EXCERPT FROM: Athens Banner-Herald
By Kristen Morales
For all its benefits, one fact remains about child care: It's expensive.
So as parents across Georgia get caught up in the wave of unemployment that's swept the state, often one of the family's first cuts is child care. The result, according to a new study by Quality Care for Children, is that more child care centers cut classes as they see a drop in enrollment - and a few have closed altogether.
Since March 2010, the study found, Georgia lost 1,395 child care programs, a decrease of 22 percent. In Clarke County, 11 child care centers closed in the past year, a decrease of 15 percent, while child care centers with an Athens address fared slightly better, seeing a decrease of just three centers, or 3 percent.
Pam Tatum, CEO of Quality Care for Children, said the organization was surprised that the survey showed a continued decline in the number of child care centers. Quality Care for Children is an Atlanta-based nonprofit focused on providing resources and training to child care providers while helping parents find affordable child care. This year's survey is the third documenting the effect the economy has had on the industry.
"We thought things would level off at some point; we were surprised that the decline is continuing," she said. "And we were actually surprised that this was the first time we heard from child care providers about children being hungry - that surprised us."
Among the results of the 2011 Impact of Economic Downtown on Child Care survey, it found that more children were coming to centers hungry, and more children asked for second and third servings of food.
This comes on top of child care centers often waiving late fees or changing payment schedules for parents, further tightening an already thin budget.
But in these parts, the picture for the future isn't as grim as the state numbers as a whole.
Around the Clarke County area, child care centers are reporting a slight uptick in enrollment. Many say 2009 was when they hit a low, but since then enrollment has been slowly ticking back up, reflecting an overall loosening of the economy and more parents getting back to work.
"I'm not seeing the drop that we took at the beginning of this," said Corinne Bundy, owner of Kids R Kids in Bogart. "It's not going (up) that fast, but we're definitely stable and heading in the right direction - which is good for people who are getting jobs."
There was a point, she said, when the facility did see a distinct difference in enrollment. Kids R Kids is licensed for 280 children and now has 240 enrolled, she said, with classes ranging from infants to pre-K and after-school programs for kids up to age 12.
"Obviously the numbers did go down," she said. "The children are either staying with grandma or whichever parent has been affected."
UP AND DOWN
Child care centers that also offer lottery-funded pre-K say the state-funded program helped keep more kids enrolled despite the economy, though some said their after-school program numbers dipped in recent years. Dawn Kincannon, director at Magic Years of Learning in Athens, said the lottery program keeps her pre-K classes full, but the numbers for the after-school program have decreased.
"We used to have a lot of children who used to stay later in the afternoon, but you have a lot of moms who are not working," said Kincannon, whose facility is licensed for 122 children but currently has 75 seats filled - 40 of which are in the pre-K program.
"We have smaller classes and we've had to cut hours to part time," she added. "I have one class that is infants through mid-toddlers, then one classroom that is 1s to 3s, and then a class of 3- and 4-year-olds."
Many centers saw the biggest drop in their infant classrooms. With lower child-teacher ratios and more specialized training, day care programs for infants often are the most costly - and also the first to go when parents are trying to cut back.
"We're getting a lot more calls for day care - maybe a year ago there was not a great demand for infants, but there seems to be more of a demand now," said Janet LaFave, director and owner of Little One's Academy, which has two locations in Athens. "People were trying to save money who had lost their jobs, but there is more of a demand for infants now than there has been in two years, so I see that as people going back to work, getting jobs, and that's a positive trend."
BAD NUMBERS
Yet for more than three years, Georgia's unemployment rate has exceeded the national average. In February, according to the Quality Care for Children study, there were more than 263,000 Georgians who had been out of work for more than six months - 38 percent more than there were in February 2010.