We need help, parents say. Why is finding daycare so hard in N.J.? – NJ.com

When the pandemic hit almost two years ago, Toni Bolton was working as an office manager, but she lost her job later that year when business dried up.

She’s now on a new path, starting school in February to become a recovery specialist.

It will be virtual — for now.

The single mother said she’s worried about child care for her son Jayden, 20 months, when the in-person internship part of her program begins.

“I don’t know what I’m going to do,” said Bolton, 39, of Pemberton. “I’m not like those families who have their parents or brothers or sisters to help.”

Bolton, who said she is on the waiting list for several facilities, is one of an untold number of New Jersey families struggling to find child care.

Nearly two years after the COVID pandemic upended an already stressed child care system, the challenges continue for parents. Some say they can’t find an open space for their child so they can’t return to in-person work. Others have ping-ponged back and forth as COVID exposures have temporarily shut down facilities or individual classrooms, forcing parents to scramble or take days off, or they’re on waiting lists that never seem to open up.

Since the start of the pandemic, 92 licensed child care centers in the state have closed, according to the New Jersey Department of Children and Families. In January 2019, there were 4,132 licensed child care centers. Today, there are only 4,032.

Countless others — sole providers who are small enough that they don’t need a license — have closed up shop for COVID-related reasons, including not having enough staff, being concerned about their own health and not having enough parents willing to put their young, unvaccinated children in the hands of others.

“New Jersey, like the rest of the nation, continues to face capacity issues around affordable, quality child care services for families,” said Jason Butkowski, a spokesman for the agency.

PUSHING THROUGH THE SHUTDOWNS

While K-12 schools have largely been in person with few remote-only shutdowns, child care providers work under more stringent rules, which change from location to location.

“There’s not a clear approach, with health departments in different municipalities having different rules,” said Guy Falzarano of Early Childhood Education Advocates (ECEA), the lobbying arm of the New Jersey Child Care Association (NJCCA). He is also the owner of Lightbridge Academy, which has 42 locations in the state. “One will say close for 10 days, then others say close for five days and then if you test negative, you can come back.”

Falzarano said his facilities have had a fair number of classroom shutdowns since the omicron variant overtook New Jersey.

“It’s hard. Parents have to stay home from work because one of the children in a classroom has a positive reading and in many cases you have to shut down the classroom and send kids home,” he said. “Some parents say, “But my kid doesn’t have COVID.”

Sean O’Connor, the father of a 21-month-old girl, said he started writing to lawmakers and advocates after his daughter’s child care center announced it would no longer issue credits or refunds when a child is sent home because of a COVID exposure in the classroom.

The Morris County man said his daughter was only sent home once to quarantine, and it was before his child care center instituted a no-refund-no-credit policy.

He said he and his wife were lucky. They’re both employed full-time and work mostly from home so they can manage short-term shutdowns.

“But what’s being done for families where this is more than an inconvenience, but a real financial hardship — having to take your kid out of daycare for a week, the daycare still charging you for tuition when they are not providing care and then parents having to take time off of work, and maybe their benefits don’t cover staying home for a child? Not only are they paying for child care they don’t get, but they are losing wages on top of that.”

O’Connor, who said he pays $1,500 per month for his daughter’s care, said he approached the owner of his child care center about the policy change.

“I said, ‘Listen, if we were to hire a painter to come paint your house and he got sick and couldn’t come for a week, and he charged you for the work he couldn’t do, how would you feel about that?’” he said. “(The owner) said there are still fixed costs with operating, salaries to pay, and when they are mandated to close for exposure, they still have to pay rent and keep the lights on.”

The owner refused O’Connor’s suggestion that they split the difference and parents only be charged 50% when their child is sent home.

O’Connor said his experience, and the experience of thousands of families, is nested into a larger conversation about child care in this country.

“America champions early childhood education, but it’s my understanding we are pretty far behind in child care and learning for kids before they get to the public school system,” he said.

PARENTS SAY THEY NEED HELP

Of the 33 members of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, an international public policy group, for childcare, the United States ranks 20th in the percentage of children ages 0-2 who are enrolled in formal childcare and 29th in percentage of children ages 3-5 who are enrolled in formal childcare.

Cost is a big part of the reason, advocates say.

President Joe Biden’s Build Back Better legislation, stalled in Congress, would have created universal pre-K for 3- and 4-year-olds and limited the cost of child care to no more than 7% of a family’s income for families earning up to 250% of their state’s median income.

A typical New Jersey family of four with one child and one infant in full-time day care would save an estimated $27,000 a year on child care costs under the spending bill, according to a study by the House Education and Labor Committee.

“It enables states to expand access to about 20 million children,” the White House said when the plan was first introduced. “Parents must be working, seeking work, in training or taking care of a serious health issue (to qualify).”

A program like that would be welcomed by Kashieka Phillips of Irvington, who has an 8-month-old son in a child care program.

As a new homeowner with lots of expenses, Phillips said child care is hard to afford.

She has a job as a full-time community health worker, but her salary is just over the cap for state programs that offer child care aid, she said. While her position allows her to work remotely two days a week, she still needs full-time child care, she said.

Her husband also works full time and goes to nursing school at night, leaving little leeway should their child care center close for COVID.

“The week of Christmas they shut down his classroom for two weeks and I had to get him tested for a negative result before I could bring him back,” she said. “Luckily I had taken vacation days off for Christmas and my husband didn’t have school that week, so we figured it out.”

“If it was to happen again, I don’t know what we would do,” she said. “I have no idea what we would do.”

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Karin Price Mueller may be reached at KPriceMueller@NJAdvanceMedia.com. Follow her on Twitter at @KPMueller.