This content is being provided for free as a public service to our readers during the coronavirus outbreak. Please support our work on behalf of the community by subscribing to The St. Cloud Times.
ST. CLOUD — Chad Dunkley considered child care providers to be heroes even before the COVID-19 pandemic.
"We tell them they're heroes all the time," said Dunkley, CEO of New Horizon Academy, which has centers in St. Cloud and Sartell.
Many of those providers continue to show up and care for young children, a demographic whose members cannot all wash their own hands or stay 6 feet from others to reduce the spread of coronavirus.
Minnesota's K-12 schools have closed by order of Gov. Tim Walz. But the state still wants child care centers to operate.
"We're just taking one day at a time," said Charla Attarsaheli, co-owner and CEO of Love and Learn Childcare Academy in St. Cloud. "We have a very close contact with the families we have here, and we know our families have to work."
Child care facilities remain open because some parents need to keep going into work, especially those in health care.
RELATED: COVID-19 live updates: Here's the latest news in Central Minnesota
Leaders among Minnesota's day care providers regularly send out recommendations to keep kids and staff healthy and limit coronavirus spread. They're also working to get lawmakers to bolster child care, an industry that was already struggling before COVID-19 hit.
"We already had a massive shortage of child care before this happened," said Dunkley, who is also the president of the Minnesota Child Care Association. "Many providers are already in jeopardy. ... They've been hanging on by a financial thread."
RELATED: Minnesota's 'quiet crisis' in child care
Some facilities cannot afford to go dark, but that is not why the state is allowing them to stay open.
"Without each of you and your staff, many in Minnesota's workforce could not perform their day-to-day duties that are essential to keeping our communities safe and healthy, especially health care and emergency personnel during this peacetime emergency," states a Department of Human Services memo to child care providers released Sunday. "We need you and your staff to stay well and stay open to provide a safe and nurturing space for our children."
RELATED: Minnesota governor declares peacetime emergency
Some parents voluntarily pulled their children out of child care.
At Love and Learn Childcare Academy attendance dropped to 30 from the usual 70 children, Attarsaheli said Wednesday. Those families continue to pay for their spots at the center.
Extra precautions
Staff at Love and Learn Childcare Academy and other day cares are greeting kids at the door and keeping parents outside to reduce an influx of germs.
"These precautions continue to change by day," Dunkley said.
At New Horizon, precautions include spreading kids out to limit the number in a room, allowing only one group on the playground at a time and avoiding use of the great room, a shared space. The schools are asking parents to check their temperatures and their children's temperatures each day, and they've ordered new thermometers to allow for quick checks of parents, kids and staff, Dunkley said.
Many child care providers had children wash their hands frequently and cover their coughs before the outbreak, said Julie Seydel, a provider in Anoka County and the public policy director for the Minnesota Association of Child Care Professionals, which represents family child care providers.
Seydel keeps fewer toys out now, and she washes them a lot more frequently, she said Wednesday.
She takes care of 10 to 12 children and said it's important to maintain a sense of normalcy for them. It's tough to maintain her normal menus with some of the hoarding, Seydel said.
"It's a stressful time ... If adults are overstressed, that will impact children," she said. "Let calmer heads prevail."
The New Horizon schools are still "very calm," and teachers "feel pretty good," Dunkley said. But teachers uncomfortable with their potential exposure to the coronavirus or those with compromised immune systems can stay home.
Parents still sending their kids for care have been appreciative. He's heard from a heart surgeon who couldn't perform surgery without a safe place for their child.
Two parents who work in the correctional system told Dunkley: "We don't know what we'd do without you."
Some people are coming to see that child care providers are vitally important to the economy, Seydel said. "I wish that’s something that they knew a long time ago."
Policy help for child care
Before Walz declared a peacetime emergency last week, he proposed a supplemental budget that included funding for COVID-19 and natural disaster relief as well as money to address the child care shortage.
RELATED: In Little Falls Governor Walz touts child care spending, seeks solutions to shortage
Because the coronavirus continues to spread and impact all sectors, child care advocates want reassurances from the government.
Home day care providers are self-employed, sole proprietors of their businesses, so they can't apply for unemployment insurance, Seydel said.
When the state closed restaurants, it adjusted unemployment insurance to make those workers eligible sooner.
RELATED: Walz orders closure of bars, dining rooms amid coronavirus pandemic
"My fear is, as providers close because of the virus, we're going to have a lot of them that aren't going to re-open," Seydel said. "Our profit margin is pretty slim. And when you go from slim to none pretty fast it makes a big difference."
Love and Learn Childcare Academy had been doing well since it opened two and a half years ago, Attarsaheli said. But if the state decides it has to close, that will be a hard hit.
"If we're shut down, then nobody knows what's going to happen," she said.
That uncertainty pervades the child care industry and many others now.
But child care providers are fighting for recognition that if they're not in business, parents will not be able to go back to work.
"When we come out of this, this could be our number one emergency," Dunkley said. "How do we recreate the child care that we lost in this pandemic?"
Nora Hertel is the government watchdog reporter for the St. Cloud Times. Reach her at 320-255-8746 or nhertel@stcloudtimes.com. Follow her on Twitter @nghertel.
Support local journalism. Subscribe to sctimes.com today.
"care" - Google News
March 20, 2020 at 04:00AM
https://ift.tt/396PTkm
Minnesota child care centers stay open but struggle under stress of coronavirus - SC Times
"care" - Google News
https://ift.tt/2N6arSB
Shoes Man Tutorial
Pos News Update
Meme Update
Korean Entertainment News
Japan News Update
Bagikan Berita Ini
0 Response to "Minnesota child care centers stay open but struggle under stress of coronavirus - SC Times"
Post a Comment