May 18—ARCHBALD — Child care facilities are in crisis.
Jobs at chain stores and fast-food restaurants pay more than the median hourly wage of $11.66 for a child care worker in Lackawanna County. Even as 826 children sit on waiting lists for care, at least 29 classrooms in the county remain unused. Facilities don't have the staff to open the rooms.
The Tri-Star Academy in Archbald hosted a roundtable discussion Thursday, highlighting how low wages have caused historic staffing shortages, driving up wait lists for working families. A report by the nonprofit ReadyNation and Pennsylvania Early Learning Investment Commission found the gaps in the system are stressing working parents and costing families, employers and taxpayers about $6.7 billion annually in lost earnings, productivity and tax revenue statewide.
A February report from Start Strong PA found that 96% of centers in the county have a staffing shortage. Filling 66 open positions would mean an additional 618 children could be served.
Unless something changes, center directors fear they will need to close more classrooms, or close altogether.
"The crisis is here," said Kathleen Pearage, administrator for Tri-Star Academy, which has four locations in the Midvalley. "It's affecting our families, our friends, our community."
Pearage's centers serve 264 kids from 230 families. She has 15 open positions, and five classrooms have limited enrollment because of a lack of staff. Two classrooms aren't even open, and wait lists are growing.
"We cannot compete with Target and Walmart," she said. "This is a historic labor shortage. We've never seen it like this, ever."
Simply raising fees for families isn't an answer because families can't afford to pay more.
Advocates seek help from the state and have proposed a wage scale for child care workers, ranging from a minimum of $21 an hour for an employee with a bachelor's degree, to $15 for someone with a high school diploma. That would cost the state $430 million annually.
The advocates also want to see centers receive incentives based on the Keystone Stars rating system, to encourage providers to offer quality care. That would cost $70 million a year. Several local representatives had staff members at Thursday's roundtable.
The report from Start Strong PA found that 50% of early childhood educators do not plan to or are unsure if they will remain in the field in five years.
Action must be taken to save the "the workforce behind the workforce" — the employees who enable parents of young children to work, organizers said.