Salmon child care closure highlights growing crisis

SALMON - The closure here of one of the community's oldest and most credentialed child care centers has added another layer of challenges for families with young children at a time when the area is low on providers and high on costs for those services.

Precious Cargo Early Learning Center, a well-respected and even beloved child-based facility run by Shanda Fitte closed in May amid challenges that included health issues and difficulty finding a reliable and sufficiently professional aide. Then came an offer to purchase the building west of downtown Salmon that Fitte and her family decided they couldn't refuse.

"It was hard," Fitte said of the decision. "I miss the teaching, I miss the kids."

Fitte said tears were shed during meetings with parents about the closure, which affected roughly 55 families the center served each year.

The community is still gauging the effects of the change, with Fitte's extensive training and lengthy list of qualifications to oversee and teach children making her hard to easily replace in rural Idaho towns such as Salmon.

Yet three child care centers have opened since Precious Cargo closed and three preschools - including one operated by Fitte at Redeemer Episcopal Church - are slated to open this fall, said Katie Hoffman, family and consumer sciences educator with the University of Idaho Extension in Lemhi County.

"It's amazing some of the startups that are trying to fill some of the gap," she said, adding that several of the new operations have faced challenges ranging from zoning to parking.

The developments in Salmon come at a time when the nation, as well as state and local communities, are at a crossroads when it comes to child care and preschool, said Beth Oppenheimer, head of the Idaho Association for the Education of Young Children.

For the most part, child care is provided by private businesses that get little public funding and which can have difficulty turning a profit, she said.

"Parents are paying all this money for child care and yet providers are, in essence, in very low wage jobs after you deduct costs for items like aides, overhead, materials, books and toys," Oppenheimer said.

And in an era when annual costs in Idaho for child care range from $6,000 to $14,000, fewer professionals are entering the field in a state that has 24 accredited programs and where families would struggle to pay more and providers to take less, she said.

To qualify for a child care subsidy in Idaho, a family of four would make up to $32,000 a year, Oppenheimer added.

"If the family of four made $34,000, no subsidy ? which, on its face, doesn't cover the full cost of child care," she said.

In Boise and elsewhere in Idaho, a significant segment of employers cite child care as their number one challenge. A combination of public and private support is needed to ease the financial and other strains that families, businesses and whole communities face when dealing with a top priority: the care of children, Oppenheimer said.

The University of Idaho Extension's Hoffman said the Salmon area in the past has staged an early education summit and perhaps is due for a repeat performance.

"It would be a great opportunity to re-evaluate community need," she said.