As the need for child care centers in San Jose grows, a new city partnership may help boost day care slots.
To alleviate some ongoing challenges with day cares staying afloat, San Jose gave $1 million to Upwards to help child care centers streamline their operations and be more efficient. Its Boost program will provide support to 133 San Jose day care centers serving low-income families for a year, giving one-on-one business coaching and helping them digitize operations. Providers will be able to track attendance and payments through Upwards’ software, which will free up time to focus on child care and enable them to enroll more children.
“In San Jose, only 20% of children aged 0 to 2 whose parents are working have access to child care,” Jeff Scott, city housing spokesperson, told San José Spotlight. “By strengthening child care providers through grants for programs like Boost, we are supporting new child care spots that can accommodate a variety of family schedules and needs. The early results from Boost indicate we’re on the right track.”
Boost Program Manager Judy Ahumana said since launching the program last August, more than half of participants have already expanded their capacity to care for more children. Many providers are working to become large home day cares, which can serve up to 14 children. Upwards may also provide subsidies for teacher assistant salaries and stipends to offset operational costs like license fees.
“Through the program, we really want to teach our caretakers how to become self-sufficient in running their operations,” Ahumana told San José Spotlight. “Running a business at the same time (that they are taking care of children) can become very cumbersome, so it’s been amazing to see how the participants have picked up the technology and are connecting with our team to receive business coaching.”
The need for more child care providers throughout Santa Clara County is dire. Roughly 700 local day care facilities have closed over the past decade, with more than 300 closing during the pandemic, according to county officials. In addition, child care assistants are fleeing their jobs for other work with higher pay, such as fast food and retail, officials said. Others have left the area completely due to the high costs of living.
With the shortage of day care workers, it becomes harder for existing providers to provide more slots for children. The state requires a subsidized day care facility to have a certain ratio of workers to children, as well as professionals with early childhood education credits.
“It’s a double edged sword. Even if you have space, if you don’t have a staff, you might as well not have the space because you can’t take children,” Trena Hudson, executive of early learning and care at First5 Santa Clara County, told San José Spotlight. “It’s very hard for them to find an assistant because you have to pay a livable wage. There’s probably not a center-based provider in our county that doesn’t have vacancies. That’s across the board.”
Lakisha Harris, 46, is looking to grow her business from a 14-child home day care to a facility that can look after 100 children. She said Upwards has been instrumental in helping her navigate the business side of things.
Harris uses Upwards’ app to communicate with parents and book tours of her facility. She also has a profile on the company’s webpage, allowing parents to easily find her business since she doesn’t have a website of her own.
“Now I am taking these little steps to be successful,” Harris told San José Spotlight.
While she’s been running her day care since 2010, it wasn’t until last year that she opened a separate bank account for her business, Brilliant Minds Daycare, with the help of her Upwards case manager. Her case manager has also educated her on the regulations involved with the expansion and helped her draft plans for the facility. Once her expanded business is ready to launch, Upwards will provide assistance in hiring new employees.
Harris plans to focus on increasing her capacity to take in toddlers, one of the area’s greatest needs.
“There’s just not enough,” she said. “That’s where the need is, so that’s where I want to be.”
Contact Joyce Chu at [email protected] or @joyce_speaks on X.
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