How Daycares are Managing With COVID-19

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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. Parents, grandparents, we don't have to tell you that one of the biggest challenges in this year of the pandemic has been childcare inside and outside the home. Many daycare centers and preschools are struggling to stay afloat financially as the pandemic has forced them to cut enrollment, increase their costs on safety protocols, and even in some cases, shut down temporarily when cases spike. What does that mean for the working families who rely on their care and what happens if these daycare centers don't survive the financial stress being caused by the pandemic? Anna Sale, host of the WNYC Studios podcast, Death, Sex & Money, recently covered this topic in a new episode called Drop Off: A 24-Hour Daycare's Struggle To Stay Open. She joins me now along with Christina Veiga from Chalkbeat New York, which covers education and things like daycare. Hey, Anna, and hi, Christina.

Anna Sale: Hello.

Christina Veiga: Hello.

Brian: Christina, let me start with you. Before we dig into some of the latest news here, can you briefly explain how there are essentially two types of daycare providers in the New York City area and how they've been impacted differently by coronavirus?

Christina Veiga: Sure. Thanks so much for having me first of all. It's not so much that there are two different kinds of daycares, but really the way that we provide care for babies and very young children in this country is crazy and very fragmented. You have a lot of different kinds of programs that are supported with public money. In New York City, a lot of those continue to have their contracts paid even through the shutdown. Think of the city's free universal pre-K programs, but then you have, and this is the case for most daycares, privately-run businesses just like your hair salon. Those programs are struggling the most financially because they can only get paid if kids are enrolled and if parents are paying tuition. For many, that's just not happening right now.

Brian: Anna, your latest podcast looks at the issue on a national level but focuses on two sides of a daycare story. In Pittsburgh, one side is from the daycare owner, Lesely Crawford, who runs two 24-hour daycare centers called ABK Learning & Development. She told you about what this shutdown has been like for her. Listeners, we're going to play a little bit. This is a treat. We play a little bit of Death, Sex & Money on The Brian Lehrer Show. This is an exchange between her and Anna. Anna speaks first.

Anna: You closed one of your centers but kept the other open throughout?

Lesely Crawford: Right. We were mandated to close and then the governor came through and said, "Okay, we can have this waiver in order to open for essential workers."

Anna: I see.

Lesely: We close the one, we closed the bigger one because we didn't think it would be that many kids and it wasn't. There weren't that many, probably like about five kids.

Anna: When did you notice your revenue drop off, the amount of money coming in?

Lesely: Oh God, you notice that immediately. The moneys that you would automatically have coming in because we have a lot of private-paying clients, that money dissipates immediately because they pay on a weekly, monthly basis. If they're not in the facility, then they're not paying moneys. You're talking about, that's a 50% drop right there. That was a huge chunk of money.

Brian: A 50% drop in enrollment, that from, Death, Sex & Money with the Death, Sex & Money orchestra coming in there near the end. [laughter]

Brian: Anna, what did Lesely say about why kids weren't coming in? Is it because more parents are staying at home so they don't need childcare or were parents afraid of sending their kids to be around others? Tell us the next chapter of that story.

Anna: Yes, immediately, it was this drop-off because people were sheltering in place and then Lesely runs these 24-hour daycare centers, so she serves a lot of workers, families who have workers who had to keep going into work, workers in hospitals who had other essential workers. For those parents, it was all the sets of bad choices. It was like, "Do I try to figure out how to cobble together childcare at home and not send my kid to daycare?" Some, Lesely told me, tried that and then, finally, we're like, "This is not working. I've got to send my kid back to you." Now, where, in turn, she said September really feels like it's go time for her, for really getting a sense of how much and how permanently her revenue is going to drop off because she's anxious to see what families decide to start sending their kids back to daycare and hopefully so she can keep getting more revenue in.

Brian: Christina, from your reporting, did you find the childcare centers in New York City were seeing the same kind of drop-offs in enrollment?

Christina: Absolutely. I touched base with a provider yesterday who I've been talking to off and on throughout the pandemic. She said she had to close in July because her enrollment dropped to 45%. She said some of her families, even though the modest means, have left the city. This is something that Mayor Bill de Blasio has been asked about and hasn't really wanted to wrestle with in a serious way, but it is happening and it's affecting businesses like daycares. I think you also can't underestimate how scarred people are from going through the pandemic and they're really wondering whether it's safe to go back. You just have so many people who have lost jobs. There are surveys now showing that lots of parents are going hungry and skipping meals, and so it's hard to justify paying tuition when you're wondering where your next meal is coming from. Again, if you're a private center and you're only making money based on your enrollment, the outlook does not look good.

Brian: Weren't daycare--

Anna: I think there's a--

Brian: Go ahead, Anna.

Anna: Sorry.

Christina: This is Christina.

Anna: Go ahead.

Christina: I think there's one more element here too and it's whether the centers themselves feel comfortable opening up. I think a lot of folks are looking around and waiting for guidance that just isn't really there about how to do this safely. That's another element too that people are thinking about.

Brian: Did you want to add something, Anna?

Anna: Yes, I would just add, as far as the safety question, that is something that we heard from workers who work in childcare when we asked our listeners. Lesely, who runs these two daycare centers in Pittsburgh, she's in this matrix of really impossible math because she can only have spots available if she has the correct ratio of childcare workers to students. She's now trying to hire more workers for starting salaries of $10 an hour. For many people, she's trying to hire. They look at this and say, "It's not worth it to me to take this risk." She is trying to hire more people, is having difficulty with that. If she can't hire more people, she can't have more spots and she can't bring in more revenue.

Brian: Yes, and I even heard the story of one daycare provider in New York who's transporting her employees there via car service so they don't have to take public transportation. Imagine what a huge cost for her that is, just adding to the list of things that you were just putting out there. Listeners, we can take a few phone calls for Anna Sale and Christina Veiga on this. I wonder if we have any independent childcare or daycare providers listening right now. How have you been able to make your business work? Have you been able to make your business work? How's enrollment going? Are you reopening as people are going to need a lot of daycare, those who can afford to use your services in this hybrid model of schooling that's supposed to start in New York City later this month? (646) 435-7280. If you have any stories to tell, (646) 435-7280 for Anna Sale from Death, Sex & Money and Christina Veiga from the education news organization Chalkbeat. We're going to play another clip from the Death, Sex & Money episode. Anna spoke to a single mother named Cara Moody, whose son attends one of Lesely Crawford's daycares in Pittsburgh. The podcast episode really highlights how mothers like Cara can't afford to stretch their budgets. Let's take a listen to a little bit of their exchange.

Cara Moody: I'm still capable of paying all my bills, but that's definitely not any extra in any way. Again, we're not going anywhere doing anything, so it's definitely more stressful time just because my job, I'm only offered two days a week. People have seen to be generous. My customers have been a little extra generous. Some people don't know. They don't realize that servers make $2.83 an hour. They don't pay attention to the fact that we might be making less and we're doing a lot of work in order to take out, but most people do realize.

Anna: You make $2.83 as your base pay an hour?

Cara: Yes, $2.83 an hour.

Brian: $2.83 an hour, Anna, to take care of people's most precious-- I don't want to say possessions, their most precious loved ones, their children.

Anna: No. Actually, Cara is a client at the daycare.

Brian: Oh, she's a client.

Anna: Her job is a server at a restaurant.

Brian: Oh, I got it.

Anna: Her base pay before tips is $2.83 an hour and she's working. Again, the really challenging math in daycare right now because I asked Cara. I said, "Look, Leslie Fang, if she could pay her workers more, it would be easier for her to hire people. Kara, could you pay a little bit more for childcare?" and she's saying, "No, my hours have been cut." She's still on partial unemployment. She pays $40 a day when she sends her son to an evening shift at the 24-hour daycare so she can go to work. It just gets to this, where is that breaking point for both the families and for the daycare providers? Because if Cara doesn't have childcare as a single mom, she can't go to work. She doesn't have family in Pittsburgh, and so then she would drop out of the labor force, take care of her son, and go back on full unemployment.

Brian: Christina, you report the average annual cost of infant care in New York is $15,394. We're going to leave that number sitting there for a minute to percolate in your brains, people, and we have to take a break and we'll continue on this in a minute. [music]

Brian: Brian Lehrer on WNYC with Anna Sale, host of the WNYC podcast, Death, Sex & Money. Her latest episode, Drop Off: A 24-hour Daycare's Struggle To Stay Open. Also, with us on that topic, Christina Veiga, who's covering this locally for Chalkbeat New York, (646) 435-7280 is our phone number. If anybody has a story or a question, (646) 435-7280. Susan in Hunterdon County, you're on WNYC. Hi, Susan.

Susan: Hi, Brian. I love your show. You're doing a fantastic job.

Brian: Thank you so much.

Susan: I have a friend, a co-worker. I'm a substitute teacher for Head Start. She is a full-time assistant teacher at Head Start. She has a school-aged child, a pre-schooler who will be attending Head Start, and a newborn. I have offered because I probably won't be called into sub. I have a certain amount of free time. I have offered to care for her newborn two days a week and probably also her school-aged child, who's on remote learning. I just so feel the dilemma my friend is in. They are a young Hispanic family. I adore them. They're just a wonderful, little family. She's working for Head Start. She's giving to the community. Her husband does landscaping full-time. They're struggling to get by. I wish I could give her more than two days a week realistically. Her only other alternative for childcare as she's described to me is a situation in her apartment complex. That is a woman who is not documented, who is caring for more children than probably she should be. I just so feel for my friend who's more-- I wish I had a magic wand because I'd wave it and I'd have a daycare for people just like- [crosstalk]

Brian: Susan, thank you. I have to leave it there for time, but it's a heartbreaking story, Anna, and I'll bet it's one that's not a dissimilar to others that you heard during your segment.

Anna: No, we heard a lot of these very intimate, personal, just retching dilemmas about parents who are being put in the position of, "I need to earn to provide for my family and I need to take care of my kids." There's a real, real tension there right now during COVID-19, but I want to point out. This is not just something that families are having to decide on a one-on-one basis. This is a systemic question about, how is our country providing for the support of early childcare? It's a campaign issue right now and both Democrats and Republicans are clamoring to make the point that we support working families. We are here for you. Ivanka Trump, during her speech at the Republican National Convention, touted that her father signed a large increase for childcare funding in 2018 that provided more subsidies for low-income families. She did not mention that the current Trump administration proposal includes cuts to programs that fund early childhood programs. Biden, his campaign has announced an enormous $775 billion plan to support caregiving of all kinds, including making pre-K for three and four-year-olds, universal increased tax credits and subsidies to make childcare more affordable. There are ways in which-- and really important right now that the federal government and the states are in charge and have a role in this childcare infrastructure, but what we're hearing from providers and from parents is it's insufficient right now for the current conditions of low enrollment. There was a survey of childcare providers that was done in late June and 80% said that if nothing changed with their enrollment rates or with the current level of government support, 80% said they expect that they would have to close within a year. Hopefully, our sip conditions are very different in a year, hopefully, but I think it speaks to this question that all childcare providers are thinking about, which is like, how long is this going to last and how long can I hold on?

Brian: Christina, there's yet another equity issue here, which is, who works in daycare and the demographics of who the frontline workers are in that field as well as so many other fields, right?

Christina: Yes, so we see in early childcare that it's mostly women and mostly women of color who are doing this work for oftentimes very little pay. In New York City, we saw a big fight last year over pay issues for pre-school teachers because New York City offers free pre-K to four-year-olds. It does it by offering it in school buildings with teachers who are part of the teacher's union. It relies on a lot of community organizations to make the room to serve all of these children and those teachers and community organizations who are more likely to be women of color versus the teachers' union, teachers in pre-K. They're making significantly less and there was a big pay deal pushed through, not this last budget but the previous budget cycle, to try to bring them more up to par. To Anna's point, the federal CARES Act did have money earmarked for childcare. In New York, there was 164 million dedicated to the industry. The state has used that money to provide care for low-income frontline workers and pay for personal protective and cleaning supplies. There's still about 69 million left of that federal money and people in the industry really want to see it released, but it seems like the state is holding onto it because it can't really be sure that there's any more federal release coming--

Brian: There, with that uncertainty, we have to leave it because we're out of time. Christina Veiga, reporter for Chalkbeat New York, and Anna Sale from Death, Sex & Money. The latest episode called Drop Off. Thank you both so much for joining us.

Christina: Thank you, Brian.

 

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