With constant COVID closures, parents with kids in day care are at their wit’s end: ‘I honestly don’t know how we keep doing this.’

Chicago Tribune - 1/21/2022

After taking two unpaid weeks off when her family was home with COVID-19, Emma Branson was ready to get her toddler back to day care.

Finally, her 2-year-old could play with his friends, and she could focus on work.

But after just one day back, the day care closed for 10 days. Again.

“It really threw a wrench in things,” said Branson, a Logan Square mom and an environmental technician.

Since the pandemic began, day care centers have been caught in a cycle of managing frustrated parents and changing guidance while trying to operate. And amid recent national headlines focused on Chicago Public Schools’ issues, parents, teachers and directors said they feel left behind in guidance and left out of larger conversations that seem to forget their families.

“I don’t feel like a lot of things are considered,” said Marisol Nieves, who runs Little Einstein’s Daycare, which has two locations on the North Side. “We do share a lot of the same challenges as CPS in that our families need care, they need somewhere for their children to go during the day that’s safe.” Like many, the day care’s locations had been closed multiple times in recent months following positive COVID-19 tests.

Unlike older kids, children under age 5 have no access to vaccines; the latest vaccine trial pushed back that possibility to an uncertain date, crippling some parents’ hopes for a return to normalcy. Former University of Chicago professor Emily Oster, who frequently writes on parenting and data, recently shared responses she received from parents, with some saying they feel abandoned after asking parents of children under 5 a simple question: “How are you doing?”

“It feels like some folks have just moved on from the pandemic, making it feel like my family is being left behind,” said Bryan Roush, a father in Arlington Heights who called parenting three kids ages 5 and under “bleak.” “I honestly don’t know how we keep doing this.”

Chicago-area parents spoke about feeling they’re in a constant cycle of fear and frustration. Many spoke with dread about “the notification” — finding out their child was a close contact of someone with COVID-19, followed by a now-too-familiar search to find a reliable and quick test for their kids and themselves.

Parents have no real options for back-up care — such as a drop-in day care or a babysitter — when their child might be carrying COVID-19, especially as infants and toddlers cannot easily or safely entertain themselves. Nannies also are in high demand.

Each time they get a call from their day care, said North Center dad Justin Leinenweber, whether it’s in their 4-year-old’s class or their 9-month-old’s class, both children are out for two weeks. He knows the day care is trying to protect as many children as possible. But the constant disruption is exhausting; he and his wife choose who stops working. He is an attorney and she is a public school teacher. Last time, his wife used up the last of her sick time. He knows they are luckier than most to even have this ability to juggle.

“I was just getting the sense of a routine again, when boom: an email on Wednesday morning saying to pick up both kids by 11:15 a.m., because of a case in the younger kid’s room,” he said.

Many parents, exhausted by impossible calculations, have accepted they must send their children to school as a contagious virus spreads and hope they receive no more notifications.

“I’ve said a lot; I’m holding my breath,” Branson said. “It’s really just been kind of balancing the fear and the caution, because (my son is) not vaccinated, and wanting to keep him safe, but also having to get back to normal and back to work and having him in day care.”

Some parents said employers had become less sympathetic as the pandemic stretched on. And, of course, not all parents can work remotely, leaving essential workers especially in a bind.

Day care centers follow guidance given by the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services, the Illinois Department of Public Health and the Chicago Department of Public Health on handling positive cases and masking. State guidance suggests children and staff quarantine for at least 14 days, but this can be reduced in consultation with the local health department. Melaney Arnold, a state health department spokesperson, said they are awaiting guidance from the the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention specific to day cares.

Day care directors and parents who monitor the guidelines say they can be hard to keep up with or even understand. For example, day cares are directed to follow state guidance but to report any COVID-19 cases to city health officials. Meanwhile, day cares have varying policies on what happens after a positive test.

The CDC recently suggested schools consider a test-to-stay program for unvaccinated students, which Chicago Public Schools is piloting, where students can stay in school as long as they continue to test negative. Jade Fulce, a CDC spokesperson, said although previous studies have not evaluated test-to-stay in child care settings, it can be an option for child care programs. Test-to-stay protocols are included in an IDPH document offering guidance on returning students who are asymptomatic close contacts.

Having to close for 10 days for a positive case is not sustainable for teachers, parents or kids, Nieves said, especially with the contagious omicron variant. “I’ve had parents tell me they’ve exhausted their COVID pay, PTO and vacation,” she said. At the same time, no day care director or parent is eager to welcome more exposure.

Those who run day care centers are tasked with trying to keep them afloat and support employees while balancing keeping children safe and enrolled. Relaxing guidelines could lead to more cases; keeping children out for half a month at a time could mean families find a different option. Used to telling families when they can return to day care after fevers, now they’re tasked with constantly reassessing pandemic protocols.

Some parents might want to keep kids home at any exposure; others might welcome the ability to return them to school as soon as a negative test can be confirmed.

“This is not sustainable, these rolling closures,” said Lauren Sauer, a Chicago mom who has had one of her two children home for COVID-19 closures for a total of five weeks. She was relieved, she said — while interrupting herself to ask her toddler, “What, honey?” — that the day care’s closure time had moved from 14 days to 10 days.

When the CDC recently reduced the quarantine and isolation time to five days, some assumed day cares would similarly adjust. Chicago Public Schools plans to change its policy to five days. The state health department noted its guidelines take into consideration that masking for young children can be difficult and those under 2 are unable to mask.

Although Branson wants kids to return to school sooner, every decision feels fraught.

“I wish that I could just do that without the thought in the back of my head, ‘Well, what if it’s really bad for him to catch COVID?’” she said.

Chicago area hospitals have seen spikes in kids admitted with COVID-19 with the omicron variant.

Meanwhile, teachers worry about their own exposure. And although some child care workers are represented in the SEIU Healthcare Illinois & Indiana union, because child care includes a variety of workers like in-home providers and day care centers, there is no umbrella organization, like the Chicago Teachers Union, that advocates for all of them.

And basic cold symptoms that most would chalk up to a typical Chicago winter can now mean a parent needs to collect their child, quickly.

“It is really hard to tell the parents, ‘OK, this child cannot come because the child’s nose is runny,’” said Erma Jackson, who runs Majestic, an in-home day care in Humboldt Park. COVID-19 has changed her job. The pandemic created a whole new layer of vigilance, in that one family’s actions or efforts toward taking precautions — or lack thereof — affect an entire day care.

“We have to add in a level of trust that the parent will respect the other families and our household,” she said. “There’s that level of trust, as well as fear.”

abowen@chicagotribune.com