Avian Brown, lead teacher, works with children in 2022 in the preschool at Oregon State University-Cascades in Bend. The preschool is closing as of Thursday due to lack of staffing.  

Oregon State University-Cascades is temporarily closing the preschool operations of its on-site child care program due to a lack of staff. It is also denying care for some toddlers and infants until more teachers can be hired.

The closure is the latest in a series of blows to the child care landscape in Central Oregon as facilities struggle to keep enough staff to keep their doors open in an area that already has a shortage of available child care options. In July, another preschool program in Bend, Deschutes River Montessori School, closed to due lack of staff.

In emails The Bulletin obtained from the center’s administrators to parents, OSU-Cascades’ Little Beavs day care announced one class closure in August and a restructuring of other classes. In the middle of September, administrators said due to several resignations and one teacher declining a job offer, preschool operations would close as of Thursday.

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In August, child care slots reduced from 28 to 21. In September, they reduced further from 21 to eight openings, said Christine Coffin, the university’s communications director. The center is a Baby Promise site, part of a Oregon Department of Early Learning and Care program that provides public funding for free child care for low-income Oregonians. Six of the eight remaining slots at the day care are set aside for infants in that program, Coffin said.

“Above and beyond anything else, our commitment is to provide a high level of early learning care for children through Little Beavs,” Coffin said. “What we are experiencing are the same issues that child care operations throughout the region and across the country are experiencing and that’s very real challenges around hiring and retaining qualified staff. Over the summer, we’ve had to scale back operations not once, but twice.”

These issues point to a need for the community to foster talented professionals in early learning and care, she said.

Searching for qualified staff

Little Beavs conducted staff searches in August, but was unsuccessful. OSU administrators were able to fill positions for the Corvallis campus, but not in Bend. There is a shortage of student workers as they return to class this fall as well. There are currently five open full-time positions the center is working to fill, said Coffin. The center currently has two full-time staff and two part-time student workers working at the center with infants.

Little Beavs, which opened during the pandemic, is overseen by the Oregon State University Family Resource Center on the Corvallis campus.

“The reality is that our state and nation are in a severe early care and education (ECE) workforce crisis and working full time, 8-hour day positions in ECE program rooms are becoming increasingly challenging positions to fill,” wrote Tania Henry, director of Campus Early Care and Education at OSU, in an email to parents.

“We recognize that the decision is sudden and tremendously impactful to you and are sorry for the extreme disruption this will cause in balancing work and family obligations. We truly regret being in this position and feeling so acutely the crisis of unavailable quality ECE (early care and education) professionals,” Henry added.

Family Resource Center Director Amy Luhn, who works on the Corvallis campus, apologized via email for not informing families of the challenges earlier. The center has changed qualifications for lead teachers, which no longer requires a degree.

The center’s hours will also reduce as of Thursday. Staff are continuing to recruit teachers and student workers and promised families more information on hiring efforts over the past six months, as well as monthly updates on hiring going forward.

Future child care

OSU-Cascades and Central Oregon Community College are partnering to plan a child care and early learning center, called Little Kits, at OSU-Cascades. The center on the university campus is in the planning stages, with operating costs — including staffing — as the next hurdle, said Coffin.

The future OSU-Cascades child care center has $3.38 million in funding from federal and Deschutes County American Rescue Plan Act grants, as well as a U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development grant. The funding will cover the 7,500-square-foot building on campus, site preparation, utility installation and connection and a parking lot.

OSU-Cascades is working with the High Desert Education Service District, COCC, NeighborImpact and the Family Resource Center at OSU to develop the future center. The center is still in the planning stages, construction has not started and it doesn’t have a projected opening date.

Little Beavs is currently not accepting new families and is adding prospective families to a waitlist.

Editor’s note: This article has been corrected to reflect that only one future child care center, at OSU-Cascades, will be developed as part of the partnership between the university and COCC.