Nicole Piper and Jennifer Crouch

[00:02] JENNIFER CROUCH: I am Jennifer Crouch. I am 43 years old. It is December 10, 2020. I'm in Springfield, Missouri, and I am here with Nicole Piper, and we have been colleagues in the early childhood field for probably 20 years.

[00:19] NICOLE PIPER: I'm Nicole Piper and my age is 47. Today's date is December 10, 2020. I am located in Springfield, Missouri as well. My interview partner is Jennifer Crouch, and we have been colleagues for many, many years in the early childhood field. So, Jennifer, why don't you start with describing your involvement in early childhood in our community.

[00:52] JENNIFER CROUCH: Yeah. And that's really how we know each other. So I think I first met you through our local association association for the Education of Young Children group years ago when I just was starting in the field and starting my career. And so we've just, you know, known each other through various organizations and partnerships and different things we've worked on through the years. So. Right. Currently, I am very active along with you in the Early Care and Education collaborative at our local community partnership. So that's a very active group that works on lots of different things related to early childhood in our community. So that is one thing. The other thing, the other big thing in our community that I'm involved with is called ella and it stands for Early Learning Leadership Academy. And that's a group we started. I think we're in our fourth year now. It's a group for directors, for early childhood program directors. So I lead that along with our director of early childhood from our local school district and then the director of early childhood from the community partnership. So we lead that group together. And so it really, you know, I think our conversation today will be not only my perspective in my role, but also being able to share what I hear from other early childhood program directors and our community, which is great.

[02:26] NICOLE PIPER: And that's exactly why we're here. You're right. I remember us meeting. I've been in my position 23 years, I think, and I remember us meeting each other very early on when I was here, when I became the director. And, you know, Springfield, Missouri, is a great place to work. It's a great place to be involved, especially in early childhood. We do everything together because some of us, again, honestly, together for 20 plus years. And so we are very familiar with each other's programs, familiar with each other, and we do lots and lots of projects together. In fact, I feel like there's not any project that we do alone because we are always asking our friends for help because it's much easier to do that, I think that in our state, a lot of other areas of the state look to us as a model because we do work so well together. We have a great working relationship between the community organizations, the childcare programs. We just do good work together. So I love to be a part of that and I've loved to get to know you over all these years and all of your different roles. And we do lots of things together, so it's been great. So do you want to just describe your childcare center, first of all? Just tell us what you do day to day?

[04:08] JENNIFER CROUCH: Yeah. So my whole career I've been directing early childhood programs, and I've been in my current role for five years now. So I am the director of the early childhood program program at Ozarks Technical Community College here in Springfield, which is our local community college. So our program is a lab school for the early childhood program here at the college. So we have students during non Covid times, we have students working in our classrooms completing practicum experiences. That's one impact of COVID is they haven't been able to have that experience and be in our classrooms. But we are a lab school for the college. We serve and provide child care for students here at the college, for employees and for the community as well. We serve children ages 2 to 5 here at our location. We do have a partnership with Springfield Public Schools, so we manage the nursery at the alternative school for students who have children. So. So that site has children birth to two. So. And our total capacity with that right now, I think is 96 kiddos. We will be adding an infant toddler classroom here at our campus location next school year. We are.

[05:36] NICOLE PIPER: I think I knew that.

[05:38] JENNIFER CROUCH: Yeah, I don't think I knew that.

[05:40] NICOLE PIPER: Part of the conversation.

[05:43] JENNIFER CROUCH: That was part of CO CARES funding. So we got a grant that's allowing us to do some renovations to add a classroom. And that will be children under two, which is really exciting. We are licensed and we're nationally accredited by the national association for the Education of Young Children. So tell a little bit about the organization you work for, Nicole, what you do.

[06:10] NICOLE PIPER: So I work for. The larger organization is the Council of Churches of the Ozarks. And we are a social service organization that does a variety of services from. We have a food pantry, we have a homeless shelter for women. We have. We administer the childcare food program. We do lots of different things. And then my program is called the One Stop for Early Childhood. And the idea and the concept is that we provide referrals, support and training to anybody who has a child in third grade or younger or provides care for a child in third grade or younger. And we do our referral service is typically usually the entry point to our services. And what that is is family can call in with any need food, clothing, shelter, or just something free and fun to do this weekend with their family. And our job is to know what resources are available in our community that can help them and connect them to them and hopefully with a warm handoff most of the time. But we, our job is to know everything that's available. One advantage of again, living in Springfield, Missouri or living in the area is that Springfield has lots of resources that are available. The hard part is that families don't know all of the resources that are available and how to access them. So that's part of what we do. Then we also just try to create an ongoing relationship with that family after they have called and reached out to us so that we can be ongoing support for them and have ongoing communication with them to share information about. One of our hot topics right now is conscious discipline and sharing information all around social emotional development. But then we also do things like we are doing coats for kids right now, so any family who's in need of a winter coat can call the office and we are able to get them that winter coat via donations. So lots of different things fall in that support category. And then we also do training. So we have a. We do a parenting series based off of the conscious discipline parent curriculum that we call conscious parenting. And during, during non Covid times, we do that in person. We provide childcare and we feed the entire family. And we were averaging anywhere from 40 to 50 families at each training, which was exciting. And then Covid hit. So we were trying to determine how to still offer that. And we are doing it over zoom. Our attendance has gone down some, but we still still have a great turnout. We still have, you know, between 10 to 20 families who are on each or 10 to 20 people who are on each session. But those trainings are mainly geared towards families, foster families. But we also do have a lot of child care programs who participate in those as well. And then we have our annual Called to Care for Kids conference, which is geared towards anybody who works in the faith community as a volunteer or a paid staff person with children and family. So we offer that conference every year as an opportunity for them to come together to gain some knowledge and then also to give them just some time to have fellowship with other people who do similar work. So that's in a nutshell, what we do to move into a little bit more talking about some of our Covid conversation because unfortunately that's been a part of everybody's life in the last year and I think it will be a part of our life in the next year. But just out of curiosity, when you talk about the you serve, you said 90, 90 something children, how many staff.

[10:20] JENNIFER CROUCH: Do you have that happen? 21 staff here at our campus location and that's a mix of full time teachers and part time. We do have work study students as well though that has declined dramatically again due to Covid. And then at our nursery partnership we have six staff stopping that site.

[10:45] NICOLE PIPER: Well, one of the conversations that you and I have continued. Well, we've always been, both of us, huge advocates for early childhood. So anytime we can talk about early childhood and childcare in particular, we're going to do it. But we've also had to have some hard conversations with some community leaders in the last few months directly related to Covid and the impact of that on childcare. So can you talk a little bit about how Covid has impacted your business in particular? Anything talking about operations, budget, your enrollment, attendance, all those things. What has been the biggest impact for you guys?

[11:29] JENNIFER CROUCH: So for us, we did close in March. Our campus went completely shifted to completely virtual in March. And so we closed. Our program was closed for the remainder of the last school year. We are a school year program. So we didn't open again until school started in August. When we did reopen, we reopened to a reduced capacity which we're still at an 80% capacity instead of our normal capacity. Just trying to keep our group sizes a little smaller to reduce the risk we have had during the time that we've been open this semester, we've had two classrooms that have had to close and quarantine due to exposures. So definitely a revenue impact to our program. A really large revenue impact. Staff, I have to have staff out if they have even minor symptoms of illness. In the past you could have somebody go ahead and go in if they had just minor cold symptoms. But now we just can't risk having anyone at work with even minor symptoms of illness. So just managing staffing and figuring out substitutes there, you know, substitutes in the early childhood field and in childcare are is just a real challenge. So that was something that was already in short supply. But Covid has made that even more difficult because of the increased need for them. And then a lot of several of our substitutes who were kind of regular substitutes for us last year were maybe they're retired they're, you know, for various different reasons, they aren't comfortable substituting right now because of COVID And so we are have definitely experienced a substitute shortage. Some of the changes to our program, we're not allowing parents in the building. So that's just made communicating with parents. We definitely had to find different ways to do that. So we are doing just like a curbside drop off and pick up. So staffing that has also been a real challenge because we need additional staff every day during our drop off and pickup times to do that and to do the health assessments we're doing in the mornings. And then just in our classrooms. We are trying to follow all of the CDC recommendations for childcare. So we removed all of our rugs and carpets from the classroom. We removed any, you know, pretty much any soft item that can't be easily sanitized, like dramatic play clothes, things like that have been removed. All of our sensory tables, so pretty much all sensory items have been removed. So I mean, our teachers are still doing a fantastic job. But it's definitely even just the environment of our classrooms and the kinds of things that children are able to do in the classrooms is definitely different and that creates its own set of challenges, for sure.

[14:57] NICOLE PIPER: So part of the work that we do together and one of the things that you had mentioned that you are extremely involved with is the ELLA group and that is our group of center directors who come together. And I know that during COVID that group would meet via Zoom weekly for a while to kind of be able there to be available to each other, to support each other. So I'm going to ask a question that isn't on our list because I thought about this. So tell us. I heard your main effects for you with COVID 19, but what were some of the concerns that you heard from the other center directors in town? What were some of the concerns that they were facing then? Also maybe the families too, because you were shut down for how many weeks? So that impact on families too. So maybe what have you heard happening in our community related to those things?

[16:10] JENNIFER CROUCH: Yeah, I think that's a great question. So I think as far as the impact on families, I mean, obviously just the stress of not having childcare and so even, you know, even in March and April and May when, when a lot of things in our community were shut down, you know, and a lot of people had the opportunity to work remotely, certainly not everybody, but just the challenge of trying to work while you have a toddler or, you know, two or three year old at home, that's very challenging. So the challenge of that, we did try to stay connected with our families. I did kind of a weekly zoom with our center for the kids and families. So we tried to stay connected that way. And then our, you know, our individual classrooms did some different things like that, too, but that was definitely a challenge. And I just heard from so many families just the grief of missing that support from and that community that our program provides for them and their connections with other families and our staff. And for some of them, it was really a source of grief. And some of them are still really struggling with that not being able to come into our program. And I mean, prior to Covid, we had families. We have observation windows for our classrooms. So we had families that would come in on their lunch hour every day and sit and, you know, watch their child for a little bit and talk with other families. And so they're really missing those connections for sure. The classrooms that we've had to quarantine. I mean, I've definitely had parents express concerns over losing their job because they're having to miss so much work. So that is definitely something that for families who are in jobs where remote work is not possible, that's a definite challenge and concern. So.

[18:20] NICOLE PIPER: Well, and I think when you said a second ago, too, I mean, I think you're right. Families are still in that mode because they're. We all live in this constant fear of when is lockdown gonna happen again?

[18:34] JENNIFER CROUCH: Yes.

[18:35] NICOLE PIPER: Now we live in a state that doesn't shut down easily. So I don't know that we will shut down completely again. However, it's a fear that everybody has now that it's happened once, can it happen again? And economically, how is that going to affect us? But yeah, just the social aspects has been a big. Those are a lot of the calls that we get here too, as well. Just I don't have anybody to connect to, so they're calling us to connect to, which is great. That's what we want to do. But that is a big issue for families. So what about the other childcare programs in town?

[19:17] JENNIFER CROUCH: Yeah, well, and I would just share one other anecdote about the family dynamic. So after our first. When our first exposure and quarantine happened, which actually happened the first week of school, so I had a zoom session for those families in the impacted classrooms. And one of the parents questions was, how do we keep this from happening again? And there was just no good answer to that. That, you know, we're following all of these protocols, but unfortunately, it's not Something that we can 100% prevent, you know, so, yeah, so as far as the early childhood programs in our community, so our ELLA group is a really diverse group. So there are directors from our public school, school, preschool, from faith based programs that are operated in churches for profit, you know, small business, small child care businesses. So it's really a diverse group. And then college and university programs. So we did. Prior to Covid, our group met monthly. And so when our shutdown happened, we met just a short, like 30 minute meeting every week with them just to, like you mentioned, give them the opportunity to have some support, stay connected and just for all of us to kind of hear, okay, what's going on and what are, what are your programs doing? And especially the small childcare businesses really had no choice but to try to stay open, otherwise their business would not survive. So they were trying to stay open. Some other programs did close. One of our ELLA participants is actually the director of our hospital child care centers of one of our large hospitals in town. So of course she had no choice but to stay open so that doctors and nurses could continue to work. So there were a variety of different challenges. Her program has, was actually, she actually had to expand her program quite a bit. When our school district announced in late July that they would only be in session two days a week, she was charged with really ramping up and expanding and offering, you know, I think she had to add 300, a whole new center and 300 spots for school age children. Right.

[21:50] NICOLE PIPER: Because they need their first responders to be at work. So yeah, their CEO said whatever you have to do, do it because we need the people at work.

[22:00] JENNIFER CROUCH: Yes. So she's kind of had a different problem of trying to not only keep our staff and children healthy, but also meet the childcare needs of hospital staff. I think the ones that I think of that have been impacted the most are the smaller child care businesses, the private, either for profit or even the ones that are faith based in churches. Just the fear of just trying to keep their business going when they did have a drastic decline in enrollment, when families, you know, were losing jobs and not able to pay or were working remotely and either didn't feel comfortable bringing their child or you know, different scenarios with that, trying to keep staff and managing quarantines and just all the challenges of that and the increased expenses with sanitation protocols and staffing protocols. It's just really been a challenging time.

[23:14] NICOLE PIPER: Well, and one of the things that, that I not necessarily continue to hear, but that I continued to feel during the whole process too was that, you know, we, well, first of all, our, the childcare programs were actually encouraged to stay open. And I know again, this is our state and which is different than some other states, but our childcare programs were encouraged to stay open and I understand why. But when we hear, in the community, nationally even, we hear about our first responders being medical personnel, being those doctors, nurses, even grocery store staff, which are all important and they are essential workers and they are needed, and thank goodness they were there. But oftentimes child care wasn't talked about. Childcare wasn't put into the category of essential worker. And I think that I would assume as a small business owner, when you already struggle to get staff, that morale piece was hard as well to get the staff who even want to come in, because why should I come in? And you know, a part of what we were doing as a nation was great. We were being cheerleaders to our, to our first responders and medical personnel, and I'm glad that we were. But childcare often was not in that category. So I know that that was a feeling and a conversation sometimes that I would hear. And you know, one of the things I know, Jennifer, you and I both have strongly talked about in the last few months was, you know, in the childcare industry, we asked a very vulnerable population to be first responders. The childcare profession, the early childhood profession, has extremely low wages, in fact, most of the time minimum wage pay and absolutely no health benefits. So now that is not universal, that's not the way it is at every childcare facility. But I would say the majority of them, that's the case in our community. So, you know, we are asking the childcare professionals to be our first responders, but they make a minimum wage and have no health insurance. And that's a tough one, especially it's the middle of a pandemic and health is a huge concern and they didn't even have health insurance to go to the doctor if they were sick during that time. So anyway, that's just one of the things that we have talked about and really talked loudly about. And, and it's always amazing to me how many people don't know that, how many people in our community have no idea that you can make more at the fast food chain down the street and get benefits than you do, in my opinion, in the most important profession in the world, working with our babies and our preschoolers, getting them ready to go to school. So, yeah, there's my soapbox, Jennifer.

[27:00] JENNIFER CROUCH: And you know, it's my soapbox too, and it has been for years. You know, I'm, I'm still so lucky in the position I'm in now that, that we do work for a college. So our, our staff here do, do make, you know, more competitive salaries and have great benefits. But for years, you know, before I was in this position, I was directing, you know, a for profit program, a faith based program and then a not for profit was the bulk of my years that were just small childcare businesses where this. Yeah, the struggle of trying to find qualified, competent staff to work for, you know, minimum wage or maybe just a little over that when. Yeah, like you mentioned, the gas station or the fastest food restaurant is hiring at sometimes several dollars an hour more and has benefits that you can offer. So it's just such a hard thing to me. And yeah, I think you're right. Most families feel like they're paying so much for childcare they can't believe, you know, it doesn't occur to them the, the overhead and, and that the people they're leaving their child with are so often living in poverty. And yeah, the issue of these are the people we were asking to put themselves at risk in a job where you cannot social distance with children. You know, we knew pretty early on that children were carrying it but were often asymptomatic where you can't, you know, you can't mask children under two and especially babies, you're holding them, you're, you know, it's. And, and then this, this population in large part has no health benefits. So yeah, it's just, it's such, such an issue. And I think, I think what I, some of the things that I heard, I mean, I remember us, Nicole being in a meeting and one of our colleagues sharing an email that she had received. And I think that the term she used was something like, I feel like I'm the lamb being sacrificed for. I feel like I'm being sacrificed. And it just, I think the feeling I got from a lot of those in the child care field was that So K through 12 educators, it wasn't safe for them to be in school working, but it was okay for childcare to, for early childhood, for childcare to be exposing themselves and to continue to work. So I think that, I think some felt very bitter about that, you know, that they felt that they weren't valued as much as K12 educators.

[30:14] NICOLE PIPER: Right. So, you know, we've had lots of conversations with other childcare programs and we are a part of the conversation that's going on in our community daily in your opinion, what do you think the childcare industry needs to recover and thrive once this Covid thing ends or at least goes away? Partly, yeah.

[30:51] JENNIFER CROUCH: I think, you know, I think the pandemic has shown me and shown us how tenuous and fragile our childcare industry in our nation, not just our community or our state, but really our whole nation is. Nicole usually share at our meetings that the data, the current data on closures of child care programs and I don't know, but I mean, I think more than half of the counties in our state now are child care deserts, probably, or some of them were already before the pandemic. But especially since pandemic, so many programs have closed and in our own community. So the program that I directed for 13 years before I was in my current position was a nonprofit that had been in business, I think, for 45 years and was. Had been affiliated with Missouri State University here in town. And they closed their doors Last month after 45 years of serving children and families. And that I think, you know, as a result of the pandemic. So just how. Yeah. How fragile the system is. So I. And these, these are not new issues and not new things, but it's like it's just brought to light that any, any stress on the system that so many child care businesses can't sustain, that they're operating at such thin margins. So sustainable funding, I mean, is needed financial relief, especially for small childcare businesses. And then like we've talked about, we've got to do something to professionalize the field, professional workforce in early childhood and increase wages and offer benefits childcare workers.

[32:47] NICOLE PIPER: Well, and also we've talked in our town, this is getting pretty specific, but the substitute pool of some kind to help with the staffing, because that's a real issue now even more than ever. So let's talk a little bit about. We're almost done. So let's kind of think about what brought us to. What called us to work in this field. Why are we here? We probably ask ourselves that a lot, don't we, right now, especially. So what brought you to the field? Why are you here?

[33:21] JENNIFER CROUCH: Well, I think initially I just always loved working with children. I was just somebody who was always babysitting as a, you know, at an age where now I can't believe children. People left their children with me when I was 12 or 13, but I just always loved working with children. So that just kind of seemed a natural thing then when I went to college that I would pursue early childhood education. So I. And I still love Working with children. I still just love working with young children and with families. So I think for me it's seeing, you know, the impact it makes on the children we serve and the families and you know, hearing families say the relief it is to know that their child is in a high quality program and to know that they feel safe leaving their child with us. And then I think for my position, also impacting the field, trying to advocate for change and better things for the field and mentoring and helping my staff on their journey as growing into professionals in the field. So, so all, I think all those kinds of things are, you know, why I feel like the mo. I mean, and research shows us the most impact happens before children turn five. So that's, I mean that's why I feel like it's such important work. We know that's when all their, most of their brain development occurs and you know, the impacts of trauma and different things that can happen during those years. And so that's why it's important to me. What about, why have you continued in this work?

[35:21] NICOLE PIPER: Well, and just like you, I started with, I started out because I wanted to work with kids and that's why I started. But what my position in my organization has evolved and changed over the 20 years that I've been doing this. And right now, where my heart is, it's all about remembering that all families and all parents, all of them are vulnerable. They're vulnerable in a different way and each in a different way and some more than others. But even as a mom who has all the education to back up the early childhood knowledge that I have and all the years of experience, it is still hard, it is hard to be a parent. And when our home visitor, our parents, teachers, person would come to the house and she would say, you know all of this. And I would say, no, I don't because it's my child and it's different when it's your own child. And I just know that the work that we have been doing in the last few years of just wrapping around families and being there no matter what they need. You know, one of the stories I like to tell is we had a family call in one day and she was calling in and she did call in looking for childcare. That's why she called in. I happened to be the one who answered the phone and during that phone call with her, she felt open and she was sharing information and asking lots of questions. By the time I got off the phone with her, she didn't know what they were going to eat. For dinner that night. She didn't know she didn't have a job, but she really wanted one. And she also had a major health issue that she was not addressing. And so that two minute conversation that she called in just looking for that childcare turned into a 30 minute emotional conversation with this family. And she just had nobody to listen to her. And I thought to myself, we put so much responsibility on that, on a parent. We want them to get their child ready for kindergarten. They need to do this, they need to do that. But you know what? That mom just needed to worry about how she was going to get dinner on the table tonight. And if we are able to give any kind of help for that so that we can meet their immediate needs and then talk to them about how you get your child ready for school. We have to remember that a family can't function and be ready to talk about kindergarten readiness unless they have their basic needs met. And that basic need can be totally different from every family. Whether that's social, emotional needs, whether that's again, the food, clothing, shelter need. That's hard. Being a parent is tough stuff. So that's what. So anyway, I get really passionate about it when I talk about it now because just the fact that that one interaction with that one mom that day made me realize how the 20 years of what I've been doing was so important because she just needed me in that moment to visit with her and to give her ideas and suggestions. And then after she has those needs met, I can talk to her about that kindergarten readiness, which is so important. And you and I know that. That.

[38:47] JENNIFER CROUCH: Yeah. And the other thing I think I would add to that conversation is the unique collaborations that we have in our early childhood community. So you and our. We have kind of our core people on our early care collaborative. I think that has been a large part of what has kept me in the field, has kept me passionate and kept me hopeful for change, is the support and challenge and that we give each other through that. So, yeah, absolutely.

[39:30] NICOLE PIPER: Okay, I think we're done. Are we done, Jennifer?

[39:34] JENNIFER CROUCH: I think so.

[39:35] NICOLE PIPER: I think we could have talked. I mean, I was worried about stretching it out, but I mean, we like could have talked for another hour.