Wait lists, anxious parents: St. Louis area schools need more workers for aftercare

Aug. 13—Sara Newberry is used to waking up at 4 a.m. on a specific day each summer to stand in line and register for afterschool care for her children in the Maplewood Richmond Heights School District.

The strategy was always successful — until this year.

"I was shocked. And then as conversations started happening in moms' groups, it seemed like everyone was getting denied," Newberry said. "A lot of people are anxious about where our kids are going to go and how to preserve our jobs if we don't have aftercare."

Nearly all schools offer before- and aftercare programs because parents' work schedules don't align with the typical 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. school day. The programs, which are usually fee-based, can be staffed in-house or through a contractor such as the YMCA.

With pay as low as $11 an hour, and an average of four work hours a day, the jobs have always been hard to fill. But during the pandemic, retirees or other workers with flexible hours, such as college students, have been reluctant to take low-paying jobs because of a potential for exposure to COVID-19. The labor crunch hasn't eased.

Staffing remains the biggest challenge for before/aftercare programs in schools, which are also struggling to fill several other non-teaching positions.

More than half of aftercare programs have waiting lists this year, a 46% increase from 2021, according to the nonprofit Afterschool Alliance, based in Washington.

Unlike teaching positions, which are harder to fill in urban and rural districts, suburban schools are hardest hit by aftercare staffing shortages, according to the group's surveys.

At the end of July, 174 kids in Maplewood Richmond Heights were put on waitlists for the Discover Club child care program at the preschool and elementary school. Newberry, a self-employed massage therapist, and another mom created a co-op of 78 parents to find and swap transportation and child care shifts.

Meanwhile, the district opened applications to high school students and offered jobs to current school support staff at $25 per hour, among other incentives. By Friday, six additional workers had been hired and the district sent emails to a number of lucky families who were moved off the wait list, including Newberry's.

Maplewood Richmond Heights spokesman Ed Rich did not release the number of students still on the list.

"We are grateful to all families for their patience as we strive to preserve this most important community service," he wrote in a recent email to parents.

Other schools across the region are also reporting staffing shortages and waitlists, just 10 days before the school year starts. Some have implemented new hiring methods to address the shortage:

— Gateway Science Academy charter school in St. Louis offered before/aftercare slots to 70 out of 120 students who applied.

— Last month, dozens of families were waitlisted for Webster Groves School District's before and aftercare program, Adventure Club, because of a lack of staff. The district has since made hires, but some schools still have waitlists, according to a spokesman.

— At least five Catholic schools are still trying to hire before/aftercare staff, according to the Archdiocese of St. Louis' website.

In several school districts, including Affton, Ladue, Northwest and Webster Groves, high school students are eligible for child care assistant positions. Ladue also opened the jobs to students from outside the district for the first time this year. Teachers in St. Louis Public Schools can get $30 per hour for staying on to work in the aftercare program. Last year, they were offered an overtime rate of $40 per hour.

The pandemic has only exacerbated longstanding staff shortages in education. A group of school leaders from across the state met earlier this month and agreed their biggest concern is filling jobs, said Doug Hayter, executive director of the Missouri Association of School Administrators.

"It's more pronounced than we've seen in quite a few years. Most cited non-teaching positions — bus drivers, paraprofessionals, custodians, food service workers," Hayter said.

School job fairs, typically held in spring to fill positions for the following year, are now held year-round with interviews on the spot. Riverview Gardens School District in north St. Louis County, which has 107 teaching vacancies and 97 support staff vacancies, is hosting job fairs every Thursday in August, including the first week of school.

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