Category Archives: Child Care

MoCo Not Moving to Phase 3 for Child Care

By Adam Pagnucco.

Montgomery County Government has announced that it will not be moving to phase 3 for child care. Governor Larry Hogan announced last week that the state’s phase 3 plan now included expanded teacher-child ratios for child care providers but MoCo will not be proceeding in that direction for now. The county’s press release appears below.

Montgomery County Will Not Be Moving to Phase 3 for Child Care Programs
For Immediate Release: Tuesday, Oct. 6, 2020

Montgomery County Health Officer Dr. Travis Gayles reminded child care providers that Montgomery County is not moving to Phase 3 for child care programs. On Thursday Oct. 1, Governor Larry Hogan and Superintendent for the Maryland State Department of Education (MSDE) Karen Salmon announced updated guidelines for child care programs allowing programs to serve up to 20 three- and four-year-old children in a room with a ratio of one teacher to 10 students and up to 30 school-age students with a ratio of one teacher to 15 students.

Montgomery County will not make this change and will continue to review the recent updates to provide more thorough guidance to child care providers that are affected. Montgomery County made the decision not to proceed based on the data that show sustained levels of community transmission and a continued high percentage of new cases in the zero to 19-year-old age group. This means that child care centers, family providers, letter of compliance programs and other entities licensed under the MSDE Office of Child Care, including school-age care in the county will remain at the levels currently in place.

Child care providers are reminded that they must continue to adhere to the State and local requirements for the wearing of face coverings, physical distancing of six feet, and sanitizing of hands, shared equipment and facilities. These precautions are critical as the County works to reduce the spread of COVID-19.

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Will MoCo’s Child Care Grants Make a Difference?

By Adam Pagnucco.

Child care providers have been as hard hit as any other industry by the COVID-19 crisis and are struggling to survive. The county is considering a $10 million grant program to help providers make it through the crisis. Shaun Rose, President of Rock Spring Children’s Center in Bethesda, has a number of ideas for improving the county’s grant program so that it can have the maximum impact. Following is his testimony before the county council.


Dear Council President Katz,

I write to express my support for the ECEI Recovery Fund, but urge you to make several amendments to more efficiently use the funds to accomplish the goal of supporting child care programs that are attempting to reopen and/or stay open to provide care to the County’s families while facing severe challenges to economic viability.

For the past 15 years, I have been involved in child care and early childhood development as both a parent and then as the president of Rock Spring Children’s Center. Rock Spring is a nonprofit child care & preschool facility that attempts to meet the needs of the families and children in our community with spots for 176 infants through pre-k children. As a former representative of child care providers in both elected and appointed capacities, I have testified regularly about the critical need for more resources to better support parental needs for quality child care, to bolster & expand child care businesses, and to improve the wages of child care workers. As a former Chair of the County’s Commission on Child Care, I volunteered for over 6 years to advise the County on child care policy issues.

The situation is dire for child care programs in Montgomery County and across the nation. A recent survey by the Maryland Family Network found that, without significant governmental assistance, many child care programs in the State may close forever (https://www.marylandfamilynetwork.org/news/over-half-marylands-child-care-programs-mayclose-due-covid-19-pandemic). My center reopened on June 1 with an enrollment of less than 20% of normal. We are estimating we will lose an average of between $75,000 and $150,000 per month for the foreseeable future due to the low enrollment, increased costs, and possible future closures either because we have a suspected or confirmed COVID case or because of more general shut down restrictions. This only gives us a matter of only a few months to hang on with the hope that a combination of federal, state and county assistance before we will also have to close permanently.

While I strongly support the goal of the ECEI Recovery Fund, two changes could make it more impactful. First, the award amount for centers should be based on “licensed capacity” rather than number of “sites.” A single site program with a normal capacity to serve 200 children will likely be suffering twice the economic loss as a 5-site program with 20 kids at each site. The current formulation would grant only $75k to the 200 capacity child care program and $300k to the 100-capacity program with 5 sites. This seems inconsistent with the County’s public policy goals of trying to maintain as much child care capacity as possible.

Second, the current iteration of the ECEI Recovery Fund makes funds available to programs only for losses in April and May 2020, during the “Stay at Home Order.” Those programs that received some federal assistance through PPP or that laid off their staff had much lower losses over the past weeks than they will in the coming weeks as the County reopens and everyone needs to be back to work. The way it is currently structured, the ECEI Recovery Fund doesn’t help those programs that are currently trying to serve County families and doing so at considerable losses. Some programs may not even be able to attempt to reopen.

Therefore, the appropriation should be amended to include losses incurred in June, July, and August. Programs could be granted a maximum award amount after applying. The program would then submit evidence each month of their qualifying losses to be reimbursed up to the maximum of their award. This would cover those that are trying to continue to operate and give the fiscal support & incentive others may need to justify trying to reopen rather than giving up.

I thank you so much for your dedication to our County and to our families and for your consideration of my concerns. I hope that you will make the amendments I suggested and pass this appropriation.

Sincerely,

Shaun M. Rose
President, Rock Spring Children’s Center
Shaun@RockSpringCC.com

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