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WEDNESDAY, JUNE 22, 2022
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APPEAL TRIBUNE
Aja and David Holland with their two children, Finn and Amelia. SPECIAL TO THE STATESMAN JOURNAL
Child care
Continued from Page 1A
And while the issue is being felt
across the nation, families living in
childcare deserts like the Mid-Willam-
ette Valley, which already had insuffi-
cient options before COVID-19, are par-
ticularly feeling the pinch.
A sizeable portion of the state is con-
sidered a “child care desert” — meaning
there are more children younger than 5
needing care than spots available — and
all of Oregon’s 36 counties qualify as
child care deserts for infants and tod-
dlers.
The state requirement that licensed
daycare facilities have a low staff-to-
child ratio for infants and toddlers
means many childcare providers don’t
serve younger children.
Marion County, as an “extreme des-
ert,” has one child care slot for every 10
children younger than 2.
Experts predict the crisis will impact
households for years to come through
lost wages, financial instability and
abandoned careers if more isn’t done to
assist both families and providers.
Problem most
impacts working moms
Experts said the problem existed be-
fore the pandemic and has only wors-
ened.
Faced with low profit margins, a dis-
appearing workforce and costs associ-
ated with COVID-19 closures and ex-
panded health measures, many centers
and in-home providers have closed for
good.
A report from the Oregon State Legis-
lature found a 20% loss in Oregon’s
childcare capacity during the pandemic.
“We believe we lost 6,500 slots
across the state,” Alyssa Chatterjee, di-
rector of Oregon’s Early Learning Divi-
sion, said.
The loss was evenly spread across fa-
cilities but was slightly higher for small-
er, home-based daycares, which were
already seeing a nationwide decline be-
fore the pandemic. Those childcare fa-
cilities tend to be more affordable and
help fill the overwhelming shortage of
available slots.
“It’ll take some pretty significant in-
vestment in order to not only just re-
coup what we’ve lost but to continue to
grow since it wasn’t sufficient before,”
Chatterjee said.
The lack of affordable, high-quality
childcare options disproportionately
harms working mothers, especially low-
and middle-income mothers and moth-
ers of color, according to the Brookings
Institution, a national public policy re-
search nonprofit.
Average childcare costs in every state
exceed the federal definition of afforda-
bility — 7% of household income.
A 2020 Oregon Child Care Market
Price Study found the average monthly
cost of infant and toddler care at a cen-
ter was more than $1,500 per child.
LeiLani Fidler, of Salem, said high
childcare costs led her family to make
the decision to take a new job so she
could work from home.
“Just one child out of diapers was
more than our mortgage,” she said.
Her 5-year-old started kindergarten
but her 3-year-old is home with her all
day.
Although the arrangement saves
money, she said it’s extremely hard to
work and be a mom at the same time.
“There is guilt both on the mom side
and the employee side,” she said. “I of-
ten have to tell my daughter to wait or
hold on because I’m working. And on
the flip side, I sometimes don’t feel I can
work to my fullest potential because of
Children play at the East Lancaster Community Center in Salem on March 30,
2020. The program, usually for pre-school aged children, has extended their age
range up to 12 years old. MADELEINE COOK / STATESMAN JOURNAL
the interruptions.”
She often finds herself working all
day and then again after her kids go to
bed.
Even those with a coveted childcare
spot over the past two years have faced
unexpected closures due to a lack of
staffing or COVID-19 outbreaks.
According to a U.S. Census Bureau
survey conducted during one of the cor-
onavirus surges, more than half of Ore-
gon households with children younger
than 5 were left without child care in
that month.
Those left without care are forced to
take time off work, scramble to find al-
ternate care or juggle working from
home with young children.
And the burden is falling mostly on
women, both at home and in childcare
facilities.
Sarah Shadrick, a single mother to a
1- and 3-year-old, grew up in the Mid-
Valley and thought she would be able to
find child care once she moved back. It
didn’t turn out to be so easy.
“My daughter got accepted into a
preschool in September and my son is
on their waitlist which will likely take
until he is 3,” she said.
The only daycares she found with im-
mediate availability had various red
flags, like dirty facilities or records of
abuse allegations.
An online database of licensed child-
care facilities and records of inspections
and complaints are available online at
oregonearlylearning.com/parents-
vwfamilies/find-child-care-programs.
With few options, she resorted to
working from home with both her chil-
dren.
Before Nicole Zauner moved to Sa-
lem, she got on waitlists at a Montessori
school for her 3- and 5-year-olds last
October. They were only recently of-
fered spots opening up next September.
“Luckily, we were able to push the
move later than originally planned, in
large part due to lack of child care,” she
said.
They plan on hiring a nanny over the
summer to tide them over until Septem-
ber.
“I am moving from somewhere where
it is extremely difficult to find child care
and was hoping it would be easier in Sa-
lem, but it seems to be a much more
widespread problem than I had real-
ized,” Zauner said.
Business owners and industry lead-
ers are also feeling the impact as their
employees scramble to find care.
Several business owners advocated
for the state to pass legislation giving
more assistance and funding to parents
and providers.
“As businesses and work schedules
start to get back to the new normal and
those parents are required to come onto
worksites again, the need to find care
will increase dramatically,” Sheila Mur-
ty said in testimony to the Legislature
this February on behalf of the Tillamook
County Creamery Association. “In order
to satisfy our commitments to fulfilled
employees and enriched communities,
we need help finding both short and
long-term solutions to the lack of child
care supply.”
An industry in crisis
Parents aren’t the only ones strug-
gling.
Child care providers struggle with
low wages and burnout.
Daycare and preschool owners report
high turnover, with some even closing —
both temporarily and permanently —
due to staffing issues.
“Pre-COVID, our workforce had
about a 30% turnover rate,” Chatterjee
said. “Our estimates are that is slightly
higher with the pandemic. We saw folks
leaving for jobs with Target and Star-
bucks, where they can make more mon-
ey or get access to benefits and supports
that the private childcare sector can’t
offer.”
Typically, these workers are not like-
ly to return to early care and education
unless something significant shifts, she
added.
A survey of caregivers by the
RAPID-EC, a research project conduct-
ed by the University of Oregon on the
pandemic’s impact on early childhood
development, found that 59% of child-
care employers nationwide were experi-
encing staffing shortages.
The vast majority reported feeling
more stressed and burned out due to the
shortages.
Christy O’Neill worked as a teacher
and substitute childcare provider before
the pandemic. The shutdown in 2020
led the daycare facility where she
worked to close permanently.
“(The initial shutdown) affected pro-
viders all across the state,” she said.
“Some of them rose to the occasion and
made big sacrifices to make alterations
to their homes and absorb the cost. Oth-
ers just weren’t able to implement them
... maintaining those safety regulations
is important but also very costly.”
Pandemic precautions meant many
childcare providers had to reduce ca-
pacity, maintain completely separate
classrooms and go through a litany of
health, safety and sanitation checks.
O’Neill now works as a Head Start
teacher in Medford and is an elected of-
ficer with Oregon AFSCME Council 75,
the union that represents more than
33,000 workers, including many in the
childcare industry.
She said staff turnover is a prominent
issue in child care, which she attributed
to low wages and a lack of respect for
early childhood educators.
Pay can vary by location and type of
facility, but many positions start near
minimum wage.
“We’re in a place now where provid-
ers are not earning a living wage to cover
even their own livelihood, let alone hav-
ing staff that are also available to help
enrich children’s experiences,” she said.
Employers are stuck with the dueling
problems of losing staff to low wages or
charging families more — a tough place
when many already struggle to afford
care.
O’Neill said there is a huge shortage
in infant care, culturally responsive care
— staff able to understand and accom-
modate those raised in other cultures
and languages or with special needs —
and accessible care in rural areas.
O’Neill also said she feels a lot of peo-
ple do not respect the work that teach-
ers and providers do and see them in-
stead as low-skill babysitters.
“Folks in a provider-type position are
unnoticed for their efforts and impor-
tant work that they do,” she said. “If we
start identifying childcare providers as
professionals that are in this field and
dedicated to their work, I think that we
could see a lot of growth.”
Chatterjee echoed concerns about
the lack of respect many in the industry
receive.
“We have not treated this like a pro-
fessional workforce, which is evident by
the wages that these providers are paid,”
she said.
And, she said, the low pay continues
despite research repeatedly showing
the critical impact of quality, consistent
care in early childhood.
Working toward solutions
The burden of low wages and high
turnover in the industry disproportion-
ately impacts women and people of col-
or.
To remedy this inequity, Chatterjee
said, the Early Learning Division is ex-
panding publically funded programs
like Head Start using $68 million from
the Oregon State Legislature. They are
also helping facilitate the distribution of
hundreds of millions of dollars from the
American Rescue Plan to providers.
And a nearly $100 million childcare
package passed by the Oregon Legisla-
ture this year will include issuing two
$500 recruitment and retention bonus-
es for all childcare employees through
Portland State University’s Oregon Cen-
ter for Career Development in Child-
hood Care and Education.
But Chatterjee said more local, feder-
al and state investment is needed to
solve the problem of unaffordability and
scarcity.
“Child care is an industry built on the
backs of parents and families and built
on the backs of women,” she said. “Over
70% of the cost of child care is shoul-
dered by families. We are well exceeding
the best practice of 7% of a family’s in-
come going to childcare.”
Educators are already reporting that
kids are struggling emotionally and de-
velopmentally due to the disruptions in
schooling and child care, she added.
Chatterjee said until these challenges
are addressed, families and providers
will continue to struggle.
“It’s a key economic and workforce
support,” Chatterjee said. “We know
families can’t get back to work if they
don’t have a safe place to take their
child.”
For questions, comments and news
tips, email reporter Whitney Wood-
worth at wmwoodworth@statesman
journal.com, call 503-910-6616 or follow
on Twitter @wmwoodworth