Editor’s note: This is the fourth article in a multi-part series unpacking the effects of the shortage of quality, affordable childcare in Seward County on families, the local economy, employers, care providers, educators and children.
A quick online search yields 103 results for job openings in the childcare field. “Childcare Teacher.” “Childcare Director.” “Preschool Teacher.” “Early Childhood Educator.”
The list includes providers hiring within 25 miles of Seward, and positions range from directors of childcare centers to family nannies to those specializing in infant and toddler care.
It also includes openings for cooks, resource teachers and behavior specialists at childcare centers – all of whom play a part in making a center run smoothly.
In Seward County, two of the largest childcare centers agree one of their biggest challenges right now is finding staff.
“When I first started here nearly five years ago, I would have stacks of applications to go through when I needed to hire. Now I pretty much interview everybody for the most part to see if I can fit them in,” said Lisa Aring, director of St. John Child Development Center in Seward.
Not just anyone can fill the openings, though, Aring said.
“We like to have quality people. You really should have some type of education in order to do that,” she said.
At St. John, classrooms of 3-year-olds on up through school agers are staffed with trained teachers. Aring said teachers for toddlers should have an associate’s degree or child development associate credentials.
“Finding those people is tough,” she said.
A shortage of people willing and qualified to work in childcare centers is contributing to Seward County’s designation as a “childcare desert.”
Approximately 800 children ages 0-5 need childcare while their parents work, but the county is about 189 licensed spots short of meeting that need.
A continual search
“When you’re hiring for early childhood, you’re constantly looking,” said Gail Brand, chair of the Board of Directors at Bright Beginnings Child Development Center, which is located inside Seward United Methodist Church.
COVID-19 exacerbated the problem, she said, leading to a decrease in the number of people willing to return to work after business shutdowns subsided.
“There are more people out there starting to take jobs, which is helping,” Brand said.
Like St. John, Bright Beginnings looks for full-time teachers with bachelor’s or associate’s degrees and also considers their experience with children.
“We have some staff who have been in childcare for a number of years and have proven themselves very capable through their experience,” Brand said.
All early childhood staff are required to earn 12 hours of continuing education each year. They must be certified in CPR/First Aid and study specific areas of child development, such as social-emotional needs and safe learning environments.
Each one also must pass a background check, and they are expected to participate in additional trainings as needed at the discretion of the center’s director.
Step Up to Quality
St. John CDC recently reached Step 5, the top tier in the statewide Step Up to Quality program.
“Step Up to Quality is an organization that helps early childcare providers and educators recognize and improve quality,” said Jacob Jennings, community affairs director for the Seward County Chamber and Development Partnership.
Finding ways to close the childcare availability gap is part of Jennings’ job as it relates to economic development in the community.
“St. John CDC is the only Level 5 program in Seward County. In fact, there are no providers at Step 3 or 4 either,” Jennings said, though other local providers, including Bright Beginnings, are working their way through the steps. “This is a great accomplishment for St. John CDC.”
The program provides a way for providers to benchmark themselves in best practices to ensure children receive a good start in life.
Step Up to Quality maintains that children who receive high quality early education are more likely to be healthy and well-rounded lifelong learners.
“The years before age 5 are our most formative,” the organization’s website said. “High-quality early childhood education builds a strong foundation for learning, development and growth for the rest of our lives.”
St. John CDC is associated with St. John Lutheran Church and School and serves children through age 12, using academic experiences integrated with Christian learning and care.
Bright Beginnings serves children from 6 weeks old through age 13 and also focuses on a Christian approach through its curriculum.
“We feel that a Christian environment is very important in the development of the children at Bright Beginnings,” Brand said. “We provide that in a very general way for all denominations.”
Grants for expansion
Brand said even though the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic seems to have passed, Bright Beginnings is still feeling its effects in different ways, both positive and negative.
“Children that have gone through COVID sometimes need more instruction and have maybe lost some of that social ability that we try to have. Sometimes the child has to have more individual care, which takes more staff to accommodate,” she said.
One positive result of COVID for some childcare centers was an uptick in available grant funds through federal and state emergency response initiatives.
A few grants were specifically geared toward helping centers increase their capacity to serve more children, either by hiring additional staff or expanding physical facilities.
The state Department of Health and Human Services mandates staff-to-child ratios, as well as how many square feet must be available per child.
“You can only have so many children in a given amount of space, and so many children per age group,” Brand said. “For example, in infant rooms, each teacher can only be with four children. You have to figure your ratios every day. There’s no period of time that you can have too many kids.”
Bright Beginnings applied for and received grant money that allowed it to remodel a former office into a new classroom to accommodate up to eight more infants once fully staffed.
The grant covered the costs of the remodel as well as everything needed to furnish the room from cribs to toys.
Aring said St. John received some grants from the state of Nebraska, but it did not seek the more local grants geared toward expanding capacity.
“It isn’t really new classrooms that we need. We just struggle to have enough teachers to open it. We have the space. We need the staff,” Aring said.
Families waitlisted
When centers aren’t fully staffed, it affects their ability to keep classrooms open.
St. John has a total capacity of 140 children, but Aring said it usually operates with 127-129 students.
“We have two (staff) with a class no matter what. We didn’t open one class for the summer (partly) due to staffing,” Aring said.
Bright Beginnings serves 60 to 70 children.
Both centers have a waiting list, and Brand said the majority of those on Bright Beginnings’ wait list are infants.
She said it’s also becoming more common for parents to pay to hold a spot for their child, even if they don’t plan to use it right away.
“People are signing up for infant care the minute they’re pregnant, even before family knows,” Brand said. “We have some moving into the area in a year and a half or two years, and they’ve already signed up.”
Brand said expanding infant capacity will help more families in the short-term, but that expansion must be sustainable.
“If you add an infant room and those families were planning on their child moving all the way up until they go to school, you have to be able to expand those older age rooms as well,” she said.
Aring said families get frustrated when they’re on the wait list because they expect the centers to have a large fluctuation in openings throughout the year.
“We don’t typically have openings unless they move,” she said. “We try to offer a high-quality program, so when they come, they typically aren’t moving from place to place.”
Increased costs for all
Finding quality teachers means paying a quality salary.
“Our pay is consistent with our school system, but the downside is we don’t get the whole summer off,” Aring said.
During COVID, some businesses increased their wages to attract more employees, effectively drawing potential staff away from the childcare setting.
“They (businesses) upped their price and what they pay. We can’t compete with that because we’d have to throw it off onto the parent to pay a higher cost for childcare,” Aring said. “There’s a fine balance between what parents in this area can afford and still being able to pay our people.”
Bright Beginnings relies on tuition to pay most of the costs associated with providing childcare services, from staffing to food and supplies.
“We really appreciate the United Methodist Church allowing us to be a part of their facility and helping us with some capital improvements, but in order to make the finances work, we have to make the books balance. Consequently, tuition does go up,” Brand said.
Both centers employ college students looking for experience in early childhood settings, but that means more turnover and less consistency for children.
“It would be awesome if there was more incentive for them to work in the centers,” Aring said, such as for practicum hours for college courses.
