an unvaccinated child is in a group with those who were vaccinated with a “live” polio vaccine. In order to avoid illness, such a child is taken out of the kindergarten for 90 days.

It is impossible to call such a decision of the kindergarten administration legal. Under the circumstances, the vaccinated and unvaccinated child should simply be temporarily separated into different children’s groups.

3. Is it allowed to unite groups if a large number of children are absent due to illness?

Such an association is prohibited, since even in the absence of 20% of the children in the group, any contact with other children is excluded.

4. What does the list of restrictions look like for a quarantined group?

If the group is closed for quarantine, pupils must not:

• participate in public events;
• stay in the territory of quarantined groups;
• to attend sports and music halls.

Control over compliance with the sanitary regime during this period is tightened:

• wet cleaning is carried out twice during the day;
• daily quartzing is provided;
• toys and utensils are treated with a disinfectant solution;
• the ventilation frequency is increased.

Vaccination activities are canceled in this case.

5. Do the parents of a healthy child have the right to issue a sick leave to care for him for the period until the children are admitted to kindergarten?

If the child is healthy and has not been in contact with carriers of the infection, he may be given a place in another group. If this option is not possible, parents of children under the age of seven are entitled to sick leave during quarantine in kindergarten.

The basis for issuing a temporary disability certificate is Federal Law No. 255 of December 29, 2006.

6. Is it possible to go with a child who does not have symptoms of the disease to entertainment centers, theaters, shops if quarantine is declared in the kindergarten?

Of course, such walks are highly undesirable.