ANN ARBOR, MI - Parents, child care centers, a school board member and a city council member are among those in search of solutions to the before- and after-school care dilemma facing Ann Arbor families this fall.
The collaboration organized by Ann Arbor parent Liz Lin includes a wide range of parents, in addition to Ann Arbor City Council Member Linh Song, Ann Arbor School Board Trustee Krystle DuPree and directors of 15 area child care centers.
This cross-section of community stakeholders is starting its work by surveying Ann Arbor families to determine how many of them have been impacted by Ann Arbor Public Schools’ decision to discontinue its traditional school-aged child care program.
The group wants to determine current space availability for before- and after-school child care and what is needed to potentially operate it out of AAPS buildings, should the district make those spaces available.
“In order to know how hard we have to hustle for space and transportation, we need to know how many kids actually need care, so that’s one of the primary objectives of the survey,” Lin said. “The other is to identify families who are low-income and who might not have other options financially for before and after care.”
AAPS’ announced it was discontinuing before- and after-school care for the coming year on May 12. Since then, it has retooled its programming for some students at five locations through its Rec & Ed department, with the goal of expanding to other locations depending on staffing.
Superintendent Jeanice Swift and district administrators are working with the school board to explore best solutions, AAPS General Counsel David Comsa said. Job openings for before- and after-school care positions have been posted online.
“This important work is ongoing and includes, but is not limited to, hiring additional before- and after-school workers and building our after-school enrichment programs,” Comsa said.
Lin acknowledges that AAPS offering about 180 spots for before- and after-school care is a “step in the right direction.” But she noted it’s still a “drop in the bucket” from the approximate 1,300 children who relied on the district for before- and after-school care in years past.
While space and transportation are major hurdles for local child care providers, Lin said staffing also is an issue, making finding innovative solutions essential.
“We’re all aware of the child care worker shortage that the pandemic has brought about, but it seems like the child care centers are much more open to things like hiring part-time staff and utilizing college students who will be on campus from UM from EMU,” Lin said. “I know that Community Day Care’s model of before and care at Burns Park and Lawton (elementary schools has been) fully-staffed by college students. They seem to be open to recruiting a wider range of people than the district seems to.”
Finding qualified staff, including college students, is easier said than done, Apple Playschools Executive Director Etta Heisler said, noting that college students are often less reliable based on their schedules and the time needed for necessary training.
“I want to make sure that the staff that I’m hiring into my program, who are amazing, passionate, dedicated knowledgeable care providers can do this as their profession, and their professional calling, and that they don’t have to go and work in a grocery store or work in retail, in a soul sucking job, where their talents and value is not being realized because they can’t afford to work in a center or in an after-school program, or they can’t afford after-school care themselves,” Heisler said.
“If it takes a village to raise a child, it takes a whole community to raise a school”
The shortage of child care workers and options for parents to receive before- and after-school care predates the pandemic and AAPS’ decision to discontinue its traditional programming, Heisler said.
Heisler’s understanding of parents’ needs is thorough, from her past teaching in summer camps, religious schools, preschools and afterschool programs, to her involvement as a past director of programs for the Leslie Science & Nature Center and the Ann Arbor Hands-On Museum.
As a child, she benefitted from before- and after-school care at Eberwhite Elementary School, with the child care providers there often being the only adults she saw every day.
“I have a personal stake in this because I don’t think I would have become the person I am if I didn’t have access to that support and that care if my family didn’t have access to affordable care,” Heisler said.
Heisler isn’t placing blame on AAPS’ for its decision to discontinue its traditional program.
“What we are finding is that the scarcity of affordable care that existed before the pandemic has exacerbated this tension and is making it even harder for private child care providers to keep care affordable for families while ensuring that our staff are compensated appropriately for the essential, skilled care that they provide,” Heisler said. “This is pushing many families out of care, and in time, forcing them out of the work force. Especially women, and women of color at the highest rates.”
Heisler operates three centers. Reduced enrollment due to COVID-19 protocols and finding available space are the biggest obstacles she faces in potentially expanding Apple Playschools’ offerings to include before- and after-school care.
That makes on-site school building locations - like Lawton, Burns Park and King elementary schools - ideal for offering before- and after-care, Heisler said, because it eliminates the transportation issue.
“I don’t have the capacity right now at my schools and I need to find a place to do it,” she said. “If it’s not at the school, then it means I have to figure out: How are kids getting there and how are families getting there, especially families who don’t have access to reliable transportation?”
While time is limited to come up with solutions, Heisler said she and child care providers across Washtenaw County see themselves as partners with public and private schools in doing the shared work of raising children in the community.
“We’re all trying to do this work together and I think this is a moment where people in our community - whether they have children or not - have the opportunity to get involved in helping make sure that we can rise to meet this need and that it doesn’t set us back,” she said.
‘This is something that affects us all’
AAPS has advertised that its Rec & Ed department is seeking to build more enrichment programs for children in young fives through fifth grade in the coming school year, because they are focused on curricular topics and not subject to state licensing as child care programs are.
The department is seeking information from people, organizations and businesses that may have the capacity for providing an after-school enrichment class or program.
Her intention as an AAPS board trustee, DuPree said, isn’t to overreach. She said she believes it’s important to seek solutions to the before- and after-school care issue by engaging with the community and involving as many stakeholders as possible.
She said she wants clarification from the district about how and whether it can provide space to private child care providers within AAPS buildings, and determine the safest and most equitable way it can potentially be done.
“Ultimately, this is something that affects us all: It affects working parents, it affects those who are single parents, it disproportionately affects women who are working - particularly Black women and other women of color,” DuPree said. “So, to me it was kind of a no-brainer, just try to figure out what we can do to best service folks.”
While her children have aged out of needing before- and after-school care, Song, D-2nd Ward, recognizes the need many working parents have for it.
Parents in her ward and across Ann Arbor have expressed their desperation to find affordable solutions for the fall, Song said, noting that many women already have been faced with deciding between their jobs and looking after their children during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“People are really desperate for infant care, for school-aged care and not everyone can afford a nanny,” she said.
“This is outside of anything that I can control on City Council, but it’s definitely a concern that a lot of ward residents have raised as they shared that their unemployment benefits will be ending this fall. It’s mostly really the women who have said, ‘I’ve provided childcare throughout the pandemic during virtual school, I don’t know if I can search for a job that would give me the flexibility (in the fall).’”
If AAPS is unable to recruit child care staff, Song said it’s important she and other community stakeholders treat the before- and after-school care shortage as a workforce issue.
She’s reached out to fellow officials like DuPree, Washtenaw County Commissioner Andy LaBarre and State Sen. Jeff Irwin, D-Ann Arbor, to determine what can be done to help private providers recruit people into the workforce and how federal relief money could focus on the child care issue.
“Even in our conversations with local providers, they’ve said there’s been a waitlist for this program for years now,” Song said. “Given these conditions of recovery after the pandemic, that waitlist is likely larger than what it was before the pandemic. It’s hard to know, so the survey is really just an attempt locally to figure out how many children need care. And once we can get our arms around that number, I think we can help find a solution to this problem, or at least start.”
READ MORE:
Before, after school programming coming to 5 Ann Arbor locations
As demand grows, Washtenaw County child care providers seek more staff
Parent petition asks Ann Arbor Public Schools to reinstate school-aged child care
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