Williston child care center opens amid rural child care shortage

When Melinda Hernandez began looking for daycare in Barnwell County for her six-month-old son, she faced several challenges faced by many American families seeking child care: high costs and long waiting lines. For a period of time where she didn’t have child care, she had to bring her son to work with her.

“It’s frustrating,” Hernandez said. “It’s hard to work with a six-month-old infant in your office [while] trying to get work done. Every few minutes you have to pick him up and entertain him because he doesn’t want to sit in a walker for too long.”

Hernandez is one of many local parents navigating the ongoing child care crisis in America. In addition to costs comparable to that of college tuition, a shortage of resources and good-paying jobs for workers, the crisis has resulted in overwhelmed workers, frustrated parents and children missing out on critical education. But not all was lost for Hernandez, who was able to get her son into the Williston Child Development Center, a recently opened child care center serving Barnwell County.

The center is part of a partnership with the Barnwell County Consolidated School District, and began taking in children in December 2023. On March 26, a ribbon cutting ceremony was held. Tricia Gordon, executive director of Barnwell County First Steps, said the center was founded on the campus of Kelly Edwards Elementary School with the local effects of the child care crisis in mind.

“Every child should have the equal opportunity to a [child care] center that is developmentally appropriate, safe, clean,” said Gordon. “It shouldn't be hav[ing] to choose what we're eating for groceries this week or ‘what bill am I not going to pay because I have to pay child care?’”

The lack of affordable and accessible child care in America is an issue in all parts of the country that predates the COVID-19 pandemic, according to Taryn MorrAissey, a professor at American University’s Department of Public Administration and Policy, who studies early child education policy. Regions where the demand for child care is three times greater than supply are often called “child care deserts”; Under this definition, large parts of Barnwell, Bamberg and Allendale counties qualify, according to the Center for American Progress.

“Right now, child care is really expensive everywhere, but rural communities are more likely to struggle with supply issues in particular,” Morrissey said. “Child care is economic infrastructure. Just like reliable, affordable transportation, [we] need reliable affordable child care to get to and to stay at work.”

For working parents like Hernandez, not having child care means having to take her son to work. However, for parents looking for jobs, a lack of child care can mean not being able to go out to seek employment.

“It’s a huge Catch-22 situation,” Gordon said, mentioning she hopes that the center can also expand to have specialized services for youth with disabilities. “If you are a working parent, even if it’s a nine-to-five job, you’ve got to find a center that’s nearby, that’s affordable and that’s open the hours that you need to work. Everybody’s trying to juggle a lot. There’s all kinds of things stacked up against parents.”

Low pay and high rates of burnout are barriers for child care workers looking to join the workforce, and reasons why many have left the workforce. The United States Bureau of Labor Statistics has found child care workers — 95.6 percent of whom are women — have been among the lowest paid workers in the country before, during and after the pandemic. Child care workers also frequently work overtime hours that they are not paid for; Although Gordon is on spring break, she is still working.

“After their parents at home, [child care workers] are the first teaching individuals that will be involved in these children's lives,” Morrissey said. “I don't think the general public understands that this is a professional [career].”

A complex network of vouchers, scholarships and programs exist that can help parents pay for child care. However, for Hernandez, this system brings more complications and frustrations than it remedies.

Under the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA), signed into law by President Joe Biden in March 2021, South Carolina received $437 million in child care stabilization grant funding. However, in September 2023, the United States Congress allowed these grants to expire. Estimates by the Century Foundation show that approximately 618 child care programs closed, 49,335 children lost child care and 2,681 child care workers lost their jobs in South Carolina alone as a result. These estimates also found that removing these federal funds would raise child care prices even higher.

To entice prospective workers, the South Carolina Department of Social Services has been using ARPA funds to give bonuses to new child care employees. Kate Roach, Early Care and Education Programs Manager for South Carolina First Steps, said partnerships between local groups like Barnwell County First Steps and the school district are a starting point for communities to address the crisis.

“Thinking creatively about how to solve the lack of child care is one of the ways that we can address that, at least on a small scale,” Roach said. “I hope other communities look at this example.”

But larger national and state level changes must be made to address the root cause of the crisis, according to Morrissey. Despite the necessity of child care for both rural and urban communities, Morrisey said the national child care system is unsustainable; The people who can access child care are wealthy families.

“We know what helps and basically that's public investment,” Morrissey said. “We have a patchwork of programs [and] they're just all essentially underfunded. Right now the only people who can access high quality child care are people who can afford it. … You would have to start saving in high school for your future child's child care.”

For Hernandez, child care is not just a place for her to feel comfortable sending her son for the day but also a place for him to get started on early learning, one of the most critical parts of childhood education.

“Knowing that he’s being taken care of is rewarding,” Hernandez said. “[Parents want] their child in a loving environment where they can learn and prosper and not just be pushed through school.”

Elijah de Castro is a Report for America corps member who writes about rural communities like Allendale and Barnwell counties for The People-Sentinel. Your donation to match our RFA grant helps keep Elijah writing stories like this one; please consider making a tax-deductible gift of any amount today.