Nearly 10 Charlotte child care providers plan to close next week as part of an annual initiative aimed at raising awareness of problems with funding and staffing such centers.
Pathway Preschool Center in east Charlotte is one of the facilities planning to close Monday for the national ‘Day Without Child Care’ initiative. The center serves 62 children. The campaign focuses on affordable child care for families, better wages for providers, and increased staffing. Emma Biggs, director of Pathway Preschool says additional funds would help deal with several problems.
“We can pay our staff what they are worth, we wouldn’t have a problem with quality child care, we wouldn’t have a problem with having a child care desert,” Biggs said. "We would be able to open up our classrooms because people will be coming back to the field. Instead, now, people are leaving the field because they can go somewhere else and make more money with less headache.”
Federal funds from the American Rescue Plan Act enabled child care programs in North Carolina to increase wages, retain staff, and offer other benefits during the COVID-19 pandemic. But those funds ended last year — along with extended grants approved by legislators, which ran out in March.
“We do want to raise the visibility and let people know that we are still in a crisis,” Biggs said. “At the same time, we want to put pressure on our elected officials to let them know that we are out here, and we're spreading the word. And we can’t continue at the rate we are going without help.”
Biggs says seven other centers in Charlotte plan to close for a day next week. As part of the initiative, parents, child care advocates, and staff plan to rally in front of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Government Center on Monday from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.
Full-time care for an infant averages more than $16,000 a year in Charlotte, according to Child Care Resources Inc. Teacher salaries average around $15 an hour, according to ZipRecruiter.
