With freezing temps in North Texas forecast, child care providers hunker down before storm
Child care providers across Dallas-Fort Worth are wrapping pipes, stocking up on food and notifying parents of closures as cold weather sets in.
Phyllis Brown, who runs a home-based daycare in Arlington, said that power outages during the winter storm last year caused her to leave her home after more than a day staying warm in a family van, which ran out of gas.
“The cul-de-sac was like a ghost town,” she recalled. “This year we got a generator, we got heaters, we got everything.”
While the winter storm forecast for Wednesday night into Thursday is not expected to have as extreme of an impact as the winter storm from last year, child care providers are taking no chances.
Tameka Bryan, who operates Crescent City Academy, has been working with her staff to stock up on as much food as possible — with plans to send food home with kids Wednesday so they have resources amid a closure that could last two days.
“I just got off the phone with my kitchen person,” she said Wednesday morning. “They are actually in Sam’s (Club) trying to get stuff right now and they are telling me how the shelves are empty.”
Bryan and other child care providers said that the advance notice of weather this year, along with the experiences from last year are helping to inform their preparations.
“Last year caught us off guard so bad,” she said. “We didn’t expect what happened to happen. This year we sent a notice that we are going to close Thursday … to prepare our parents.”
Bryan said the “goodie bags” with food should be able to help parents if they are unable to stock up on food with so many people preparing for the storm.
Daycares announce closures following school district announcements
While some centers are waiting to make the call on whether to close, many are following the announcements by school districts Wednesday morning to close as a precaution due to the possibility of icy roads.
“Most of (the child care providers) are buckling down and are choosing to be closed on Thursday and Friday,” said Vickie Allen, the president and CEO of Educational First Steps.
Lisa Wooden, who runs Lisa’s Learning Center in Fort Worth, said she made the call when she saw schools announcing closures and has been updating her parents ever since.
“I made the decision yesterday in correlation with the school district,” she said. “I told the families that the facilities will be closed today … due to inclement weather coming in.”
Wooden spent the morning Wednesday wrapping her outdoor pipes with a knitted cover and dripping faucets — steps she urged the families she works with to take as well.
Not all centers announced closures, according to Jerletha McDonald, the founder and CEO of Arlington DFW Child Care, who said that while transportation was suspended, some daycare centers and homes were choosing to stay open.
“A lot of them have gone to the grocery stores already and pre-stocked groceries,” she said. “A lot of homes remain open, but some centers and homes follow school procedures.”
Roslyn Chaney, a child care provider in Grand Prairie, is staying open to serve the essential workers who send their kids to Future Scholars 24 hours child care.
Chaney canceled the transportation she normally provides but said it was important to stay open.
“The reason why I’m not closing is because I don’t want the hospitals to be short staffed and I’m willing to be home anyways,” she said.
Two sheriff deputies and a TSA agent also send their kids to Chaney’s daycare.
Sydnee Pardee, who works at a Fort Worth daycare center, but lives in Dallas, said that she might not be able to make it into work even if the center doesn’t close.
“As of right now our center director doesn’t have any answers for parents or staff as to if/when we will close,” she said in an email. “In my experience it’s typically a last minute decision. As a teacher who commutes over 30 miles from my home in Dallas to my center in Fort Worth, I will likely not be able to make it to work on Thursday regardless, so if we remain open I will have to take the day off unpaid.”
Child care network provides support in times of need
Kelly Simpson, who runs Happy Day Kelley’s Kinder Care in Arlington, took in one of the families of the kids she cares for last year after their electricity went out.
Allen said that families and child care providers have relationships that allow for that type of support during disaster.
“In some of our child development centers, many of the families have relationships where they will support each other in circumstances like this that are uncontrollable,” she said. “So there’s a community network inside of these child development centers that naturally and organically evolves, that supports them in these types of crisis or short-term challenges that the weather causes.”
Allen said that after last year’s experience, those arrangements will be easier to make.
“I am so happy that we have had the foresight to be able to prepare, particularly for the child development sector to give them this level of preparation, and also give parents this level of lead time so that they can make alternative plans for care,” she said.
Chaney said that parents and neighbors should lend a helping hand for parents of daycares that have to close down.
“Make smart decisions and be safe, and if you can help someone, help someone,” she said. “If they have anybody that’s out there that can help family. I mean, I know some daycares may be closed and some maybe can help and assist in emergency care. Do that.”
Child care providers taking no chances after damage from last year’s storm
Child Care Associates, one of the largest providers of child care in North Texas, conducted a 2021 post-winter storm assessment after the February winter storm.
In a survey of 730 Tarrant County child care businesses, 45% had business operations interrupted by the storm, with 6% (46 providers), receiving enough damage to consider relocation.
Some child care providers are still working to reopen almost a year later.
“Child care businesses are not as well-equipped as schools to recover from such destruction including understanding insurances, finding alternative sites and a host of other critical issues,” CCA CEO Kara Waddell said at the time.
Waddell said that centers should prioritize people first when preparing for the storm, and buildings next.
“Make sure your families and children know what to do to keep themselves safe and warm,” she said in an email. “Snow days are particularly exciting for young children. Snow ice cream? Snow angels? Cotton ball art (for the snow) and watercolors at home; a good book to snuggle up and read.”
“Release staff with plenty of time for them to return home to their own families,” she also suggested.
CCA, which announced campus closures just after noon Wednesday, provided assistance to help cover damages of child care providers after last year’s storm.
But with another storm and freeze coming this week, child care providers are doing everything they can to avoid future damage.
Kishani Mathiasz, who operates child care centers in both Fort Worth and Arlington, said that her staff is keeping heat on and dripping faucets throughout the facilities.
“It has been so much of a challenge,” she said. “Because we are not prepared for the winter storms. Most of our pipelines are copper and those freeze up. Last winter storm we learned the lesson and we try to prepare for anything coming in the future.”
The Fort Worth school district, which canceled Thursday and Friday classes, was also taking steps to weatherize in the hours before the freeze hits.
According to the district, crews are overriding temperature controls to keep schools and other structures warm 24/7 and allowing them to remain warmer longer in the event of lost power, while irrigation systems are being shut off and cooling towers drained to prevent freezing.
Bethany Fort, who works at Green Space Learning, said that the nature preschool there is following similar procedures to avoid damage, including unhooking outdoor hoses and wrapping outdoor pipes and faucets.
After last year’s storm, Mathiasz said that winter storm preparedness has become part of the policies and procedures for her and her staff.
“When you get hit once, you are always ready for the next time it happens because these are things that never came up at all, for the past 15 years I’ve owned buildings,” she said. “We are trying to add those protocols to our systems and let our staff know what to do, and just make sure we’re following that. That’s all we can do.”
This story was originally published February 2, 2022 at 12:54 PM.
