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Nowhere to go for child care. Staff, parents grappling with coronavirus changes, closures

Island Packet - 7/3/2020

Jul. 3--Ellen Messick has been struggling to get her 7-year-old son into a reliable child-care program.

Messick, 35, a single mom who lives in Bluffton and works on Hilton Head Island, put Eli on a wait-list at Island Rec Center in May. She hasn't heard back yet.

"It's so full," she said. "And it's the same with the Boys & Girls Club."

She isn't alone in trying to find an opening.

As the coronavirus continues to spread, some child-care centers in Beaufort County have limited their capacity to keep kids socially distanced. And working moms and dads are trying to adapt to a slew of safety changes at preschools, day cares and summer camps.

The Hilton Head Boys & Girls Club offered 100 slots for their summer camp this year. Typically there's room for about 350 kids. The Children's Center near Jarvis Creek Park dropped their summer camp availability from 50 to 30 spaces.

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Other programs have closed temporarily. Creative Beginnings Two Child Care on St. Helena Island shut down this week for a cleaning, as COVID-19 cases spiked in the county, the director said.

The Island Lutheran PreSchool off Main Street on Hilton Head has been placed on "hiatus" for a year and isn't expected to reopen until August 2021. And Cross Schools in Bluffton closed its preschool recently due to confirmed COVID-19 cases among "community members." The preschool reopened Wednesday.

"There are families out there floating," said Jody Levitt, executive director of The Children's Center. "I feel so bad."

"This whole COVID thing has thrown a wrench in everyone's lives," she added. "It's just a whole new world and we're trying to adapt on the fly."

The waiting game

Messick, who's the restaurant manager at Skillets Café & Grill in Coligny Plaza, said she was lucky to get her other son, Tucker, 1, into Lowcountry Day Preschool a few weeks before COVID-19 hit the state.

Eli, though, stays with his grandma in Bluffton while Messick works 7:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. on the island. After the Fourth of July, he'll move to Atlanta to stay with her family for most of the summer.

Both of her boys have been fine throughout the pandemic, Messick said. They just want to play outdoors.

But she's still upset by the lack of options for Eli, who also attended Lowcountry Day in Bluffton when he was younger.

"It can be very frustrating for me," she said.

Kim Likins, director of the Hilton Head Boys & Girls Club, has a wait-list of at least 50. Inez Smalls, director of Creative Beginnings Two, reported a wait-list of about 10. Levitt, of The Children's Center, said parents call every day looking for available spots.

At First Presbyterian Day School on Hilton Head, director Amy Dungan said she canceled a summer-only program for about 20 kids who had recently graduated from kindergarten or first grade.

Dungan thought it would be easier for the staff to only focus on younger kids enrolled at the school year-round.

"'I can't promise you that this is going to happen, so you better make Plan B,'" she said she told the older children's parents.

New precautions

Child-care centers in Beaufort County say they've changed their daily routines after reopening in June to address the possibility of a COVID-19 outbreak.

Several center directors told the newspaper they take the temperatures of staff and children every morning. Employees wear masks. The Hilton Head Boys & Girls Club checks kids' oxygen levels.

Parents were banned from going inside most child-care buildings, the directors said. They now drop their kids off outside.

At First Presbyterian Day School, children have been spending a lot of time out in the sun, Dungan said. The Children's Center has access to Jarvis Creek Park and a nearby soccer field.

The coronavirus can be transmitted more easily in indoor areas due to less ventilation, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, so centers are prioritizing outdoor play.

"We're having to reimagine the programs that we offer," Levitt said. Field trips are a no-go, but she has been considering virtual field trips, or activities like online magic shows.

The Children's Center, First Presbyterian Day School, Hilton Head Boys & Girls Club, Creative Beginnings Two, Lowcountry Day and the Child Enrichment Center in Beaufort all told The Island Packet they've had no issues with diagnosed COVID-19 cases.

At least so far.

"Every Friday we sort of fist bump and say 'We're so grateful for another safe and healthy week,'" Likins said. "But you never know."

A few directors reported kids having stomachaches. No one has been severely ill or sick for a long period of time, though, according to the directors.

If someone did have a fever, they would be taken to a room away from other kids and then sent home with a family member. They wouldn't be able to return until they were symptom-free for a few days. If a child tested positive for COVID-19, they would be out for a couple of weeks.

Likins said she would call public health officials if an outbreak flared-up at the Boys & Girls Club.

"Everything's up in the air," added Smalls, of Creative Beginnings Two. "I lost a lot of my paying clients because a lot of parents lost their jobs or were laid off."

Smalls' enrollment was propped up by essential workers, who were able to apply for a state voucher to cover child care costs, she said.

Temporary closings

Deiha Torin is looking for another job.

Torin had been director of the Island Lutheran PreSchool for 20 years before the church in May decided to shutter the program until summer 2021.

"I just wish I knew a clear path," she said.

At first, she was extremely upset by the decision. But Torin said she's beginning to understand the church's reasoning, considering the spike in coronavirus cases around South Carolina last month.

The preschool wouldn't normally host summer programs, so parents haven't been affected yet.

Families, though, had to deal with the recent closing of Cross Schools' preschool in Bluffton. Pete Laugen, head of school at Cross, in a statement wrote that a few "community members" had tested positive for COVID-19. The preschool was closed throughout the end of June and reopened Wednesday.

Cross contacted the S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control to discuss the matter, according to Laugen, and as of Wednesday the school hadn't heard of any other community members testing positive.

The people who contracted the illness are recovering well, Laugen wrote.

According to the S.C. Department of Social Services, as of Tuesday about 61% of all child-care centers in the state had reopened. Many had opted to shut down in March.

'It's been stressful'

At some local child-care centers, directors said parents haven't sent their kids back to programs yet. They can no longer afford it, having lost their jobs amid the pandemic.

Other parents aren't comfortable with their children returning to the "new normal," especially as COVID-19 cases rise.

Dungan, of First Presbyterian Day School, said her enrollment is down even without capacity restrictions. When her school closed this spring, some parents found new child-care options, she said. A few others have immunocompromised family members, so they don't want their kids to be in public.

Kelly Perron and Brian Perron, of Bluffton, pulled their 3 1/2 -year-old, Isabella, out of the Amazing Creations day care in mid-March.

It was just too scary at the time, Kelly Perron, 34, said.

She had been on maternity leave since their second daughter, Gianna, was born Feb. 20. Then she was furloughed by Red Flower, a New York City-based beauty supply store that she works at remotely.

Kelly Perron expects to be called back eventually. And because the couple decided to hold Isabella's slot at Bluffton-based Amazing Creations, they're considering the possibility of sending her in part-time next month.

They're just keeping an eye on the daily COVID-19 case counts in Beaufort County.

"It's been stressful," she said. "We do have to pay those bills."

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