DeLauro Rallies Early-Childhood Providers To Back Aid Bill

New Haven early child-care provider Queen Freelove knows how to share — and thinks the federal government needs to learn a lesson or two.

“As the president of the Child Care Providers Council, I feel obligated to do anything extra that I can,” she said. ​“If I get two boxes of masks, I share the other … I do not see how the government cannot do more for us.”

Freelove and other Connecticut providers joined U.S. Rep Rosa DeLauro Wednesday to exchange stories through Zoom and discuss the status of DeLauro’s proposed the Child Care is Essential Act. DeLauro’s bill that was passed by the U.S. House of Representatives in a 249 to 163 vote on July 29 and now needs approval by the U.S. Senate.

“If you had told me it was going to happen a year ago I would have laughed, “ said Merrill Gay, the executive director of the Connecticut Early Childhood Alliance.

The bill would appropriate $50 billion for the Child Care Stabilization Fund to award grants to providers. Connecticut would receive $330 million to help providers stay open while implementing new safety measures and keeping their employees on payroll.

While DeLauro celebrated her 18 Republican colleagues who voted for the bill, she drew attention to the current challenge of getting the bill approved by the Senate.

DeLauro added that Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer had called her that morning. He said he was fighting for child care, the child tax credit, and extension of unemployment insurance benefits … but that the largest sum the Senate had discussed granting the child care industry was $15 billion.

“That is the latest piece of information I have,” she told the Zoom gathering. ​“All across the country, your counterparts need to be up on their feet crashing in on the doors of the senate to talk about 50 billion for childcare.”

DeLauro said that within Connecticut, 121,000 children aged 5 and under are in need of child care. She also referenced a Washington Post article from early July which stated that one third of the nation’s workforce are keeping their children at home — and struggling. For each available space at child care programs around Connecticut, she said, there are more than four kids in need of it.

“Nothing will happen in terms of reopening our economy without a safe, secure, and stable childcare system,” DeLauro said. ​“And we cannot afford to lose a generation of children. And in essence, this is what’s really at stake.”

“This week is the key time,” asserted Gay. ​“This is when decisions about what’s going to end up in that final package are being made.” He urged everyone to reach out to their friends, relatives, and colleagues in other states and call their senators, especially in areas where leadership is less supportive of child care.

“This is not about gravy,” DeLauro remarked. ​“This is to keep us from that collapse.”

A study by the National Association for the Education of Young Children that came out in mid-July found that only 18 percent of child care programs across the country are expected to survive through to June of 2021.

Izzy Greenberg, the executive director of the Middlesex Coalition for Children, emphasized that these numbers would disproportionately hurt women, people of color, and undocumented folks. ​“It’s just layers and layers of problems,” she said.

Carly Adames, executive director of the Children’s Day School, a nonprofit program in Greenwich, highlighted the challenges of staying in business even in wealthier communities.

Her center lost $675,000 in tuition revenue during the pandemic, she said. She was unable to land a federal Payroll Protection Program loan after June in order to keep her teachers on payroll, forcing her to furlough 30 percent of her staff. She was one of many providers who tried to reopen during the summer months, only to find that about 40 percent of her kids returned. Since June she has lost an additional $275,000 in revenue.

“I don’t know where we go from here,” she said. ​“We have to maintain 95 percent of our capacity to get by … and day by day families are withdrawing due to the uncertainties of next year.”

Adames highlighted the prioritization of K‑12 teachers’ health and wellbeing over that of child care workers. While statements are being signed and action is being taken in order to protect the health and safety of those educators come fall, most providers are being motivated to open by financial instability alone. ​“We don’t have the luxury of knowing when operations will return as usual,” she said.

She also saidthat social distancing with children under 5 is impossible. Adames recalled an instance from just the other day when a toddler sneezed directly into her mask and eyes.

There is an understanding that child care providers are just going to ​“make it work” without funding or support, Adames said, quoting a provider from a recent New York Times article. ​“We usually do,” she stated. ​“But right now we’re at the end of that rope.”

“I feel like I’m witnessing a slow and painful death of the early child care industry, a field which I love and chose as the most fulfilling career I could imagine in my life,” she said.

“We have a ripple effect on every other industry in our economy,” Ademas added, ​“and $15 billion would sustain us for about six weeks.”

Delisa Carney, who founded Advance Childcare Center in New Haven over 20 years ago, gave a more personal plea.

“I can’t fail,” she said, her voice wavering. ​“I got myself to a place where I could be the first one in my family to own my own business. I’m in a low income area and everyone in the community depends on me.”

Carney recalled how she had grown her business over the past two decades: she started with eight children and had 38 enrolled by the beginning of this year. In addition to her preschool, she has created summer camps and after school programs to accommodate a wider range of children and families.

Carney said that while she tried to take advantage of PPP loans, ​“everything was used up” and she was unable to secure the funds needed to support her center.

She prioritized paying her employees from March until June, and decided to open up on July 29 for a preschool camp. ​“We’re still struggling. I’m trying to stay afloat, but I need help,” she said. 

Greenberg assured Carney and other providers that they were not responsible for the hardships faced by their programs. ​“You are failing no one— the system is failing you,” she said.

DeLauro noted that the pandemic is exposing what is and is not valued in our society today. ​“Child care is child development!” she exclaimed. ​“It is not the warehousing of our kids.”

“The work that you’re doing, the stories that are being told; these are the critical pieces and that have got to be translated into what the senate has got to hear,” she asserted.

Queenlove, of Queen Freelove Daycare on Maple Street in New Haven, was the last provider to present. As she spoke, children could be heard laughing in the background.

“We need to know that everyone cares about the job that we’re doing— not just the parents but the world. Because these children are our future, and we’ve gotta get it right. Because we don’t always get second and third chances. We’ve got to get it right at the beginning.”