VTDigger posts regular coronavirus updates on this page. You can also subscribe here for daily coronavirus news. Please send your Covid-19 questions to coronavirus@vtdigger.org
This story was updated at 6:57 p.m.
Child care centers can begin to reopen on June 1 and summer camps will be able to operate this summer, Gov. Phil Scott announced Friday.
But with gatherings of more than 10 still prohibited for the time being, Secretary of Education Dan French said that schools should think creatively about alternatives to traditional high school graduation ceremonies.
“For planning purposes, schools should expect that larger group gatherings will not be permitted prior to the end of the school year,” he said.
The announcements come as Scott has gradually started to loosen restrictions and allowed more Vermonters to go back to work. Scott said child care is an important component as the state reopens.
“I know that there are many who are worried they won’t be able to return to a job because schools and child care providers are closed,” he said during the press conference. “It’s one of the ripple effects that we have to be sensitive to, and aware of.”
Scott ordered child care facilities to close in mid-March as the state began to shut down to prevent the spread of Covid-19, though child care options have continued to be available for essential workers through the crisis.
The latest announcement from the governor will allow child care centers to reopen next month, but they won’t go back to business as usual. Members of the administration said at the press conference that there will be guidelines for health and hygiene, and caps on capacity in line with public health recommendations.
Agency of Human Services Secretary Mike Smith said that the cap for child care centers is currently 10 students.
“We are continuing looking at that guidance in order to see if there’s opportunities to increase that number because we realize that in some cases, that’s not going to be viable for some of the operations,” Smith said.
Child care providers typically operate on razor-thin margins, and the state has been covering the tuition payments centers would have otherwise received from families during the closure period.
Those payments will stop at the end of May, Smith said, but “restart” grants will be available from the state to help child care providers and summer camps reopen safely.
Providers have expressed concerns about being able to operate in the black if they must have reduced classroom sizes in order to meet health guidelines, and Smith acknowledged as much.
“We know that meeting all the new health and safety expectations will be a financial challenge,” he said.
The governor said the state would set about $6 million aside for grants to help child care facilities reopen. State officials said guidance on these funds would be available next week.
Child care providers will be allowed to start bringing staff back starting May 18 to make preparations.
The state will also work with programs struggling to acquire the necessary hygiene and cleaning supplies, Smith said, and a hotline set up during the crisis to connect providers with public health officials at the Department of Health will remain open. Child care workers, meanwhile, will also be included in the state’s expanded testing program.
“We will offer testing to anybody that desires it in these specific programs,” Smith said, referring to summer day camps and child care centers.
State officials are also expected to release updated guidance from the Department of Health next week about how to reopen come June 1.
Kathryn Torres, a spokesperson for the Addison County Early Childhood Educator Director’s Network, said that while child care providers understand that their services are necessary in order for the economy to reopen, there’s substantial anxiety in the field about how this will be rolled out.
“Until we know what those updates are, it’s hard to say whether we feel comfortable going back or not,” she said.
State officials, including Scott, emphasized Friday that child care providers are not required to open if they don’t want to come June 1. But Torres said that with the state’s coronavirus bailout ending by that date, and grants being reserved for centers that open their doors, providers will feel like they have little choice.
Meanwhile, she said, many child care workers are older or in other high-risk categories for Covid-19.
“Do we have to make those people unemployed? Do we have to tell them they can’t have their job? Because there won’t be any subsidies unless we’re prepared to open on the first of June,” she said.
Graduations
In guidance released Friday, the Agency of Education said end-of-year celebrations should be pegged to the most recent health directives.
“Schools may only plan in-person end of school year gatherings and graduations consistent with the state’s limitations on the size of such gatherings,” French said.
The guidance added that schools were “encouraged to plan creatively with their communities for opportunities to celebrate milestones and graduations,” and that any end-of-year events would need to be “designed to ensure equal access and participation by all of the affected students.”
Jeanne Collins, the superintendent in the Rutland Northeast Supervisory Union and the president of the Vermont Superintendents Association, said she had just sent out a survey to her graduating seniors and their families to get their ideas.
But she said the agency’s guidance didn’t give local school districts particularly clear direction or help in managing community expectations.
Graduation ceremonies, which typically take place in early to mid-June, take a significant amount of planning weeks in advance to stand up, she said. If the state continues to loosen restrictions on the number of people that can gather, families may be left wondering why schools are going ahead with smaller or virtual events.
“If it’s 10 people, I have a lot of concerns about what you can do with 10 people, so why put that out there?” she said. “And if the turn of the spigot increases it, we cannot adjust to that. We have to plan based on the 10 people. And I wish that were made more clear by the secretary.”
Get the latest statistics and live updates on our coronavirus page.
Sign up for our coronavirus email list.
Tell us your story or give feedback at coronavirus@vtdigger.org.
Support our nonprofit journalism with a donation.
