Despite state help, local child care centers face staffing shortages

NORTHBOROUGH — Dipak Biswas has a staffing problem. The owner of the Northborough branch of the Goddard School for Early Childhood Development, Biswas is struggling to keep wages high enough to match those offered by his competitors.

His rivals aren’t other child care centers, or even the local school system, but major retail corporations.

Federal funds from the American Rescue Plan Act expired on Sept. 30, and with it, funds that families and child care centers had come to rely upon. These pandemic emergency relief funds had helped child care centers across the country pay their staff, maintain facilities and keep costs affordable for parents.

This "child care cliff," as some have called it, hit the industry hard across the country.

“We cannot pay as well as Home Depot or Walmart,” said Biswas. “Local businesses are our major competitors.” Those stores can pay about $20 an hour, while the Northborough Goddard School barely manages to maintain the $15 minimum wage.

“We originally started around $10 to $12,” he said.

Many Worcester-area child care centers are facing a lack of qualified staff and in turn are running at reduced capacity.

Biswas currently has three classrooms closed.

The Guild of St. Agnes has empty rooms at its centers on Granite Street and Mill Street, the latter of which opened in April with only six out of its 10 classrooms operating.

Child care needs state investment

Massachusetts early childhood education centers fared better than those in other states thanks to state funding picking up where ARPA left off. The state Department of Early Education and Care has continued approving supplemental child care stabilization, or C3, funds, which are monthly grants for child care providers. These will remain in place at least until the next budget.

“That funding proved to be so beneficial because so many child care programs were struggling,” said Sharon MacDonald, executive director of the Guild of St. Agnes. “We’re really happy that the governor kept that money in state funding so it wasn’t lost.” The subsidies go toward classroom materials, tools, bonuses to teachers and personal protective equipment.

However, they have yet to impact wages on an industry scale, as the money is still not guaranteed year to year. “No employer is going to increase wages one year when they can’t guarantee to keep it in subsequent years,” said Eve Gilmore, executive director of Edward Street Child Services and chair of the Together for Kids Coalition.

Legislation is the works to address that. A bill sponsored in the House by Representatives Ken Gordon, D-Bedford, and Adrian Madaro, D-Boston; and in the Senate by Senators Jason Lewis, D-Winchester, and Susan Moran, D-Falmouth, known as Common Start, would establish state support for providers, families and children.

Common Start would provide financial assistance for families at or below 85% of the state median income, which would go well beyond the current income-based qualifications, as well as direct-to-provider funding allocations for operating costs, including staff wages.

Common Start comes with an approximate $1.7 billion price tag, but Gilmore said the cost would be worth it in the long run. "The state is losing more than that in income and revenue sources from people who aren’t able to go to work and employers who aren’t able to operate because people can’t come to work," she said.

Can’t pass it to the parents

For child care centers, raising wages to attract and retain staff means raising costs on parents, which can only be taken so far before it becomes unsustainable.

“There’s a limit on how much you can charge to the parents, so we’re in a Catch-22,” said Biswas. “We can’t attract teachers if we can’t pay higher wages, but can’t raise wages without charging parents more.”

Biswas has had to raise tuition fees between 3% and 5% in total since the end of the pandemic and has seen the effects in real time. Each year he receives several phone calls from parents who can no longer send their children to Goddard.

“My heart goes out to parents who cannot afford it,” he said. The Northborough branch accepts state vouchers, though not all schools in the franchise do.

“If I can help a less privileged kid, then I will take the hit,” said Biswas.

The cost of early childhood education stings at all income brackets, said Gilmore.

“Even middle-class people need a break when it comes to the cost of (early childhood education),” she said. Putting a 3- to 5-year-old through a program will on average cost between $10,000 to $13,000 per year, with an infant costing $18,000 to $22,000.

"If you're below the poverty line and have an infant and preschooler, you’re spending over 50% of your income to pay for child care,” said Gilmore.

While some will qualify for vouchers and subsidies, it still circles back to staffing, she continued. Without professionals to open classrooms, providers can only take so many children, so many parents cannot access care even if they can afford it.

The pipeline is broken

MacDonald said early childhood education work is “not just babysitting” but a key part of preparing children to go to school, she said, providing a steady presence in a child’s life. “Some of the kids are coming to us from lockdown and I don’t think we can underplay the significance of having a safe, nurturing place with a positive adult in children’s lives.”

Where to find those adults is the question. “The pipeline to bring new professionals into the field is broken because of a lack of equitable wages,” Gilmore said. “Most of these (providers) will say they have to compromise on credentials to get enough staff.”

Christian Laverdure, owner of Children’s Corner Preschool on Sheridan Street, says he and his family have had to compromise on qualifications “just to get people to show up to the interview — but you can only compromise so much.”

He said about 80% of teachers at the infant and toddler levels do not have degrees but are teacher's aides who have accumulated enough hours working with children and taken state-provided courses.

MacDonald and the Guild of St. Agnes are taking steps to create their own pipeline.

“We’re really trying to get people that are interested in working with children and giving them the training and mentorship so we can grow the staff from within,” she said.

The Guild of St. Agnes has entered into a partnership with Worcester State University as well as local trade schools, where students will work at the new University Collaborative Center on Mill Street, which opened this past spring, while gathering academic and professional experience. MacDonald called it an apprenticeship model and said it will be a “game changer” not only for students but also older staff to go back to school and get further degrees.

Preparing the next generation

“I don’t know that society has valued the work as much as they should,” said MacDonald, but those who choose to work in the industry, and the parents it serves, understand its importance.

“This is my passion, otherwise I would not have run this school for more than 20 years and probably have retired more than five years ago,” said Biwas. “The parents who are really thinking about the well-being of their child, they are putting up with the high tuition just to get the benefit — those kids who come here have a higher probability (of succeeding) than those who do not.”

This article originally appeared on Telegram & Gazette: Worcester-area child care centers face staff shortage despite state aid