Omicron is infecting staff and children at Tarrant County daycares. How many are closing?
Forty-six child care facilities in Tarrant County — or 8% of all daycare centers that provide subsidized care — have self-reported closing some or all of their classrooms so far this year as cases of the omicron variant of COVID-19 slam the industry, worrying advocates and further complicating parents’ search for care as they seek to return to work.
Between 10 and 20 new cases across the county a day were reported for the first few days of 2022, rising to 116 cases in children and 84 cases in child care employees being reported on Jan. 11, according to the most recent data from the Department of Health and Human Services.
The trend reflects the number of cases reported across the state, and the record-high number of pediatric COVID patients in Cook Children’s Medical Center this week — 69 as of Wednesday.
Of those 69 patients, nine children were still waiting in the hospital’s Fort Worth emergency room when officials briefed reporters on the crisis at 2 p.m. Wednesday.
Rising case numbers across Texas have alarmed advocates as classrooms and centers close their doors and infections take over, forcing parents to seek alternative care options.
“It’s getting harder and harder for child care providers to keep their doors open and for parents to find the child care they need, and this omicron wave is just making it worse,” said David Feigen, senior policy associate for early childhood for Texans Care for Children. “I am deeply concerned that more permanent closures could happen.”
Staffing, COVID-19 cases strain DFW daycares
Jerletha McDonald, the founder and CEO of Arlington DFW Child Care, has been working with centers that had to close, many for the second or third time during the ongoing pandemic.
“It is very hard, especially for providers who have underlying conditions,” McDonald told the Star-Telegram. “They are up in arms about what to do now and their health is at risk.”
The price of personal protective equipment, as well as shortages at stores across the region have also complicated early educators’ response to the sudden uptick in cases, McDonald said.
Enduring staffing issues that became more pronounced during the pandemic have not resolved either.
According to an analysis of Labor statistics by the Center for the Study of Child Care Employment at the University of California Berkeley, Texas has filled only 86.5% of jobs in the sector compared with the number of workers it had in February 2020.
“The early care and education sector suffered extensive job losses due to COVID-19, exacerbating a workforce crisis that existed long before the onset of the pandemic,” the center said in a monthly report. “Recovery continues to be challenged. Nationally, the child care sector recorded 3,700 fewer jobs than the previous month after accounting for the (Bureau of Labor Statistics) adjustments to the November report.”
Sydney Pardee, an early educator who works in Fort Worth, has seen classrooms in every age group close, mostly due to staff testing positive.
One classroom was open for only one day after returning from quarantine before it closed again due to another positive case. The vaccine also appears to be doing less to help stave off closures, Pardee said — noting that many of the classes are closing after vaccinated teachers came down with the virus.
“We’ve been operating at maximum ratios pretty much nonstop the last couple of weeks, constantly shuffling around children and staff, sometimes with reduced or nonexistent breaks and long hours,” she said. “There is little time to breathe, which unfortunate means little time for real teaching or meaningful interactions with children.”
Milder omicron variant offers some relief
In Mansfield, where rampant cases caused first six elementary schools, followed by the entire district to temporarily close through Tuesday, St. John’s Lutheran Preschool has closed two classrooms due to exposure to the virus — a far cry from closing the whole school at the peak of the pandemic.
Sharon Johnson, the director of the program, said that the center has maintained strict cleaning procedures from the outset of the pandemic, making the current surge business as usual.
“We are doing the best with our school as a whole for our families and protecting our children,” she said, adding that children are exhibiting symptoms for less time than earlier in the pandemic. “I’d say about 3-4 days on average.”
While some parents are left with few options, others are working from home or have grandparents who are able to take the kids in when they are sent home due to an exposure.
“A lot of our parents are stay-at-home moms or dads, or they work from home,” Johnson said.
The surge also comes after Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton successfully barred a federal mandate for masks and vaccines in Head start programs, federally funded, locally operated early learning centers.
The newest round of closures comes as a much-anticipated portion of the Build Back Better plan that would have revamped early learning across the country with funding and resources stalls in Congress, with the administration moving on to other priorities including voter protections.
Feigen said that despite the current stall, there is still political will to fix the longstanding issues with child care.
“In talking to our national partners, who are obviously engaged much more directly on the Hill, we have confidence that the focus has shifted right now to voting rights, but soon, there will be an effort to reengage on all the provisions in the budget reconciliation bill,” he said. “We are hopeful that the consensus that we have on the Early Learning pieces will remain in place, and that we’ll ultimately pass some bill at some point that will include all those pieces that we’ve been focusing on.”
This story was originally published January 14, 2022 at 5:00 AM.
