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Every time Emmy Thibodeaux drops off or picks up her 2-year-old son at child care, there鈥檚 a situation being managed, a crisis averted. 鈥淚 always walk in on the director filling in for someone, or the director in the kitchen shouting, 鈥業’m over here.鈥欌�� Sometimes the afternoon teacher is the same as the teacher who was there in the morning, and sometimes not. 鈥淭here鈥檚 always a lot of juggling,鈥� she says.

This is the life of a child care director before and since the pandemic.

In addition to her personal interest as a mom in the ballet (or circus) of child care, Thibodeaux is also observing the juggling and managing as Early Childhood Network Supervisor with (LRS). It鈥檚 a program of the Louisiana Department of Education dedicated to expanding access to and improving the quality of early care in the parish. This includes public preschool, nonpublic schools of early childhood development, Head Start, Early Head Start or Type III Early Learning Centers ( as those authorized to accept public funding through the Child Care Assistance Program).

For Thibodeaux, 鈥淭here鈥檚 the heart of this work, and there鈥檚 the business. I love to see a child care center that has both. That鈥檚 where the magic happens.鈥�

LRS has been doing this work since 2012, and the program was making steady improvements until the pandemic hit. 鈥淚t was like taking 10 backward steps,鈥� Thibodeaux says. 鈥淪ites started closing classrooms because they didn’t have teachers.鈥�

In order to get a handle on what was happening in its network, LRS commissioned (ACE) to conduct a survey and virtual focus groups. Directors of and teachers in 51 early childhood centers across the parish expressed their views on business challenges, supports and the future. Many of the responses corresponded with Thibodeaux鈥檚 account, with a director of a three-center business reporting, 鈥淲e had to reduce enrollment because we did not have teachers. Before the pandemic, we were full. In the last 16 months, we have been unable to enroll new children.鈥�

鈥淭wo years into this pandemic,鈥� said another director. 鈥淲e are starting to see burnout. Teachers don’t want to work as much as they had. They could go down the road and make more at McDonalds.鈥�

ACE鈥檚 Emmy O鈥橠wyer knows these issues inside and out. She started her education career as a middle school teacher, but she started an early childhood center shortly after Hurricane Katrina, upon discovering her newborn had a disability. 鈥淚 just couldn’t believe how underfunded and decentralized everything was,鈥� she says. 鈥淚 couldn’t believe the work that these teachers were doing and how little I was able to pay them.鈥�

For her LRS-commissioned research into Lafayette early learning centers, O鈥橠wyer set out to identify meaningful differences between centers whose directors characterized their situation as thriving, maintaining and struggling. She considered size, pay, benefits, instructional leadership and organizational culture. While pay is an inevitable factor, with directors saying they were competing with other employers (as well as the option of accessing unemployment benefits), staff size emerged as the most notable difference between thriving and maintaining centers. According to O鈥橠wyer, 鈥淭hriving centers had the largest staffs and indicated fewer pandemic-related staffing challenges.鈥�

Pay and benefits matter, of course (and will continue to matter until early educators are compensated like schoolteachers), but O鈥橠wyer found that money counts less to the educators than how they are treated. As long as the community continues to regard their work as babysitting, they will feel undervalued 鈥� a factor that determines whether they remain in the field or defect to retail or other, better-paying sectors. 鈥淚t would be nice to get paid a little more,鈥� one teacher acknowledged, 鈥渙r get benefits like teachers. I would just like some respect, that what we do is important.鈥�

These findings resonated with Thibodeaux鈥檚 sense of the mood of early educators during this fragile moment. 鈥淲e need to celebrate and recognize the workforce. They鈥檙e performing at a very high level despite the lack of materials and lack of supports.鈥�

Awards and recognition help them feel respected 鈥淎s a mom,鈥� Thibodeaux reflects, 鈥淚 drop off, I pick up, and I’m just rushing in and out.鈥� Like a lot of parents, she finds herself forgetting to acknowledge the many ways that early educators make her career possible.

鈥淲e need to honor this important work,鈥� contends O鈥橠wyer. 鈥淎nd centers need to get their business operations in order. They need to use the 鈥業ron Triangle鈥� of early childhood finance (full enrollment, full fee collection and revenues that cover per-child cost), and they need to be supported on the front end to set up their business the right way.鈥�

For O鈥橠wyer, organizational culture is a critical factor that determines whether a child care center will flourish. She touts early childhood fellowship programs (such as ) as an efficient and pragmatic way to help directors to focus on their own leadership, learning and growth. 鈥淭eachers might turn over every two years,鈥� she says. 鈥淚n Louisiana, someone is a director for seven to nine years. And so that’s a worthwhile investment.鈥�

In response to the survey findings, LRS is studying high school pathways for students to earn a credential upon graduation, a teacher mentor program for onboarding new educators and a deeper study into the feasibility of increased pay, expanded benefits, substitutes pools and other workforce strategies.

Thibodeaux describes LRS as a testing ground for pilot programs. 鈥淲e鈥檙e the first to jump in,鈥� she says, and 鈥渇ind out what works and what doesn鈥檛 in our community.鈥�

This story originally published on Early Learning Nation and is now archived on 麻豆精品. Learn more here.