Child care centers face additional challenges as the busy summer season transitions to fall. The industry has been experiencing rising costs and workforce shortages for the past few years.

South Metro Childcare Academy in Bloomington serves 110 to 120 children, from six weeks old to 13 years old. During the summer, the center sees an increase in children needing care.

“Summer is a lot of fun but it also comes with a lot of challenges,” said Director Ifrah Nur.

She explained children are at the academy for longer hours without school to attend. The center is open from 9 a.m. until 9 p.m. during the week and offers weekend hours as well.

“If a child is here from open to almost close, serving three meals and two snacks, how many teachers do you need for that ratio?” said Nur, who said additional staff is needed during the summer. “Overall, I wish during summers we had a system in place, extra funding for summer.”

Nur reaches out to college students to help fill the gap. Still, employees work overtime during the summer to provide the needed care.

Building Blocks Learning Center and Child Care in Fairmont also hires high school and college students to help address the seasonal increase in enrollment.

“We are actually the only child care center in our county,” said Shea Ripley, the owner. “In the fall, when that staff goes back to school or college, we lose a lot of them and we find ourselves scrambling for teachers throughout the school year.”

Starting on Tuesday, the center will implement a later start time to help with staff schedules.

“It’s definitely stressful,” said Ripley. “Those are really tough decisions we have to make but the alternative is to have less staff but that’s just never an option for quality child care.”

According to Ripley, compensation is the biggest barrier to attracting additional full-time employees.

“Especially in comparison to K through 12 teachers,” she said. “There’s big box stores that start at $21 an hour with benefits so it’s really hard to find staff that are willing to do this important crucial work for such little pay with close to no benefits.”

She added, “We do our best without having to raise tuition more than it already is, there’s only so much that families can afford.”

During the 2023 legislative session, Minnesota lawmakers approved additional funding for providers. The Great Start Compensation Support Payment Program provides grant funding for employee pay, benefits and other related expenses.

Ripley calls the funding helpful but not enough.

“We all know that birth to age five are the most important years in a child’s life and so the child care providers are really laying that foundation for those kids,” she said. “If we can get closer to compensating child care providers the same way they do K-12 teachers, I really think that needs to be the goal.”

Nur agrees additional funding is needed. She believes a shift in the perception of child care is necessary.

“There’s a lot of limitations when it comes to getting the funding for child care,” she said. “I feel like that can change if we’re looked at it as education as well.”