Cape and Islands Senator Julian Cyr
HYANNIS – Members of the Cape Cod Reopening Task Force and community leaders have stressed the importance of early education and childcare on Cape during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
Deputy Director of the Barnstable County Department of Human Services Vaira Harik said that 80% of childcare services in the region are opening under limited capacity guidelines, which represents 40% of pre-COVID slots.
Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard numbers are at 60% or 36% of pre-COVID slots.
“The sector, from a capacity point of view, is in straits that require immediate redress,” said Harik.
Cape and Islands Senator and task force member Julian Cyr said that the services are critical as the state continues efforts to reopen.
“Early education and childcare have always been absolutely essential activities and investments, but COVID-19 has revealed how utterly crucial they are,” said Cyr.
“The COVID-19 pandemic here on Cape Cod and the Islands has exposed how vulnerable our childcare workers and early educators are. We’ve seen how our providers have struggled to reopen and what that’s meant for our workforce and recovery.”
Cyr said that parents’ ability to go back to work hinges on the availability of these services and in the effort of making it more available, said that he would like to see the establishment of universal early education and childcare across the region.
Cyr celebrated the efforts that the towns of Wellfleet, Mashpee, Provincetown, and Eastham have done to provide town support for early education, and that he would like to see it expanded to all towns on Cape.
Amy O’Leary, Director of Early Education for All, echoed Cyr’s comments about the fragility and vulnerability of the childcare systems in the region, saying that they have been historically underfunded and overlooked as educators.
She said that a lot of what happens with childcare in the region will depend on parents and school reopening.
O’Leary said that it has been slow getting parents and children back on board with programs, and that there are some logistical problems to solve in ensuring that childcare locations do not serve as further opportunities to spread the virus.
She said that they will advocate for more funding for childcare services as more relief packages are drafted by state legislation.
“We continue to hear these heartbreaking stories from directors and family childcare providers who are borrowing from their reserves and maxing out credit cards just hoping for a childcare bailout that may never come,” said O’Leary.
“We really need to make sure that while there’s so many challenges during this time, we are putting young children and families first and that we really think about the long-term impacts that our decisions now are going to have, not just for children, but for the future of the Commonwealth.”
About Grady Culhane
