On March 13, 2020, Alicia Fink, one of the owners at Oak Village Academy, celebrated operating at full capacity at her child care center. Three days later, she entered into a strange and eerie silence.
“We weren’t hearing any of the laughter. We went from 187 children talking, learning and laughing to [only] 18 children. It was eerily quiet… It was a lonely shock and the quiet hurt everyone’s hearts tremendously,” Alicia said.
Early childhood educators have faced an unexpected challenge in maintaining enrollment numbers and their children’s safety. Child care programs are also struggling to find scarce disinfecting and cleaning resources with already limited funding.
Oak Village Academy only maintained 15 to 20 percent of their original families from before COVID-19. After checking in with the families, the center offered a voluntary absence for children with a reduced tuition rate. Making a huge commitment, Oak Village Academy never closed and their teachers were fully paid during the crisis, without their vacation days being affected. They were able to afford this because of the families who continued to pay tuition and generous contributions from the owners. Whether their teachers worked for two days a week to social distance, or five days a week, they were always paid in full to support their families and pay their bills.
“My teachers are wonderful. This team is the best team in the world and they are passionate about putting smiles on [the children’s] faces, even if it’s under a mask,” said Alicia.
Luckily, new families seeking child care have brought Oak Village Academy’s current enrollment numbers up to nearly 100 children. And their teachers are still working diligently to comfort and reassure children. Young children have been torn from their normal schedules, forced to wear masks and are struggling to find normalcy in a new environment of social distancing.
“I don’t think [the children] could possibly have a full sense of what is going on. I don’t even think the adults have a full sense of what’s going on. I think everyone is maneuvering through the day with a bit of shellshock… the children definitely feel those external stressors from the adults whether it’s intentional or not,” said Alicia.
As early childhood educators are essential for families to get back to work, Alicia hopes to see a turning point in the child care industry. She wants to see more advocacy for early childhood education from those in public office and the community now that the industry has been deemed critical. Early childhood educators are essential to helping families return to work and communities return to a sense of normalcy. The child care industry won’t survive until major changes are made and early childhood educator voices are heard.
“Early childhood educators get forgotten quite a bit and it saddens me to my core… Early childhood educators are people too. We’re educators too, and we’re struggling to be seen.”
