PENDLETON — As a nationwide debate rages about whether children should return to school, child care providers say they have been struggling through the pandemic outside the limelight.

The Oregon Department of Education released updated rules on Friday, Aug. 14, allowing some child care facilities to have up to 16 children in a classroom, but providers were previously required to limit classrooms to “stable cohorts” of 10 children kept separate from other children and staff at all times, including having their own separate restroom and not mixing with other cohorts outside.

Annemarie Kunkle, who runs Lil’ Angels Child Care and Pre School in Pendleton, said her facility has been losing money steadily since the 10-child rule was implemented in March. Centers still have the costs associated with staffing their classrooms for 12 or more hours a day, she said, but now each classroom has far fewer paying families to cover those costs.

“If you don’t have 40 kids anymore, like a lot of day care centers, now you’re in the hole,” she said. “We’re running in the red every day.”

Before the shutdown, Lil’ Angels had capacity for 44 children in the building at a time, but served a total of 64 because some children only needed part-time care. Rules implemented in March originally caused Kunkle to have to trim that list to only 20 children, although a remodel of her building eventually allowed her to add an additional cohort of 10.

The frustrating thing, Kunkle said, is that there are plenty of families on her waiting list that would love to have a spot.

In March, however, child care providers were forced to tell some families they would be losing their spot. Providers were ordered to close and were only allowed to reopen if they received permission to provide emergency child care for the children of parents who the state deemed essential workers. Parents in other fields had to find different arrangements.

According to the Oregon Department of Education, as counties move to new phases of reopening, parents in those businesses that are allowed to reopen can also qualify for child care, but centers — running below their normal capacity — must still prioritize children of essential workers.

Rebecca Rasmussen, who runs Just Like Home Nursery School in Pendleton, is closing up her child care business at the end of September and moving to Enterprise to run a new child care center at Wallowa County Memorial Hospital.

She only has 10 spaces at Just Like Home, which she runs out of a house she rents for the sole purpose of child care, so she didn’t have to reduce her slots. But she specializes in infants and toddlers, and said that a couple of her infant parents had decided that they could keep their baby at home now that they are working from home. She hasn’t been able to fill the spaces.

Working 55 hours a week, she said she and her sole employee are making what amounts to $8.84 an hour for the month of August. That is why she decided to take the opportunity to work 40 hours a week for a higher, more reliable wage, even though she is sad to leave the families she serves in Pendleton.

“I just couldn’t say no,” she said. “I can’t live on $8.84 an hour. It was hard enough this month. I can’t do it month after month.”

While Rasmussen has had a hard time filling infant slots, she said parents have had a very difficult time in Umatilla County finding slots for preschool and school-aged children.

Rasmussen said the parents of the children she cares for have been extremely appreciative, but overall she feels like the national and statewide conversations have often focused on K-12 education and supporting teachers without mentioning child care providers. Both she and Kunkle said it feels like people rarely include child care providers when talking about thanking “essential workers.”

“I think what people don’t understand is it’s so hard to do child care,” Rasmussen said. “It’s costs a lot of money. There’s high overhead and long hours and no lunch breaks. It’s hard work.”

Ashley Records runs Home Away from Home Child Care out of her own home in Hermiston. She said she is licensed for 16 slots, but during the past few months she has only been able to have 10 children in her home due to the pandemic restrictions. She said she has been lucky, however, that a couple of parents working from home have been willing to continue paying in order to reserve their slot for when their child does come back.

When she posted on Facebook last week that she could take four more children now that the state was allowing 16 children again, people jumped at the chance.

“Within 24 hours those interviews were set and those spots were filled,” she said.

The COVID-19 section of ODE’s Early Learning Division website acknowledges that “young children are likely unable to practice physical distancing” but encourages staff to do the best they can to encourage social distancing in the classroom and eliminate activities, such as sensory tables that usually bring children in close proximity.

Other requirements include masks for staff and children over 5, temperature checks and hand sanitizing when children come in the door, prohibiting items from home and barring all visitors from entering the building, including parents dropping off their children.

Hermiston School District has announced it is partnering with the afterschool program Champions to create a day care center at the Eastern Oregon Trade and Event Center, and Records said other Hermiston providers were wondering how Champions would be able to meet all of the requirements for child care facilities at a building that was not designed for that purpose.

Not all parents are able to supervise their child during the upcoming “distance learning” start to the school year, however, which means child care providers must do so. At Lil’ Angels, Kunkle said now that the state is allowing cohorts of 16 instead of 10 children starting Sept. 1, she will be able to take in some more of those school-aged children.

The students will be expected to bring their own district-issued Chromebook and headphones, but Kunkle said it will fall to her to keep track of each child’s schedule of when they need to log on, and provide them with additional supplies and help as needed.

“All those school supplies come out of my pocket, but I’m just glad that (the number of children) can finally go up,” she said.