Growing Community: The road to reopening for child care

In mid-March, as the first cases of COVID 19 appeared in Pitkin County and we all began to grasp the extent of how this would impact our daily lives, childcare centers made the difficult decision to close. Every program in Pitkin County made this decision independently and with the same logic — stopping the spread, reducing the curve, and keeping children, staff and family members healthy. Looking back, it’s clear this has been effective, along with all the other safeguards put in place. That still didn’t make it easy, and it created serious financial concerns for the childcare programs as well as a sudden shift for families who count on quality early childhood care and education for their children.