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Five child care workers on the joys and frustrations of a struggling industry

Mar 30, 2023
Staffing shortages and high turnover have dogged the early education and child care field for years. The pandemic has made them acute issues.
From left to right: Bernadette Davidson, Kiya Savannah, Vanessa Pashkoff, Kimberly Artez and Anna Rogers.
Robin Lubbock/WBUR

How a Buffalo child care center saved itself by closing temporarily

Nov 25, 2022
The worker-owned co-op shut down in the spring due to staffing shortages. It reopened by raising wages and tuition.
A classroom at The Rose Garden Early Childhood Center. The worker-owned co-op closed down to revamp its pricing and wage structure.
Maria Hollenhorst/Marketplace

Owner of child care center hopeful about rebounding from pandemic setbacks

Sep 30, 2021
Milli Pintacsi's child care operation was expanding, and enrollment had reached full capacity. Then the pandemic shut down the business.
Milli Pintacsi, owner of Le Petit Elephant Nursery and Preschool in Napa, California, with her children. "This is our family business," she says. "It feels like we can't fail — we have to make it.”
Courtesy Milli Pintacsi

An epidemiologist reflects on her pandemic child care decision

Apr 5, 2021
“I think I made the best decision I could,” said Whitney Robinson, a professor and public health expert.
When schools and day cares shut down last spring, epidemiologist Whitney Robinson faced a choice.
Chris Hondros/Getty Images

"Looking after children during the pandemic is uplifting"

Jan 13, 2021
Roopam Carroll runs a day care center in Nottingham, England. She explains how caregivers enable other kinds of work.
Roopam Carroll runs a day care center in Nottingham, England.
Courtesy of Roopam Carroll

A crisis for caregivers

Dec 30, 2020
Many working parents were already struggling. Then the pandemic hit.
The pandemic has left parents with impossible choices.
Rose Conlon/Marketplace

Women three times more likely than men to not work during pandemic because of child care

Aug 21, 2020
COVID-19 has driven women's unemployment rate higher than men's and could worsen the gender pay gap in the long term.
Child care needs are part of the reason the current recession has had a greater effect on women than on men.
Kate Sept/Getty Images

For public good, not for profit.

Do parents still pay when daycare is closed for weeks, or months, because of COVID-19?

Mar 30, 2020
With many daycares facing extended closures because of COVID-19, parents and child care providers alike are grappling with that question.
Across the country, schools and daycares are closed to help slow the spread of the COVID-19.
John Moore/Getty Images

Millions of workers don't do 9 to 5. So where's the child care?

Jan 14, 2019
There's a growing need for round-the-clock child care centers.
Erika Beras/Marketplace

In an effort to save money, day care centers in New England are forming purchasing groups

Oct 24, 2018
A pilot program is underway in Massachusetts, while New Hampshire already has 200 day care centers participating in its purchasing group program.
The Elizabeth Peabody House serves children and families in the Somerville, Massachusetts area.
Carrie Jung for Marketplace