BEREA, Ohio — A report by the Cleveland-based nonprofit organization “Starting Point” showed there are more than 2,500 unfilled child care staffing positions available in the Northeast Ohio region.
The shortage has resulted in 20% fewer openings for children compared to the number that was available right before the pandemic. The shortage has impacted child care centers, such as the Kids at Play Learning Academy in Berea. Owner, Shay Hill, said after the pandemic, it’s been challenging to hire staff.
Hill explained she has an entirely empty classroom that she cannot fill with kids because of the lack of employees.
“It’s been a challenge on our waitlist. We have about 50 children on it, but at this time, we’re unable to accept them just because we don’t have enough staff,” she said.
She has 22 kids enrolled at the center as of now and has four employees, which includes herself.
“A lot of day care centers the waitlists are out for a year and people are actually contacting us in advance there are pregnant moms who didn’t even have their children yet,” she said.
Hill expressed it’s hard to get more kids in the building because of the struggles of finding employees.
“I want to be able to provide more opportunities for children to attend our child care center, obviously with the enrollment numbers low we can’t hire people just because we don’t have the kids so if we don’t have you know the tuition coming in then we’re unable to staff unfortunately,” she sad.
She said that she wants more kids to be enrolled in the program so that she can reach her quota of 50 kids.
