Childcare remains an issue for Mount Vernon and Lisbon families, according to early data from the Mount Vernon and Lisbon’s League of Women Voters survey on childcare.
Carol Wozniak Rebhuhn reported that the preliminary data for childcare in the area indicates 43.1% of community parents responded they have affordable, quality childcare. That survey data was taken before the closure of the Turtle Club Daycare earlier this summer.
A community forum will be held Thursday, July 14, at Lisbon Heritage Hall beginning at 7 p.m. to present the finding from the league’s survey conducted this spring. The forum also will host a panel of local and regional child care experts. The Sun interviewed caregivers at the two large daycare centers in our community about the current challenges in childcare.
Lisbon Early Childcare CenterWeathering the pandemic for the Lisbon Early Childcare Center has been a challenge in many ways. Director Bre Ties explained at the start of the pandemic, the impact was to enrollment at the center, as many families and parents switched from commuting to working at home. Ties was encouraged by the staff to maintain as much in staffing as possible during that time, and remembers there were times that meant she had more staff than she needed for different shifts.
“Once COVID 19 cases started rising in the area, that impacted our attendance as well as our staff as they came down with cases,” Ties said. “At that time, we were structured to maintain a pod of the same daycare students and adults as much as possible.”
Supplies were in shorter supply as well earlier in the pandemic, including gloves and cleaning supplies, and costs increased more than 150 percent in that time frame. Ties said those funds are now leveling out.
During the pandemic, LECC charged 50 percent tuition rates to maintain slots in the daycare.
The pandemic hit in March 2020, and LECC weathered some of that financial strain until recently, with stabilization grants that have helped give the center an operating cushion once again.
LECC is a licensed daycare with a capacity of 187 kids. Ties explained that while the license is for 187 kids, enrollment in the center can prove to be higher than that count.
“There are students who may only need before school daycare, or after school daycare, or just drop-in day care a few days a week,” Ties said. “We get creative in making sure that the spost for children are maintained.”
The daycare also follows guidance from the Department of Human Services on children to adult ratios. At toddlers and under level, that is a one staff member for every four children. At age 2, that increases to six children to one staff member, and at 3 that increases to eight children to one staff member.
At 4, it’s 12 children to every adult and school age children are 15 children to every adult.
While the state legislature has recently allowed increases, especially at lower ages, from eight children to one adult at the 2-year-old range and 10 children to one adult, Ties said she really doesn’t plan to do that unless directed more firmly by the state.
“I’m a huge proponent of having more staff than children,” Ties said.
Ties said the waiting list for the daycare is currently at 97 children, and she expects that waiting list to climb again. At the top of summer, the numbers on the waiting list were 140 or more. Some of those on the list were taken care of by the 3-year-old and 4-year-old preschool and the need for wrap around daycare for students attending those programs at Lisbon Schools.
Ties said of that 97 list, roughly 24 are in the toddler age range.
“Our toddler classrooms can hold 12 and 8 students at maximum,” Ties said. “We can’t physically house more than that at our center.”
She also notes it is much harder for families with a wide age range of children to find care at the center, as they may have openings at certain ages, but not at all the age ranges for family.
Ties said it has gotten hard to tell parents the center can’t promise slots and how long the waiting list has become. The center has children from Mount Vernon, Mechanicsville, Martelle, Anamosa, Cedar Rapids and other communities who have all been looking for slots, as the childcare issue gets harder in many of these communities.
“We really do need another child care center in these communities,” Ties said. “The Nature Club and the Turtle Club both offered excellent services that served people who might not have used LECC.”
Closures of the Turtle Club Daycare in Lisbon, as well as care centers in Cedar Rapids and Tipton have increased calls to the LECC. Ties noted she had 13 emails the day the Turtle Club announced its closure, and the next morning, calls had steadily increased as well, including from parents who had withdrawn their name from the waiting list because they were enrolled at the Turtle Club.
Recent measures by the state legislature allowing 16-year-olds to provide childcare with at least one other adult on during the same shift have been beneficial to the LECC, as it gives staffing flexibility when adults have been sick or otherwise not able to make a shift.
“We have always had an awesome staff of high schoolers,” Ties said. “Many of them start young and stay on up until they go to college. We’ve had excellent retention of our staff.”
Ties said that one of the challenges that remains for many daycares is the rising costs on other items.
“We’ve seen our cost for items like formula increase over the past years, our utility costs increase, our supplies increase,” Ties said. “If we charged a true tuition to reflect what it costs to staff a daycare, many of our patrons could not afford that.”
Ties notes that to operate as a childcare center, they have to adhere to a number of DHS regulations and recommendations. They have annual yearly inspections, as well as monthly check-in visits.
“The thing I reiterate to my staff with any inspection is they are not trying to close our center down, they are trying to make us the best center we can be,” Ties said. “They may tell us we’re doing something wrong in an inspection, but it’s always with a timeline of how to get the issue fixed and steps or ways we can work to address it. I have a terrific relationship with our DHS inspector, and we’re in contact when rare things happen as well.”
Ties reiterated that there is a crisis in daycare at the moment, and Mount Vernon and Lisbon both need more childcare options.
The other concern Ties notes daycare will see is in August, when she’ll start looking for additional staff. During the summer months, paraeducators who work for the district are able to work at the childcare center, and as high school staff goes back to school or off to college, it will open positions at the daycare center.
“If you know people who want to work in daycare, we have very flexible schedules,” Ties said. “With our staff to child ratios, we can easily drop in someone for a few hours every day.”
The other message Ties has for members of the community – people who take a job in childcare do so because they love working with kids.
Washington Elementary Kids ClubTheresa Hines, director of the Washington Elementary Kids Club, said their biggest challenges during the pandemic have had to deal with staffing issues.
“Finding subs when staff was sick has been an ongoing struggle, as well as the need of more families who need childcare,” Hines said. “Our community has done a great job of masking when it has been required and staying home when their child is sick. We really haven’t had any problems in those areas. People have been respectful of other’s choices to mask or not mask as well. Really, the biggest issue has been hiring and retaining quality staff.”
Washington Elementary Kids Club does not have a wait list currently, but Hines noted that the center has more children enrolled this summer than ever before.
“We are fortunate to be able to serve all the families that have wanted their children to be enrolled in Kids Club,” Hines said. “So far we don’t see any trouble with meeting the need of families for next year either.”
The recent legislation passed by Gov. Kim Reynolds allowing 16-year-olds to provide more care is something she views as a huge benefit for the Kids Club.
“We have always allowed high schoolers to work at Kids Club and we think it is a huge benefit to have former Washington Elementary students come back to work for us in Kids Club,” Hines said. “When we have high school aged students working for us, we are sure to pair them with an older staff member. It has worked well for us. I think in general anytime you are allowing younger providers you need to increase training, expectations and monitoring. We cannot expect high school aged employees to have the same knowledge or experience as adult staff. If you put those trainings and checks and balances into place, I think it could help with the staff shortage, but without those things you are increasing the risk of something happening.”
The biggest challenge she sees for childcare in the area is the same many industries are facing at the moment – ability to find quality help.
“I also think people need to understand, in order to provide children with good care, rates may have to increase because in order to hire good help we have to pay a higher rate to compete with other businesses,” Hines said. “In the end, daycares are a business that need to make money in order to survive. It’s impossible to have high levels of care for cheap rates…it just doesn’t add up.
“We need people to apply and get the word out when looking for staff. The more quality staff we can find, the more opportunities we can provide for daycare in the community.”