With Maryland in a child care crisis, what can turn trend around?

Child care providers are getting a small boost from the Maryland State Department of Education in the form of a $16 million grant, designed to recruit newcomers and provide bonuses to those in the field already.

The boost comes after the profession has faced a couple difficult years. From January 2020 to November of this year, almost 900 licensed child care providers across the state have closed their doors. Challenges, including low pay for employees, remain at many of the roughly 7,000 providers still open.

“The pandemic just exacerbated the already fragile infrastructure that was child care,” said Patty Morison, program director at Child Care Choices based in Frederick, Maryland, which serves Allegany, Carroll, Frederick, Garrett and Washington counties. “A lot of programs closed because they couldn’t do it, they couldn’t hire the staff.”

The grant program, introduced earlier this year by three Montgomery County delegates, allocates $4 million for new hires and $10 million for $1,000 bonuses for existing employees. The final $2 million is scheduled to be distributed as $500 hiring assistance bonuses to providers to support the cost to recruiting and hiring.

"There was a very deliberate use of the surplus that we had last year," said Del. Jared Solomon, Montgomery, one of the sponsors of the "bonus" bill. He noted the bonuses were calculated to align with the roughly 8,000 childcare workers credentialed through the Maryland State Department of Education.

Low pay for providers, but high cost for parents

Leslie Sinclair, program director of the Eastern Shore Child Care Resource Center at Salisbury University, which provides training for child care providers, is looking for newcomers to the profession after the Eastern Shore’s lower eight counties lost nearly 10% of its providers since January 2020. A similar, but slightly higher percentage of closures was recorded statewide.

“We’re looking for educators to open child care in their homes,” said Sinclair, whose agency has a grant to recruit new home-based programs.

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One reason why those educating the youngest members of society may be leaving the profession is the salary. The median pay for preschool teachers last year was $30,210 per year or $14.52 per hour, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

State Superintendent of Schools Mohammed Choudhury, who last month participated in a data analysis of pre-kindergarten programs in Western Maryland at the Washington County Board of Education building in Hagerstown, acknowledged the profession’s low pay and that the bonuses were not a panacea for the challenges.

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“Despite their deeply important role in shaping and serving Maryland’s children, child care providers and their employees are in some of the lowest salaried positions in the state,” Choudhury said in a news release. “They deserve more, and this program reflects that need.”

Applications for the funding are due by 5 p.m. Nov. 30 on the state Department of Education’s website, and as required by law, the grants will be provided on a first-come, first-serve basis.

“While this is an important first step, it is not a permanent fix,” said the second-year superintendent, noting that the department is starting a child care staff retention study to gauge the long-term options for compensation of child care workers.

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Morison, grandmother of a toddler and the director of the Child Care Choices program in Western Maryland, summed up the current conundrum in child care.

“Child care is expensive, but yet child care providers are not making very much money,” she said. “What we need is for legislators, as well as the wider business community, to understand that our future prosperity really relies on quality child care.”

Update: This story has been updated to include a quotation and additional information form one of the sponsors of the legislation.

Dwight A. Weingarten is an investigative reporter, covering the Maryland State House and state issues. He can be reached at dweingarten@gannett.com or on Twitter at @DwightWeingart2.

This article originally appeared on The Herald-Mail: Daycare: Maryland hopes to slow childcare closures