#Earlychildhoodeducation rant ahead.
Early Childhood Education (aka #childcare or #daycare - the latter is the least preferred label) is in turmoil right now. Everyone loved us during the pandemic shutdown since we kept corporate America going, but the last few years have been pretty horrible. Staffing is nearly impossible due to salaries - families cannot afford to pay what it costs for quality child care, essentially, and so our salaries are among the lowest. These are the people caring for our babies, and they frequently make minimum wage. So turnover is horrible, with people job skipping. I don’t hire those people, and I pay better than most, but it takes me ages to fill a spot. So I hire extra staff to ensure we make our better-than-state-mandated ratios.
So this month our liability insurance expires. Our insurance company (one of the largest providers of child care center insurance in the country) has decided to get out of the child care insurance business because people keep suing us when their children have accidents. I worked with our brokerage firm for weeks to find a new carrier. I lost count of how many turned us down and are similarly getting out of the child care insuring business. We finally found two who, between them, will fulfill the requirements needed. It is costing us $30,000 MORE per year than it did last year. Now, we are a large center, nonprofit, with families that can afford tuition. This will not drive us out of business, though it throws our budget into turmoil and we will have to find ways to make other cuts (we will do our best to not let it affect out employees’ wages).
America can’t work if we don’t work.
I’ve been doing this for 36 years. I’ll be retiring soon. This is the worst it’s ever been. I don’t expect the next 4 years to go any better for us.
I cannot imagine how smaller centers who depend on state or federal grants and subsidies will survive. And if we don’t survive, how will people get to work? This is part of the plot, I’m realizing, to decimate the working poor.
Alkasha
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