WAUNAKEE - Michelle Seay has always been a firm believer that if you want to solve a problem or get something done, ask a child care provider.
"We don't have time to mess around," Seay said. She's provided Montessori early childhood care and education to children ages 3 and younger out of her Waunakee home for nearly 15 years. "We meet stuff head on, find the answer, fix it and move on. We make things work, no matter what. It's just what we do."
But as the pandemic wears on, Seay's not sure how the child care industry will be able to overcome the current crisis point it's in, or stop the ripple effect that may have on families, the economy and society as a whole.
About four out of every 10 Wisconsin child care providers were closed as of mid-May, and an equal number expressed uncertainty they could remain financially viable as the pandemic continued, according to a Wisconsin Policy Forum report released earlier this month that warns the state's day care network may not be viable to support the reopening of schools and businesses.
After Seay and her son contracted what she believes was COVID-19, she was forced to shut down her center for nearly four months and racked up $15,000 in medical bills.
Earlier this month, she reopened. But because she's terrified of getting sick again, she decided to take only one of her families back — even if it means her business will be running at a deficit for the time being.
"I feel fortunate to be able to reopen in any capacity, even if it's at a financial loss. I just hope the kids can look back on all the magical and fun things they did with me," Seay said. "Life's about doing our best with what we're given. Even in a pandemic we can make this an adventure for them."
"But I just can't help but think about how these last few months have just exacerbated an already broken system," she added. "Early childhood education in this country is broken, and it needs to be fixed."
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At the best of times, child care is expensive for both parents and providers, who face tight profit margins. According to a 2018 Center for American Progress study, the average Wisconsin family spends 30% of its income on child care — licensed or unlicensed — for two children.
If the median-income family paid for licensed, high-quality care, that would account for 58% of its income. That's why parents often seek lower-cost alternatives, trading quality assurance for affordability and forcing providers to lower rates to a point where they can just barely pay the bills.
In order for that to work, providers need to be operating at full capacity, said Ruth Schmidt, executive director of the Wisconsin Early Childhood Association. But that hasn't been possible for much of the pandemic, due to social distancing regulations and many parents simply choosing to stay home with their children.
Providers and early childhood advocates have long advocated for increased public investments in child care. Right now, Schmidt said, providers need relief more than ever.
Wisconsin received $51.6 million in federal block funding from the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act to support child care providers and ensure that adequate child care is available in the state. But as of June 29, the state Department of Children and Families had allocated 90% of those funds, according to the Policy Forum report, raising questions about whether enough money was set aside.
"The biggest question to me is what do we do now? That money is going to be depleted," Schmidt said. "Child care programs need some form of financial assistance. Parents have no more money to give them. They cannot pay for this care, and neither can providers."
Even for the lucky ones — around 60% of child care providers were able to stay open through the pandemic, according to the Policy Forum report — the last few months have been a challenging time.
While all public and private K-12 schools were ordered to close in March as part of an attempt to slow the spread of COVID-19, DCF encouraged child care facilities to remain open as long as they can.
They were given new rules to follow, however: While the Safer at Home order was in place, no more than 50 children and 10 staff members were allowed in one child care center at the same time. And day care centers were asked to prioritize care for families in two tiers, the top tier being for parents who work in health care, and the second for those who work in other "vital areas," like the military, long-term care, residential care, pharmacies and child care.
Those regulations ended when the state Supreme Court struck down the Safer at Home order in May. But the child care industry is still reeling from the impact of the pandemic.
Nicole Leiterman lived in fear in the weeks and months after schools closed down, worrying state officials would decide to also shut down all child care facilities. If that happened, the Kimberly in-home day care provider wasn't sure her business would ever reopen, or that her family could financially withstand that.
"I knew I had to stay open," Leiterman said. "We live paycheck to paycheck, so me closing down was just not an option."
She went from having seven children in her care to, at one point, just two. Now, Leiterman has five children enrolled in her program, but she worries about what's to come. If school opens in the fall, she'll likely be back down to two children, and that won't be enough to make a living on.
"It's hard," she said through tears.
Adding to the strain, Leiterman guesses she spends 20-25 hours extra every week cleaning since the pandemic began.
Community Child Care Center has been on the luckier end of things during the pandemic. The Kimberly child care center has remained open, and hasn't had to turn away any of the 75 children it typically cares for because it has two buildings on their property it can use for spacing, said director Karyn VanRyzin.
It instituted strict new policies for health and safety, like temperature checks at drop off, increased hand washing and cleaning and sanitizing, VanRyzin said, and luckily, no one — staff and children included — has gotten sick with COVID-19.
But while VanRyzin said the center has always followed health and safety policies like washing hands often, cleaning and sanitizing toys and other frequently touched surfaces, the significant increases during the pandemic have led to added costs, and supplies like cleaners and paper towels have become harder to come by because of store limits and national shortages.
Increased staffing, VanRyzin said, is also an increased cost, as the center has broken children up into smaller groups for social distancing, and it no longer combines children from different classrooms in the mornings and at night.
Community Child Care Center is lucky, too, because it's a nonprofit center and has gotten financial assistance from DCF, as well as a grant from the United Way Fox Cities and Community Foundation's COVID-19 Community Response Fund, to assist with the added costs of no-touch thermometers and cleaning supplies to keep the kids and staff safe.
But, VanRyzin said, those extra costs will likely mean less money ultimately being put into educational programming and other improvements they typically make every year.
"It's tight," she said. "Families might see some of the costs providers are facing as rate increases come about. But then, that's hard too, because our families can only afford so much."
Amy Nogar, who provides family child care from her Appleton home, has also been lucky. None of her children or family members have fallen ill, and grant support from DCF has been helpful.
But, Nogar still worries. What if there's another spike in COVID-19 cases again, and she ends up having to close? If she closes, will families find other care? Will she be able to reopen?
"That uncertainty is what makes this so hard," she said. "I don't know what's going to happen, so even though I have this nice chunk of money, I'm kind of afraid to spend it."
For Seay, taking a financial risk is the only decision that feels safe to her at this point.
After both Seay and her son were hospitalized with what she believes was COVID-19 in February and COVID-19 cases began to spike in early March, Seay officially shut down her in-home child care services March 11.
She didn't reopen until earlier this month, and even now she's only taken back a girl she was caring for before the pandemic and her older brother, who graduated from her program two years ago. While Seay normally only cares for children under the age of 3, she made an exception because she worries that she'd put the kids and her own family at risk if she took in children from different households.
In an interview earlier this month, just before she welcomed the children back to her home, Seay was excited. She loves being an early childhood teacher and caring for children more than anything, she said. She doesn't want to give it up, or do anything else for a living.
But she's scared.
"I'm obviously very excited to have kids back in the house, but it comes with a great deal of apprehension and anxiety," Seay said while crying. "You want them to have a sense of normalcy, to get a quality education when everything is weird right now, but I also want them to live."
Seay hopes the pandemic is, if nothing else, a turning point for the child care industry. She hopes more public money is dispersed to providers reopening like her and others who still don't feel comfortable risking their own and their family's health and safety to reopen.
If that's not possible, Seay thinks providers should receive hazard pay for putting their lives at risk by staying open and keeping the economy running.
Above all, she hopes society begins to recognize their importance in keeping the economy running and raising and educating the next generation. Seay has hope that someday early childhood could become part of the public education system.
"We work long hours, we have low pay and there's a huge lack of understanding of what we actually do. The truth is, the first three years of a child's life is a time of critical growth in the trajectory of a person's entire life," Seay said. "The fact that we've had such little respect and such a small amount of support from our country and the national government is absolutely frustrating to me, and I hope it changes soon."
Contact reporter Samantha West at 920-996-7207 or swest@gannett.com. Follow her on Twitter at @BySamanthaWest.
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