Jasmine Brown, a mother of four from Ocala, has been on waiting lists at several local daycare centers for almost two years. Unable to find a program that could afford to enroll her 1-year-old and her 3-year-old son together, she split them between her two different centers this year.
The 29-year-old single parent struggled to find safe and affordable child care and was out of work for 18 months.
“If you can’t work, you can’t provide for your living,” she said. “It’s very frustrating to be stuck in this loop.”
Azria Pottinger
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fresh take florida
The hurdles to finding child care have only increased since the program that provided states with child care funding during the pandemic ended last month. The stimulus money was part of the federal government’s $24 billion program (including $1.5 billion in Florida alone) to support early learning and education centers through the pandemic.
An estimated 2,196 child care programs in Florida will close, with 212,721 children expected to lose care in the state due to the loss of funding, the New York-based newspaper reported in June. century foundationa progressive think tank.
The report says 3.2 million children across the country could lose child care and 70,000 programs are at risk of closing.
The organization estimates that the affected parents, who are overwhelmingly female, could lose more than $9 billion a year in income if they are forced to quit their jobs without securing affordable child care. There is.
Leave Florida aside. $315 million Of the child care funds disbursed throughout the fiscal year that began just a few days ago. Providers must complete an application to receive remaining funds. The remaining funds will be distributed by the Early Learning Coalition.
Brown spends $410 each week on child care for her child. A student in the radiography program at the University of Central Florida, she pays for daycare and other expenses through financial aid she receives through her school and DoorDash deliveries.
A few months ago, she moved in with her parents because she could no longer afford housing. She rents her two rooms in her house for $400 a month.
“I don’t even know how I came up with that,” she said. “It’s a big challenge for her to be a housewife who lost her home.”
Jenilyn Stripling, owner and director of Over the Rainbow Learning Center in Panama City, received about $25,000 of that funding. About 60% of her family pays out of pocket, and the remaining 40% of her family receives financial assistance from the state’s school readiness program. Her weekly tuition fees range from $170 to $240.
Federal funding has allowed Stripling to discount tuition by 10 to 25 percent for privately-paid households, pay employees and pay the facility’s $3,500 monthly rent.
“There were times when I couldn’t pay my rent without that money,” she says.
Azria Pottinger
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fresh take florida
She fears the loss of funding will soon mean she will have to cut employee hours and end tuition waivers for parents.
Stripling’s center has dozens of families on its waiting list, but doesn’t have enough staff to enroll its approved capacity of 42 children. The center currently cares for about 24 children.
Stripling said Florida’s early learning childcare worker shortage has worsened since the pandemic because wages are low compared to other industries. The average hourly wage for early learning educators in the state is $12.80. Florida’s minimum wage was raised to $12 an hour last month.
Long waiting lists for child care centers are also a common problem in Bay County, Florida’s Panhandle.Counties are classified as parenting desert — Areas that do not meet the childcare needs of residents’ children. 38 percent of Floridians The Center for American Progress, a progressive policy group in Washington, says children are living in a child care desert.
In Miami, April Graham, 53, a childcare worker and former school administrator, also worries about having to close her business.
“For childcare center owners, it’s a daily fear,” she says.
Graham runs America’s Little Leaders, a child care center in Opa-locka that has received thousands of dollars in federal funding throughout the pandemic. Without funds, she said, she may not be able to pay her salary.
Graham’s eight teachers continue to demand raises, but she says she can’t afford them. She is concerned about staff leaving for higher paying jobs.
“Our teachers are screaming, ‘Get out of here and go to Walmart or Amazon,'” she says.
Azria Pottinger
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fresh take florida
Since the pandemic, enrollment at the Graham Center has not fully recovered. Before the outbreak, the center was at capacity at 43 students and had a waiting list of two to three months. Currently, in Graham’s center he has only 32 children.
She increased weekly tuition (ranging from $225 to $195) by $10 a week over the summer to accommodate increased costs ahead of the loss of federal funding. Her annual tuition is approximately $12,000.
“Even that was difficult for my parents,” she said. “The majority of my parents are single mothers.”
Tonia Fralin, a 39-year-old mother in Fort Lauderdale, is having trouble getting financial aid through another federal aid program. The so-called school readiness program previously covered 90% of child care costs for her daughter Shirley, who turned 3 on Thursday. She has not received support since September 1st.
Shirley’s school, the Montessori Foundation, has offered to give her a full tuition scholarship while Fralin deals with the situation. But Ms Fralin doesn’t know how long that will last, as the school claims her future is threatened by the loss of funding she had been receiving due to the pandemic.
“I want her to be able to go to school,” she said. “I think she gets a lot out of it.”
Ms. Fralin works in a job supporting the company’s administrative and financial operations. She also helps run her husband’s company, BSF Consulting Inc., which she says has seen a decline in profits since the pandemic.
If she doesn’t collect the money she expects, Fralin will likely have to quit one or two jobs to stay home and care for Shirley.
“If I couldn’t work, half of my bills wouldn’t be covered,” she says.
Other childcare workers are in better shape.
Niki Callaway is the director of the Temple Terrace location of Children’s Nest Day School, a chain of child care programs with six centers in the Tampa Bay area. The school lost more than 50% of its students at the start of the pandemic and relied on federal funds to survive.
The school also placed teachers in higher-paying jobs during the pandemic. Before the outbreak in 2020, the center had 15 staff members, but that number has been reduced to 10.
“Sometimes people have to decide between following their passion or surviving,” she says.
Azria Pottinger
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fresh take florida
Although Children’s Nest is not in jeopardy from the loss of federal funding, the end of pandemic aid will impact local child care options, Caraway said.
“[Parents are] They depend on us to keep our doors open so we can continue to serve them,” she said. “But what happens when that’s gone? Our children need us.”
This article was produced by Fresh Take Florida, a news service of the University of Florida School of Journalism and Communication. The reporter can be contacted at: afriedman1@ufl.edu.You can donate to support students here.
