Why You Should Keep Paying Your Child Care Provider During Outage
Given all the economic concerns, it would be tempting to drop kindergarten fees, many of which ask for partial tuition fees during closing hours . If you can afford it, it’s a good idea to keep paying them as you will want the daycare center back to daycare when it’s safe again.
As many working parents will attest, access to quality, affordable childcare is the single most pressing issue in balancing career and family. Childcare is one of those things that are barely affordable for most families, accounting for 9 to 36 percent of a family’s income , but working at an incredibly small margin: Daycare teachers are paid an average of $ 10.82 an hour .
Kindergartens operate with little profitability
Kindergartens are in an incredibly dangerous situation: 30 percent of institutions report that they would have to close permanently if they were closed for two weeks or more. Meanwhile, when blackouts began, kindergartens reported a 70% loss in daytime attendance in one week .
According to a recent analysis, we could permanently lose up to 4.5 million childcare places if this crisis continues without any intervention. The CARES Act offers small relief of $ 3.5 billion for childcare , but the real need is estimated to be close to $ 50 billion .
While we can hope that Congress will step in, the fact remains that most of our elected officials are men who most likely never bothered to find or pay for high quality childcare. Maintaining our already busy childcare infrastructure is probably not an issue of concern to them, and will not be on their priority list.
The closure of kindergartens has already affected parents
The problem recently struck many parents who work at the Texas Medical Center in Houston, which includes a large number of medical professionals and biomedical researchers, when the University of Texas Child Health Development Center was permanently closed , suddenly and without much warning.
For Kai Li Tan, a researcher whose work focuses on the gut nervous system, the closure means she will have to find another daycare center for her two children.
“How can I work if no one cares about my children?” Tang said in an email. “We cannot afford to hire a nanny for long term.” For Tang, whose husband is an important worker, closing the kindergarten will make it much harder to return to work, especially given how limited childcare options are and how expensive alternatives such as a full-time nanny are.
So when weighing your multiple priorities, it’s important to remember how important a high-quality daycare is and think about what actions you can take to make sure your daycare is still there when it can be safely opened. up again.