As of Monday, child care providers in Delaware can only serve children of essential employees who cannot work from home, under the Governor’s State of Emergency order. Some are finding the transition difficult.
Delaware’s Department of Services for Children, Youth and their Families (DSCYF) has approved more than 550 child care providers to continue operating by serving only children of essential employees, such as healthcare and food service workers.
Cocoa Thompson owns Kids Kastle daycare in Newark. She says her enrollment went from around 11 kids before the emergency order to 6 children of essential employees. She anticipates a severe financial impact on her small business.
“I may get to the point that I’m just going to be just paying my staff member because I’m more concerned about her livelihood,” said Thompson. “She is a homeowner and she is a mother, a single mom, so it may just be her at this point and not myself.”
Other daycares— both in-home and larger centers— report similar reductions in enrollment. The reductions are driven in some cases by the fact that daycares can only serve children of essential employees and in other cases by new restrictions on classroom size and child-to-staff ratios.
Wonder Years Kids Club, Inc. in Harrington is normally licensed to serve up to 94 children. Owner Judith Willams says under the new classroom size and child-to-staff ratio rules, she can only take 34 kids. So far around 25 are enrolled.
Williams says her business cannot break even on the payments from those 25 children alone. Her staff is spending additional hours each day cleaning, and her cleaning supplies expenses have increased dramatically.
“It’s going to be devastating, unless the state is trying to kick in and compensate us to some extent,” Williams said. “But I’m just not sure how the compensation is going to work just yet.”
Other day care operators have said there is a lack of clarity from the state on the issue of compensation for those licensed as emergency providers and those that chose not to be.
The owner of a licensed large family child care in Seaford, who requested her name not be used for fear of “backlash” from the state’s Office of Child Care Licensing, said she is wondering whether it would be beneficial for her business to stop providing child care to families during the State of Emergency— if it could access compensation without being licensed as an emergency provider. She has suffered a dramatic reduction in enrollment under the emergency requirements, and has had to invest in additional equipment such as a contactless thermometer.
Carney’s emergency order directs the secretaries of DSCYF, the Department of Health and Social Services and the Department of Education (DOE) along with the Director of the Office of Management and Budget to establish guidelines for adjustments during the State of Emergency to the purchase of care subsidy for low-income families and the tiered reimbursement payments child care providers receive.
New guidelines from DOE and DSCYF state that as of April 6, essential child care sites will continue to receive purchase of care and tiered reimbursement based on February enrollment. They may continue to collect private pay payments and will get an "enhanced reimbursement" for vacant slots based on a county-specific average payment for each child care type.
Facilities that close but continue to pay staff will continue to receive full purchase of care and tiered reimbursement for slots filled at the time of closing and a weekly reimbursement of 70 percent of the average payment for vacant slots at time of closing.
Facilities that close and do not pay staff will receive 20 percent of the purchase of care and tiered reimbursement payments for filled slots at the time of closing as well as 20 percent of the vacant slot reimbursements that closed child cares continuing to pay staff receive.
The DOE and DSCYF guidelinees also state that co-pays will be waived for families utilizing purchase of care.
Meredith Seitz, chief policy advisor at DSCYF, understands that child care providers are making “difficult decisions” about whether they can keep their doors open under the emergency requirements.
“Ultimately it’s going to be a business decision that each of these providers has to make,” she said. “But I know there is a commitment on the part of our agency, the Governor’s Office, DHSS, Office of Early Learning and all the financial arms within the state to try to support these businesses during this time ... because the service they’re providing now and will [be] in the future is so vital.”
Seitz says she appreciates child care providers being understanding as her department responds to the situation.
“Like they’re doing their work day-in and day-out and trying to make adjustments on the fly, we’re doing the same,” she said.
This story has been updated to include additional information about compensation for child care providers from the Departments of Education and Services for Children, Youth and Their Families.
