Private-pay childcare providers struggling - Commonwealth Magazine
Jennifer Simpson, who runs a family daycare in Southbridge, will have lost more than $33,000 in tuition money by the time she reopens August 31.
She has spent nearly $6,000 preparing to reopen – buying expensive gates to divide her space, purchasing protective equipment and cleaning supplies, and buying extra art supplies and shelving.
Simpson, who is getting by on unemployment benefits and her husband’s income, is frustrated that the state is offering reopening grants to daycares that accept children with state subsidies, but not to businesses like hers whose families pay privately.
While she could raise tuition prices, Simpson said she doesn’t want to do that because many of the middle-class families she serves are already hurting due to the pandemic.
“A lot of them been out of work just as we have,” she said. :”Now they have to pick up the slack for the state not assisting?”