The return to classrooms for the nation’s schoolchildren has not meant a return to work for many of their parents who, with workdays that outlast school days, are finding crucial after-school programs in short supply.
School-based providers list difficulties hiring and retaining staff as the biggest reasons they have not fully rebounded from pandemic shutdowns and they say they are as frustrated as the parents they are turning away.
“We’re in a constant state of flux. We’ll hire one staffer and another will resign,” said
Before the pandemic, the
It’s difficult to conclude how many parents of school-age children have been unable to resume working outside the home because of gaps in available care. But surveys point to a cycle of parents, mostly mothers, staying home for their children because they are unable to find after-school programming, which then causes staffing shortages at such programs that rely heavily on women to run them.
“There’s no doubt really that these after-school programs — the lack of after-school programs at this stage — are limiting women in particular being able to reenter the workforce," said
“If women don’t return to the workforce then we don’t have the staff we need for these after-school opportunities, so it’s all very tangled together,” she said.
An
Wells Fargo reported that labor shortages in child care, where women account for 96% of the workforce, are more acute than in other industries also struggling to find reliable employees. Employment was 12.4% below its pre-COVID-19 level at the beginning of March, leaving an estimated 460,000 families forced to make other arrangements, analysts concluded.
“Access to affordable child care has been shown time and again to boost labor force participation among mothers," the report said.
A
Anticipating a crush for spots, Gonzalez had made sure to enroll her children for
“We were really just kind of hoping and praying that spots would open up for them and fortunately they did,” Gonzalez said.
Without the program, Gonzalez said she and her husband would have had to figure out how to get their daughters from their schools to her husband to wait for him to finish work.
“I would have had to probably change my schedule to go pick them up, drop them off and come all the way back to work," she said. "We would have figured something out but it definitely would have been a challenge.”
Rico X said the school-based before- and after-school programs he oversees at the
“In some of our waitlist sites we have some parents that are just in desperation," he said, "and there’s not a whole lot we can really do unless there’s a spot that opens up.”
The
“For a good portion of our families, this is a lifeline for them, and it gives them the ability to be able to work but also have the peace of mind that their kids are in a safe and engaging environment. It's 100% a lifeline," X said.
“We came into the pandemic with tremendous unmet demand for after-school and summer programs and of course, like almost every other challenge out there, the pandemic only made that challenge worse,” Rinehart said.
“My best guess is we don’t pay them enough money. We don’t offer them enough hours,” said Blackburn-Jiron, who said the program now serves far fewer than the 5,000 students enrolled before the pandemic.
“We're asking asking these 17-, 18-,
She said state lawmakers recently increased funding for the program, which could lead to better pay, but the money will not get to programs until near the end of the school year.
“Working families need school-based afterschool programs, and we just haven’t been able to meet the need,” Blackburn-Jiron said, “and it’s heartbreaking.”
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