46 Time November 2/November 9, 2020
^
Most New York City childcare
centers, like this one, were required to
shut down from April to mid-Julyarch 27 was hands
down the worst day of
Cathleen Farrell’s profes-
sional life. COVID-19 had
hit the country like a tsu-
nami a couple weeks before, prompting
childcare centers, including the three she
owns and operates in Medfield, Mass.,
to close until further notice. For two
weeks, Farrell had continued to pay her
26-person staff, hoping the crisis would
be over soon. But by the end of that
month, her finances had become unten-
able. She reluctantly assembled her em-
ployees to deliver the grim news: every-
one would be furloughed indefinitely. On
the video call with her staff, Farrell cried.
“I felt like I was doing it to them,” she
says, her voice cracking in the retelling.
Stopping people’s paychecks during a pe-
riod of economic uncertainty cut against
how she saw herself. “I’m a caretaker,” she
says. “I take care of people.”
But Farrell’s decision to furlough her
staff was just the beginning of her finan-
cial woes. In order to reopen her day-care
centers in July, shortly after Massachu-
setts gave childcare directors the green
light, she had to retrofit her facilities to
keep kids safe and quell their parents’
fears. That meant purchasing thousands
of dollars’ worth of new equipment: 18 air
purifiers at $200 a pop; an $800 electro-
static sanitizing device; half a dozen $369
strollers to keep toddlers farther apart;
and outside play equipment and tents
that set her back well over $10,000. Far-
rell also doubled the frequency at which
professional cleaners visited her facili-
ties and began paying her staff more in
overtime, in part because they had to pick
up additional hours as their co-workers
took more sick days. (Farrell sends home
any employee who is not feeling 100%.)
Farrell was able to defray some of
these costs with a $156,000 federal Pay-
check Protection Program loan and a
$100,000 federal Economic Injury Di-
saster Loan (EIDL) from the Small Busi-
ness Administration. But seven months
into the pandemic, that cash is nowhere
near enough. In all, she tallies her losses
to exceed $390,000. “Money is flying
out the window,” she says. “It’s been
heart- wrenching to see a thriving busi-
ness collapse.” Enrollment at her facili-
ties has yet to rebound. For weeks, her
largest childcare center operated at 20%
capacity. Until October, Farrell couldn’t
even afford to pay herself.
Not that it provides much solace, but
Farrell is far from alone: 86% of child-
care providers reported serving fewer
children than they were before the pan-demic, and 70% said they’re incurring
“substantial” new operating costs, ac-
cording to a July survey from the National
Association for the Education of Young
Children (NAEYC). Across the industry,
enrollment has plummeted by two-thirds,
while costs continue to soar. Day-care
managers must hire more staff to handle
smaller class sizes, spend more on legal
fees to navigate the process of obtaining
government loans and abiding by state
regulations, and shell out more for sanita-
tion supplies and cleaning personnel. Un-
less the government invests significantly
in the industry—and soon— NAEYC pre-
dicts that 40% of the childcare businesses
it surveyed will shutter. Permanently.The deaTh of the childcare industry
as we know it may have a domino effect
across the economy. If these businesses
fail, owners like Farrell will face hard-
ship, but so will the roughly 1.1 million
people—96% of whom are women and
40% of whom are women of color—who
work as caretakers. Mass closures acrossSociety
Day cares
on the brink
BY ABBY VESOULIS