Hundreds of child care providers affected by the Los Angeles fires were forced to close, dozens of facilities were destroyed, and many working families were left scrambling for child care, hurting the region’s already fragile sector. giving.
As of Thursday, 37 childcare facilities were reported to have been destroyed by fire. 21 were daycare centers and 16 were family-like children’s homes. An additional 284 units were rendered inoperable due to ash, debris, power outages or lack of potable water, according to the California Department of Human Services.
Daycare owners, teachers and parents at many shuttered facilities near Pacific Palisades and Altadena are working to reopen them. Some have hired professional restoration companies, while others are throwing out broken toys and furniture, scrubbing walls and hosing down play equipment in hopes of welcoming children back. However, given the extent of the damage, it is unclear when these facilities will reopen.
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The state Department of Licensing does not require any health or safety inspections before reopening. The California Department of Human Services said in an email that the facility will be able to resume accepting children once it can “operate safely” and meet all state health and safety requirements.
Los Angeles County is providing ongoing guidance to health care providers on how to clean facilities near burn areas. In a webinar held by the Los Angeles Department of Public Health, officials said health care providers should be able to clean themselves without professional help. Recommendations included using mild detergents and detergents to remove soot and smoke from walls, throwing away burnt items and washing all textile items that children touch. .
After removing smoke-damaged carpet Wednesday, Sebastian Suess is using Suess Flooring to refloor classrooms at Woodbury Preschool Village in Altadena. Seuss attended this school as a child.
(Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times)
Another big blow to the industry
The fire comes at a particularly difficult time for child care providers. During the pandemic, California has lost about 12% of its licensed child care capacity. The industry already suffers from very low profit margins despite high family-friendly prices, and additional costs can destabilize providers and lead to closures.
Los Angeles’ child care system “remains pretty fragile, and this kind of devastation could shake it up,” said the CEO of Options for Learning, a nonprofit that connects families in the San Gabriel Valley with childcare and care. says Paul Pulver. Subsidies including Altadena. “Some providers may not be able to rebuild, may not be able to afford it, may not have the money.”
Cristina Alvarado, executive director of Child Care Alliance Los Angeles, which studies the impact on health care providers, said it’s unclear what the ripple effects would be in an evacuation this large. He said he didn’t know.
Child care centers in unaffected areas will also need to evolve. “Will they be able to accommodate additional people moving into their community?” Alvarado said.
The state Department of Social Services, which licenses day care operations, did not respond to inquiries about the number of children enrolled in the burned-out and closed facilities.
Pulver said Options for Learning heard from 120 families seeking new sources of care in the first week alone. Connections for Children in Santa Monica, which works with families in the Palisades area, has seen a 65% increase in calls seeking child care referrals.
Bruce Fuller, an education professor at the University of California, Berkeley, said the biggest concern is families with children under 2 who need care. Caring for infants is expensive, and space for that age group was already in short supply.
“It’s been hard to find, and now we’ve literally exhausted a huge amount of supply,” Fuller said.
The state uses government subsidies to pay child care providers for 30 days, but the union representing family child care workers, Child Care Providers United, says more payments are needed. claims. In a letter sent Thursday to the California Department of Human Resources, the union requested additional support, including payments to affected health care providers until they can reopen, and additional funding for cleanup efforts and mental health services.
Preschool education faces a daunting checklist
As soon as the evacuation order was lifted last week, Daniel Svihovec returned to assess the damage at Woodbury Preschool Village in Altadena, the cottage complex he founded 37 years ago.
The school was still standing, but the schoolyard was covered in soot and rubble. About a block away, homes were destroyed.
Svihovec has been working from dawn to dusk for nearly two weeks to restore Woodbury to its original condition so the children could return, and to organize an outdoor donation drive for the families and staff whose homes were destroyed.
Teacher’s assistant Natali Alvarado, left, and parent Elizabeth Barrett remove children’s climbing equipment during the cleanup after the Eaton Fire at Woodbury Preschool Village in Altadena on Wednesday.
(Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times)
On Wednesday, they were stacking branches and filling multiple trash bags with toys and debris. This facility is unique. Seven cottages serve 120 families with children aged 6 weeks to 5 years. In each cottage you need to change the air filter, tear out the carpet and remove the insulation. A restoration group is working on the work, along with teacher and parent volunteers. There is still no drinking water at the site, and Svihovec was waiting Friday for a lab to confirm it was safe for the children to return.
Some parents are nervous about sending their children back to the center, given air quality concerns and its proximity to burn areas. Some are pushing to reopen sooner as they struggle to find alternatives. Svihovec expects fewer than half of the people will show up when the store opens.
For now, Lindsey Bruce is sending her 2 1/2-year-old daughter to school in Highland Park. She plans to consider sending her daughter back to Woodbury in February.
“I think you just have to do a little bit each month,” she said. “That being said, it’s also scary because if this continues, other places will be full. There won’t be anywhere else.”
Homelike childcare workers lose their home and job at the same time
Home care workers who lost their homes also lost their livelihoods.
Angela Lee first learned from a video from a neighbor that the Altadena home where she raised her children and ran a daycare business had been destroyed. The storerooms of the 10 children she cared for disappeared, along with the memories of her own children.
“It’s like, ‘Oh my God, I lost my house and my job all at once,'” Lee said. “That’s hard to understand. … I don’t even know what’s going to happen.”
She said it was difficult to contact family members, and four of them were left homeless. “It was heartbreaking,” Lee said. She is planning a family playdate in February to bring closure to her children’s sudden separation.
For now, Lee is taking it every day. As she rebuilds her home in Altadena, she is considering finding another location for her child care business. But she would be starting from scratch, which would be expensive.
Families scramble for new care
On the day the fire broke out, B’nai Simcha Jewish Community Kindergarten in Altadena had finished installing a new lawn and was preparing to show parents around the new early childhood center.
Almost everything was destroyed in the fire.
Founded in 1985, B’nai Simcha was based at a Jewish temple and center in Pasadena for 15 years. Some children who attended in the past are now sending their children there. My parents stayed for a long time after dropping off and met with other family members.
“There was so much history there. It was really sad to see it all end,” said school principal Karina Fu, who watched the children disperse to other kindergartens. added that it was heartbreaking.
During the pandemic, B’nai Simcha has been a “lifeline,” said Shiri Goldsmith Graziani, then a mother of an infant and toddler. Her eldest son started kindergarten when he was 2 years old and was soon joined by his younger brother. She made friends with other parents, attended events, and joined the temple.
“I feel like I lost something that meant so much to me, something that brought me so much community,” she said. “It’s hard to wrap your head around being anywhere else.”
Still, Goldsmith-Graziani needs help with her second son, who is 4 1/2 years old and in his final year at B’nai Simcha University. She has spent the past two weeks “running around like crazy” trying to figure out what to do. Although her home was not destroyed, it was on the edge of the burnt ruins and was uninhabitable. She lost half her income from teaching yoga and music at a nearby school that is now closed. Meanwhile, she’s also juggling raising her preschooler and older child, whose Pasadena Unified schools are still closed.
And she was “limping along” to find a new kindergarten for her son. Although there were some openings at nearby schools, she didn’t want to send her child anywhere, especially during these uncertain times. She needed a facility that worked with her family’s schedule and budget, but she also wanted to leave him with friends in a comfortable, familiar location. Families typically choose child care with great care, seeking a place that is not only practical but also reflects their values, culture, language, and religion.
She applied to other places, but none of them felt right. “I vacillate between thoughtful, anxious, and hopeless,” she said.
Eventually, she was able to secure a spot for her son at a nearby school, increasing the capacity to include him and one of his friends. He starts work on Monday.
Nursery school leaders near the Eaton fire site are scrambling to accommodate families like Goldsmith-Graziani and teachers in need of work.
Michele Masjedi hosted five families at her journey center starting in Highland Park. She is looking to expand production capacity, but her facility must wait for approval from the state’s licensing department and clarity on whether fire inspections are required as the state works to streamline the process.
She and other child care center directors from the San Gabriel Valley & Los Angeles Directors Alliance have space available in an open facility near the Eaton Fire-scarred area to assist parents and child care providers who are looking for a new child care facility or workplace. I created a spreadsheet.
“It has become painfully clear in the last few days that we are no longer in crisis because the infrastructure for child care is not in place, just as it was during COVID-19,” Masjedi said. spoke.
This article is part of The Times’ Early Childhood Education Initiative, which focuses on the learning and development of California’s children from birth to age 5. To learn more about this initiative and its philanthropic funders, visit latimes.com/earlyed.
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