Pa. shutdown causes confusion for Centre County day care facilities, parents
Questions from parents who send their children to day care poured in shortly after Gov. Tom Wolf announced Friday that all K-12 schools in Pennsylvania would close until at least March 30.
The longer-than-expected spring break and unabating closures nationwide sparked confusion among parents and child care providers.
Some of those questions were answered Monday night following Wolf’s order urging the shutdown of nonessential government offices and nonessential business activity.
All child care facilities in Pennsylvania should close for 14 days effective Tuesday as a proactive measure to mitigate the spread of COVID-19, according to the state Office of Child Development and Early Learning.
The message from the governor’s office and the state OCDEL was “extremely confusing for everyone,” Step by Step School for Early Learning co-owner Rachel Johnson said Tuesday.
“I spent the whole afternoon ... making plans and decisions based on our continued operation, and parents left the school that night believing they would be coming back the next day,” Johnson said. “To receive that news after working hours and then to have notify families that their child care had to end effective immediately was very difficult on everyone.”
The state Department of Human Services acknowledged in an email Monday night that the closures are “especially burdensome” on essential personnel, such as health care workers and first responders.
The state OCDEL, which is responsible for licensing child care facilities, implemented a waiver process for child care centers and group child care homes that serve these families.
Waivers are expected to be processed as fast as possible, state Department of Human Services Communications Director Ali Fogarty wrote in an email. It’s premature to speculate on how many waivers may be issued in Centre County or across the state, she said.
The YMCA of Centre County, as of about 6 p.m. Monday, was in the process of setting up child care services for essential community employees only.
Kid’s Court Child Care and Learning Center and Step by Step applied for a waiver, but did not have a response from the OCDEL as of Monday morning.
“We had to make the decision just to close for now without any further information and because of the need to act quickly with the timeline we were given,” Johnson said.
No cases of COVID-19 have been confirmed in Centre County as of 12:45 p.m. Tuesday, according to the state health department.
This story was originally published March 17, 2020 at 10:41 AM.