In recognition of the tremendous amounts of effort towards uninterrupted learning that they’ve put forward during the coronavirus pandemic, child care providers have been approved to receive a second round of teacher support stipends and wage supplements by the Louisiana Department of Education, according to a March 17^th news release.

It would be a massive understatement and misaligned judgment to not consider Louisiana’s child care providers as essential frontline service workers amid the Covid-19 pandemic. As reported by the LDOE, the pandemic has significantly impacted both the field of child care and in this case, especially child care teachers. These significant impacts continue to contribute to the ongoing issue of teacher turnover, as they join other stressors that child care teachers face.

A research study that was conducted by the University of Virginia found that over 30% of early child care educators reported difficulty in paying rent, 40% consider themselves food insecure, and over 50% report being unable to pay for medical expenses. In light of these distressing statistics, the LDOE has funded two rounds of the 2021-2022 Teacher Support Grant for open Child Care Assistance Program (CCAP) child care providers.

The initial round of $10,681,600 in grant funds was distributed to over 600 open child care providers in the form of stipends and wage supplements in August of 2021, and recently, the second round of the Teacher Support Grant, amounting to $17,492,800, was distributed to over 700 open child care providers in February 2022.

Both rounds of the Teacher Support Grant have been funded and issued in direct response to an early childhood workforce report that was submitted to the Louisiana Legislature by the Louisiana Department of Education. The LDOE’s report detailed key information about the impacts, funding, and costs of early childhood care and education in the state of Louisiana.

Further detailed in the report, it was stated that approximately 35% of teachers in early childhood education leave their sites of employment or placement at some point each year, and that percentage is increased to approximately 44% in child care centers. The report also found that only one-third of the teachers observed in Louisiana’s publicly-funded early childhood classrooms are still teaching in that same location three years later, signaling distressing turnover.

The Executive Director of the Louisiana Policy Institute for Children, Dr. Libby Sonnier, commented on the issue of child care provider retention and turnover by saying, “when qualified, experienced educators are constantly leaving the field, it’s inevitable that we will see direct impacts on quality. Either a program will have a ceiling of success that it will not be able to exceed, or worse, we will start seeing a reduction in quality as programs struggle to recruit and retain strong early care and education staff.”

This high percentage of child care provider turnover was just one of the contributing factors presented to the Louisiana State Legislature, contributing to them approving the second round of funding. Another contribution comes from the report’s analysis of how a child care provider’s annual pay compares to their school-based counterparts.

Recent data from the Department of Education showed that child care teachers make approximately $20,000 annually, which is less than half of a school-based childcare provider. This salary is less than the federal poverty level for a family of three, according to 2020 statistics, and an approximate 27% of child care teachers reported that they actively work a second job in addition to providing child care.

Dr. Cynthia DiCarlo is both a professor of Early Childhood Education at Louisiana State University and the executive director of the LSU Early Childhood Education Laboratory Preschool. Dr. DiCarlo commented on the wage disparity that the LDOE’s presented report in saying, “teachers working in early care and education are still paid less than their service-industry counterparts. Until we decide as a state to pay teachers at par with other job opportunities, we will not move forward with quality early childhood care and education in Louisiana.”

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