Child care service essential if economy to open, advocates say

Half the available centers closed during covid-19 crisis, state figures show

Serena Perry (right), a lead teacher at Butterflies & Frogs Childcare and Preschool, helps Annie Mendoza-Guadian, 6, on her alternative method of instruction school work Tuesday at the Fayetteville center. Many of the center's students are children of front-line responders such as health care workers and children staying there is down by two-thirds, co-owner Greg Houser said Monday. Go to nwaonline.com/200506Daily/ and nwadg.com/photos for a photo gallery. (NWA Democrat-Gazette/David Gottschalk)
Serena Perry (right), a lead teacher at Butterflies & Frogs Childcare and Preschool, helps Annie Mendoza-Guadian, 6, on her alternative method of instruction school work Tuesday at the Fayetteville center. Many of the center's students are children of front-line responders such as health care workers and children staying there is down by two-thirds, co-owner Greg Houser said Monday. Go to nwaonline.com/200506Daily/ and nwadg.com/photos for a photo gallery. (NWA Democrat-Gazette/David Gottschalk)

Half the state's child care providers and all of its public schools remained closed Wednesday as government and private business seek to revive the economy during the ongoing covid-19 pandemic, state figures show.

Child care providers still open are running at far less than their usual capacity, according to those interviewed.

"We received emails and other complaints about centers staying open and had to explain that health care workers and first-responders had to have somewhere safe to take care of their kids," said Tonya Williams, director of the division of Child Care and Early Childhood Education at the state Department of Human Services. "They could not do their jobs without that."

No child under professional child care nor any providers working in the field have reported ill with covid-19 so far, Williams said. The state normally has about 2,000 licensed child care centers open at one time with a capacity of 171,000 children.

On Wednesday morning, she said, the state had about 1,081 centers open with fewer than 90,000 kids.

The pandemic's effects on child care is statewide, Williams said.

"This is unprecedented," she said. "We've had health emergencies before, but they only affected one location or region. It was random. This is very different."

The Human Services Department follows the lead of the state Department of Health on dealing with disease outbreaks. Whatever the Health Department says do, the Human Services Department does in those situations, she said. Directives include masks for staff and social distancing. Also, strong rules about keeping clean and regularly disinfecting were already in place in the normal course of business, she said. The crisis has powerfully reinforced the need for those rules, she said.

Child Care Aware of NWA is a nonprofit group supporting and advocating for child care facilities in Benton, Washington and Madison counties. Carolene Thornton, the group's director, said she wonders how many centers in the region will weather the pandemic.

Williams said she expects most centers statewide will recover, saying only one center has notified her department it will be closing. That one is in north-central Arkansas and was considering closing before the pandemic hit, she said.

Many parents in Northwest Arkansas were already struggling to afford child care with their low incomes during prosperous times, Thornton said. Even if no centers go out of business, the pandemic won't improve a tight supply situation.

"More child care, particularly for infants and toddlers, was desperately needed before this pandemic hit," Thornton said.

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The easing of restrictions put in place to slow the spread of the coronavirus in Arkansas continues. Hair, nail, massage and tattoo salons were allowed to open Wednesday. On Tuesday, Gov. Asa Hutchinson lifted his ban on out-of-state recreational travelers staying in Arkansas hotels and overnight in state parks. Restaurants, on a limited basis, will be allowed to offer on-site dining Monday.

"I had one dad who called who's a single parent," Thornton said. "He has one child who's 3 and another who's almost 2. He's at a loss. He is being told he has to go back to work and the child care he was using is closed. He told me he can't afford to lose his job.

"Child care has never had a high profit margin," Thornton said. The ones still open face both reduced enrollment and higher operating expenses.

"The ones open are desperate for cleaning materials," she said.

Williams agreed, saying finding a supply has become a challenge across the state.

Another factor particular to Northwest Arkansas is the high number of transplants, Thornton said. Young parents who moved here for economic opportunity moved away from parents and other family members who might help care for children.

Workforce is another issue. Child care workers tend to be either younger or older, and older workers will be reluctant to return to the field as long as the coronavirus persists, Thornton said.

In addition, there are requirements for federal programs with no allowance for pandemics. For instance, there are assistance programs requiring a care center to take in a certain percentage of their enrollment from low-income families. If the adults of low-income families aren't working, they have no reason to take their children to day care.

"Low income means high risk in this economy," Thornton said.

Fayetteville's Butterflies & Frogs child care operates at two-thirds its normal capacity, said operator Greg Houser. He and his wife, Debra, told clients to stay home if at all possible, he said. The children remaining are mostly those of emergency response and health care workers, he said.

"Before we got the federal dollars, I had to ask people on the payroll if they could wait a couple of days before I could write them a check," said Houser. He was fortunate to get a no-interest, forgivable loan from the federal Paycheck Protection Program, he said, but getting the assistance took several weeks.

The Fayetteville location of Butterflies & Frogs employs a number of students from the University of Arkansas. They left when the university closed its campus, making many of the decisions of who had to stop coming in to work for him and allowing other members of the staff to work more hours for pay, Houser said.

"Between the business grants and the PPP, I'm sure we can sustain things for the next 60 to 90 days," Houser said. "After that, I don't know. We don't know what life is going to look like."

"The thing that's equally scary to me is, what will life look like after this is over?" Houser said.

Parents using his child care may not be employed after this pandemic. Even those employed may face choices about economizing they never considered before.

"My barber is my friend, but I just cut two of my boys' hair and saved $30 or $40. Are people going to start making those kinds of decisions after this is over?" he asked.

Nancy Branch, owner of Nana's Care in Little Rock, said she lost nearly one-third of her clients at the start of covid-19 pandemic. She has managed to remain in business while incrementally recouping some of her losses through new applicants. She credits a strong word-of-mouth and a clientele with the financial and employment flexibility to keep their children in daycare as the main reasons she's stayed afloat.

"I lost some of the babies due to the parents' fears or what have you," she said. "Overall, we've been OK. Thank the Lord, we've been OK."

Branch said the prospect of a return to normalcy always remained in sight. Hutchinson, she said, kept making "proclamations" about opening the economy. That gave her and others in her business hope, she said.

That also meant some of the parents who pulled their children out of her daycare vowed to come back. A few already have, she said.

Branch said her day care can operate with a maximum of 51 children. As of Wednesday, Nana's Care had 40 children to look after.

Doug Thompson can be reached by email at [email protected] or on Twitter @NWADoug.

photo

Grayson Smith, 2, works his way Tuesday through a puzzle at Butterflies & Frogs Childcare and Preschool in Fayetteville. Many of its students are children of front-line responders such as health care workers, and children staying there is down by two-thirds, co-owner Greg Houser said Monday. Go to nwaonline.com/200506Daily/ and nwadg.com/photos for a photo gallery. (NWA Democrat-Gazette/David Gottschalk)

Open centers

National Child Care Provider Day is Friday. The event is held each year on the day before Mothers Day. Child care centers still open during the pandemic are listed each day by the state Department of Human Services at: https://humanservic…">https://humanservic….

NW News on 05/07/2020

The story has been updated to correct the number of centers open and who wears masks in the centers.

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