June 4, 2020 – Conversations continue over how to best reopen child care centers in Illinois for parents who are heading back to work in Phase 3 of the governor’s reopening plan.
At one point there were nearly 10,000 licensed child care centers in Illinois, but government-imposed shutdowns to reduce the spread of COVID-19 reduced that number to about 2,500 centers operating on emergency licenses to care for the children of frontline workers.
Late Friday, on the first day of Pritzker’s Phase 3 reopening plan, new guidelines were published.
Sarah Stoliker, president of Illinois Directors and Owners of Childcare Centers, said that left many businesses that were gearing up to open for parents returning to work to stay shuttered.
“Some of those people just said ‘you know, I’m going to be delayed a week, or I’m not going to open up until June 15,’ or something like that,” Stoliker said. “They’re not seeing any light at the end of the tunnel as far as like how long is this going to go on, how long am I going to be restricted with these lower numbers and not be able to get to full capacity.”
“There’s still a lot of question marks,” she said.
She said talks with the administration continue.
Pritzker on Monday said the rules could be modified.
“We’re open to considering changes in those guidelines, but I will point out what we’re trying to do here is to manage the challenge of trying to keep everybody safe,” Pritzker said.
Stoliker said a recent survey of 800 of the group’s members found ten percent said they had already closed while another 18 percent said they were within weeks of closure. She said they have to expand capacity to continue serving families as parents head back to work.
“So that we’re not turning people away that are getting called back,” Stoliker said. “It’s just a very integral part of the economy and as Illinois reopens, we have to be there.”
The Department of Children and Family Services published dozens of pages of policy changes for daycare operations during a public health emergency.
Some of the changes Stoliker said limits on daycare capacity while simultaneously increasing the cost of operations make it difficult to keep businesses functioning.
