Barbara Espinoza-Vera recently did something she never imagined: She retired early, at age 61, from her longtime job at the Bexar County Clerk’s Office so she could stay home with her son and help with his remote learning, an option his school provides.
She’s too afraid to send 10-year-old Elijah back to school in person this fall, she said. Even with all the safety precautions his district plans to take to guard against the coronavirus, she felt it was too perilous.
“I probably won’t feel safe about sending him to school until there’s a vaccine,” she said. “He’s a typical 10-year-old boy, and they don’t know about leaving a mask on all day. And all the people who go in and out of the school — you don’t know how careful they are.”
Espinoza-Vera finds herself in the same boat as countless parents across San Antonio as the new school year dawns and the choice becomes stark: Send your child back to school and hope for the best? Keep them home and continue the challenge of remote instruction?
It’s an excruciating dilemma, one that pits the parental urge for safety against a child’s need for teacher-led learning and peer interaction.
And it’s not just parents of school-aged children who are caught in the conundrum. Even those with younger children must negotiate the choice of sending their kids to a child care center, in an industry that has been decimated by falling enrollments and higher operating costs related to the COVID-19 pandemic.
About half of licensed child care centers across the nation could end up permanently closing because of the virus. So far, 28 child care centers in San Antonio have closed because of the virus, Workforce Solutions Alamo says.
The pandemic has exposed the vulnerability of the nation’s early childhood education system, which already operated on razor-thin margins. The virus only served to further erode a network that doesn’t just provide working parents with a safe place to put their children during the day.
Studies show a great deal of a child’s brain development happens during the first five years of life.
Rhian Allvin, executive director of the National Association for the Education of Young Children, said that without safe and affordable child care, there will be no economic recovery in the wake of the virus.
Like with so many things, access to quality early childhood education and safe schools is an equity issue, she said.
“Affluent and middle-class white parents have many more choices than poor families and families of color do,” Allvin said.
Judy Ratlief, director of education for the United Way of San Antonio and Bexar County, which provides long-term funding to 30 local child care centers, said parents face the anxiety of uncertainty.
“Will they be able to depend on their child care, and if so, for how long? Many families have had to take their child out of care because a parent has been laid off, or they’re working fewer hours,” she said.
For some parents, their hand has been forced by the need to physically return to work, or by an inability to play the role of in-home teacher on top of all their other responsibilities.
“Of course, there are families who don’t have a choice about staying home with their children,” said Sandy Morander, president and CEO of the YMCA of Greater San Antonio, which runs several local child care centers. “They’re making that hard decision — how am I going to pay rent? Should I be leaving my child home alone? The sad truth is, some kids are safer with us than they are at home.”
Espinoza-Vera felt she had no choice. Her husband died three years ago. If she were to get sick from the virus and die, there would be no one to raise Elijah, whom the couple adopted out of Child Protective Services when he was an infant.
The back-to-school question has been complicated by conflicting messages from local and state authorities. First, local health officials ordered no in-person instruction, only remote, until after Labor Day. Then Gov. Greg Abbott said only school leaders can make that decision.
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Most public school districts in San Antonio are sticking with the Labor Day reopening plan anyway, with an option for continued remote learning for families that don’t want to risk sending their kids to classrooms.
But Boerne Independent School District, which has two elementary schools in Bexar County, is fully opening campus doors Wednesday.
That suits Courtney Bruce, who has four kids in Boerne ISD schools — two in elementary school, one in middle school and one in high school — just fine.
The district “is being very strategic in reopening, with the safety of the kids a top concern, not just in the classroom but on the athletic field as well,” said Bruce, a stay-at-home mom with two kids who play football. “BISD is like a family, and my husband and I feel very good about sending our kids back.”
Kendall County, the home of BISD, has had 157 positive COVID-19 cases — a relatively low number — and four deaths.
The district also will accommodate families that decide to stick with distance learning, Bruce said.
“I feel my kids learn better with a teacher,” she said. “The district did a great job with virtual learning (last spring), but with four kids it’s kind of impossible for me. Sending them back was just a no-brainer.”
San Antonio parents are making a range of decisions about school and child care this fall, a reflection of their options. Here are some of their stories.
Opting to keep kids home
Claudia Gonzalez is the coordinator at the Early Childhood Center at San Antonio College, one of three such centers operated through Alamo Colleges.
All three centers, which serve students, faculty and staff, as well the wider community — altogether some 150 kids on average — will remain closed until January to stave off spread of the virus.
“We serve mostly students, and with their outside interactions, they could bring exposure to the centers,” Gonzalez said.
Gonzalez is using that same caution when it comes to her three children, ages 7 months, 2 and 5.
As she continues to work from home, she was planning on sending her two younger children to the Windcrest Day School and Child Development Center, a nonprofit program affiliated with Windcrest United Methodist Church that serves children from infants to age 5.
Gonzalez has used the center for years, and loves it. It closed in mid-March, as did many child care centers when the virus hit, except those serving “essential workers,” such as health care providers and paramedics.
It reopened July 20, but by then, the coronavirus infections were skyrocketing in Bexar County. Gonzalez scrapped her plans. It didn’t help that her 2-year-old has asthma.
“I was just too worried to send them,” she said.
Linda Wilcoxen, director of Windcrest, said she’s seen her center’s enrollment dip from an average of 60 children to 22, especially since the summer virus surge. Many parents decided not to send their kids back after the center reopened, fearing infection and having found alternative care, such as with family members.
Like other providers, she’s abiding by the copious Centers for Disease Control and Prevention child care guidelines, but little kids are a challenge.
“They gravitate toward each other,” she said. “They lick the walls.”
Wilcoxen said her center has yet to experience a positive test among her 14 staff members or the children they serve. The picture statewide is less rosy: In July alone, there were 35 positive COVID-19 cases — 23 staff and 12 children — at 32 state-licensed child care centers, according to state data.
Since March, there has been a total of 2,953 positive cases — 1,977 staff and 976 children — at 1,755 child care operations. More than 4,800 centers have closed since February, leaving 12,400 centers open.
Gonzalez’s eldest child was supposed to start kindergarten at the dual-language program at Hartman Elementary School — the family speaks only Spanish at home.
The school is in the Judson Independent School District, which will start with remote learning from Aug. 24 to Sept. 28. After that, parents have a choice of remote or in-person learning. Gonzalez is taking a wait and see stance.
“If the numbers are low enough in late September, I’ll be OK sending him to school,” she said, “depending on how the school is following the local, state and national guidelines. But unfortunately, you can’t prevent the virus from spreading 100 percent.”
Remote learning — together
Amber Liddell Alwais and her husband, Randy, have enrolled their daughter Rebecca, 8, in the various programs at the Barshop Jewish Community Center — child care, summer and after-school programs — since she was 2 years old.
When the center announced it would offer a three-week distance learning program — kids can do their online classes in the company of other students and with guidance from counselors, until their schools physically open — they jumped at the chance to sign up their only child.
The couple both are lawyers, and as such are highly educated. But Amber said she struggled to oversee her daughter’s distance learning in the spring after schools closed.
“There’s a reason people go to school to become a teacher,” she said. “It’s a lot of work, and I can’t do my job and that job, even though I’m working from home right now. My hat is off to all teachers.”
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The couple plan to send Rebecca back to the Eleanor Kolitz Hebrew Language Academy, a charter school, on Sept. 8, when the campus reopens after three weeks of online learning.
“I know there are parents who are judging us very harshly for that, but we’re making the decision that is right for our family,” she said. “My feeling is: I won’t judge you for your decision, so don’t judge me about mine.”
One reason she feels comfortable sending her daughter to on-campus classes is that the academy serves about 500 children, from kindergarten through eighth grade — it’s not a teeming public school, with thousands of students, she said.
And she sees no issue with having Rebecca do online learning alongside other kids — as of mid-week, 65 youths had signed up for the JCC program — even though it would seem to undercut the point of virtual learning. That is, to do it safely at home.
“We had her there all summer at camp, despite all that’s going on,” she said. “We have a lot of trust in the JCC, and we’re very familiar with all the precautions they’re taking.”
At Kids Club All Day, which runs Aug. 17 to Sept. 4, children from kindergarten through fifth grade will bring their own tablet or device, a schedule of daily assignments, all distance learning instructions and a bag lunch.
Saul Levenshus, CEO of the center, said that over the summer, one camp counselor did test positive for the virus. The JCC followed all the recommended protocols, such as requiring her to quarantine at home, and quickly informed parents.
Amber has been involved in a Facebook debate with a friend who has been a teacher for 40 years, who disagrees with the Alwaises’ decision to send Rebecca to school in the fall.
“We parents need to be supportive of each other,” Amber said. “We’re all in different boats. It’s frustrating to hear people say, ‘Why are you sending your child to school?’ They’re assuming you have other options.”
Going the nanny route
Lara August and her husband, Sheridan, both are business owners — she’s in marketing, he’s in the technology field. Between them, they have about 100 employees.
“We can’t not work,” she said. “So many families rely on us that we don’t have the luxury of not showing up. We do have the luxury of being able to work from home.”
Neither was keen on sending their two children, ages 3 and 10, back to school this fall. The younger one was supposed to start a half-day Montessori program and the older was to enter fifth grade, both at Saint Mary’s Hall, a private school.
The couple have relied on the help of a nanny since their first child was born. After the pandemic hit, the nanny quit to be with her own children to finish out the school year.
The family was nanny-free for about four months, August said, a time when she had to rise each day at 5 a.m. to get in a few hours of work before her children woke up.
When it came time to face the in-person school question — do we or don’t we? — the couple decided to go the nanny route again, for the indefinite future.
They carefully vetted the person they hired, a woman in her mid-40s with lots of experience who they deemed as “low risk” because of her limited contact with others, August said.
“She’s about as great as anyone can be right now,” she said. The nanny works 8 to 5 and will provide “oversight” with the children’s distance learning, which Saint Mary’s Hall offers as one of its educational options.
August said the Sept. 8 start date for on-campus learning simply made her and her spouse “uncomfortable.”
“We are taking this (virus) very seriously,” she said. “We’ve been very locked up, and have only seen friends outdoors, only after serious risk assessment.”
August said she knows how fortunate her family is to be able to afford a nanny and make these choices.
“My gut reaction is why risk it?” she said.
‘I was so scared’
Karla De Anda, 22, is in her second year working on an associate’s degree at San Antonio College, with the goal of becoming a registered nurse.
The Holmes High School graduate and single mother has an eye on a better future for herself and her 3-year-old daughter, Julia.
Thanks to a grant operated through Alamo Colleges, she’s able to send Julia to the St. Paul Lutheran Child Development Center, where she receives high-quality early childhood education for just $20 a week.
Julia adores her school.“She loves her teacher, her friends,” De Anda said. “She knows English and Spanish. … She’s way smarter than I was at that age. I’m so busy with my own school right now, so it’s really the center that’s had such a positive influence on her.”
When the school closed in March because of the virus, De Anda, who has been a Walmart cashier for three years, relied on her mother for child care.
During her summer online courses, she kept Julia at home with her until the center reopened in July.
“I kept thinking, ‘Am I going to have child care, so I can keep going on balancing work and school, trying to move forward in my life?” she said. “When the center reopened, I knew she would be protected there and she’d keep learning, while I’m learning. She’s safe.”
But De Anda’s summer of challenges wasn’t over yet.
Her father contracted the coronavirus. Two of Karla’s sisters tested positive. Then Julia did.
“I was so scared they were going to kick her out of the center,” said De Anda.
After three weeks and two negative tests, Julia was allowed to re-enter the program last week. She never experienced symptoms, other than throwing up once. De Anda never tested positive. Everyone in her family has recovered.
De Anda, who makes $13.16 an hour at her Walmart job, said that without child care, she’d have to ask her mother and grandmother to watch Julia, during days that — between work and school — stretch from 8 in the morning until 10:30 at night.
“This way, they only have to help out half a day,” she said. “My mother has a full-time job, too.”
Gut-wrenching choices
Cecilia Flores gets emotional when she talks about the child care dilemma that autumn brings.
She and her husband, José, are classified as essential workers. She’s the branch manager at a bank. He works in construction.
They send three of their four children — ages 2, 5 and 6 — to the KinderCare Learning Centers on the far Northwest Side, one of eight such centers in San Antonio and Live Oak that stayed open for essential workers after the virus hit.
“Thank God, they kept their doors open,” Cecilia said. “If it weren’t for us having this child care, one of us would have had to quit our job, and it would have probably been me, since I’m the mother.”
Women are disproportionately bearing the burden of the pandemic. They’re more likely to lose their jobs and to shoulder the weight of closed schools and day care, early studies show.
Last school year, the two middle Flores children attended prekindergarten and kindergarten at public school and went to KinderCare’s after-school program while the youngest remained in day care full-time.
Cecilia says she and her husband face an untenable situation as the semester begins Aug. 24. The first two weeks, maybe more, will be online only. They’re not comfortable sending their two children to school in person, at least not starting Sept. 8.
But Cecilia said the remote learning module for younger kids presents a challenge for working parents who can’t be home with their kids, or who have to put them somewhere during the day where there are no omnipresent adults at their shoulders, guiding them. (Their 14-year-old will do remote learning from Harlan High School.)
The problem has to do with “synchronous” learning, a fancy word for the multiple times during a remote school day when a child has to be in front of a screen in real time, to receive teacher instruction and other “live” programming.
“We can’t do that, because we work full time, and there are so many kids at KinderCare there’s no way they can keep up with all the distance learning schedule,” she said. “They’re great, but they’re just not able to replace teachers” or provide close, one-on-one adult attention.
The Floreses’ choices are gut-wrenching: Put the kids in a smaller private school? (Too expensive.) Have Cecilia quit her job? (Impossible; they need her income.) Keep them at KinderCare, where the older two will probably fall behind on their learning, given the demands of the online schedule?
“This is just so stressful, having to put my kids’ education second,” Cecilia said, breaking into tears. “I’m so worried about them getting behind, but we have no good options here.”
Melissa Fletcher Stoeltje is a general assignment reporter covering breaking news, cultural trends and interesting people and goings-on around San Antonio and Bexar County, as well as all across South Texas. To read more from Melissa , become a subscriber. mstoeltje@express-news.net | Twitter: @mstoeltje
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