As Connecticut reopens and parents return to work, the state is facing a critical shortage of child care

Connecticut faces a looming shortage of more than 20,000 child care slots this fall as parents return to work and many providers have closed, while those that remain open have strict social distancing rules due to the coronoavirus pandemic.

“Unlike other businesses, if child care centers don’t reopen, it will be hard for some people to go back to their jobs,” said Beth Bye, commissioner of the Connecticut Office of Early Childhood.

With child care centers only able to serve half as many kids as they did before the pandemic, even the ones that do reopen with waiting lists are going to have a hard time making ends meet, Bye and early child care providers say.

Less than 15 percent of the child care facilities that were licensed and open before the pandemic are available now. While some are planning to reopen this summer, they will do so with far fewer children per teacher because of public health guidelines limiting 10 children per class or teacher.

“We are starting to see an uptick in the number of parents interested in bringing their children back because they are going back to work,” said Tracey Madden-Hennessey, the executive director of the New Britain YWCA. “But we can’t survive on a handful of parents coming back.”

Madden-Hennessy said they normally have spots for 350 children, but right now will only be approved for about 120 kids.

They are hoping to turn to some empty space at the YWCA into classrooms so they can expand their capacity. She said the New Britain school system has already called about any availability of pre-school and after school programs, but she may not be able to help them.

Unlike most child care providers, the New Britain YWCA has remained open throughout the pandemic to assist first responders and hospital workers who need child care while they work. She said they have averaged about 15 kids a week since the pandemic hit, and that has increased to about 40 children as some people have started going back to work.

The YWCA has received state funding to remain open, but that will expire as of June 30, Madden-Hennessy said.

Bye has scheduled a teleconference call Monday with all state-funded child care centers to discuss how the state will reimburse them starting on July 1. The state has paid state-funded centers for children they had enrolled since March when the pandemic began. Bye said this group represents only about 29 percent of the child care providers in the state.

“Many health protocols have been put in place to support the public health for child care programs that have been open during COVID-19. [The Office of Early Childhood] recognizes that these protocols come at a significant cost to programs,” Bye wrote in a letter to the group.

Bye said they are proposing a plan that will recognize the added costs of operating under the new guidelines. It will include paying the programs per the number of slots they had available before the coronavirus struck, rather than for what they will be allowed to serve under the new regulations.

Still, Bye said it’s still unclear how great the demand will be.

“Are parents going to be comfortable sending their kids back to pre-school or after school programs?” Bye said. “Are some people working from home or maybe working at all.”

Without new federal funding, Bye said many providers won’t be able to open. “It is a crisis,” she said.

A bill recently proposed by New Haven Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro would create a $50 billion fund to assist child care providers across the country. DeLauro, chair of the House subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies, is co-sponsoring the “Child Care is Essential Act,” which will create a $50 billionChild Care Stabilization Fund.

“The workers and small business owners that care for our children while we work desperately need the federal government’s help,” DeLauro said in a press release announcing the legislation. “The COVID-19 pandemic has our nation on the precipice of an economic catastrophe the likes of which we have never seen, and child care providers are facing financial ruin.”

Merrill Gay, executive director of the CT Early Childhood Alliance, said the state’s portion of that would be at least $330 million.

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“Everyone is asking how can I make ends meet if they have to operate at half capacity and still have full staff to ensure that everything is kept clean,” Gay said. “People are going to try and reopen, but they will slowly wilt unless they jack up tuition or figure out how to expand capacity by adding space.”

Several child care providers said they also are unsure if they will lose staff. Some said older workers who have been with them for years are already indicating they likely won’t return to work post-pandemic.

It’s also unclear how many parents will choose to continue to work from home or who will decide not to risk child care outside of their own home. Bye said a recent study in Connecticut showed about 65 percent of the parents surveyed would be uncomfortable or simply wouldn’t send their child to pre-school or after school care now.

Gay also said it is unclear how many child care providers will reopen.

“Most are saying, ‘How do we do it?’ and plan to reopen, but there will be some who won’t reopen at all because of financial issues,” Gay said.

The Knight Hall School in West Hartford has been closed since March and is planning to reopen on July 6, according to director Martha Wiley.

Wiley said she expects to lose at least 15 of the school’s 56 child care slots because of social distancing regulations. Fewer students won’t necessarily mean fewer employees, she said.

“One teacher has 10 kids, but then one of those kids needs to go to the bathroom and you need to wipe everything down when they are finished, or the kids are on the playground and everything needs to be cleaned immediately when they are done.”

Wiley said her phone has been ringing off the hook with calls from parents worried about child care.

“I probably get two or three calls a day from people now asking about availability, but right now we aren’t even touching our own waiting list,” Wiley said. “We may have to decide to tell which of our parents who have already been with us that we don’t have the room anymore.”

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