SCHOOL CLOSURES HAVE PARENTS SCRAMBLING TO KEEP THEIR JOBS AND SECURE CHILDCARE

Like every other school in Illinois, Martha Ruggles Elementary School in Park Manor, will remain closed until at least August 2020 after Gov. JB Pritzker ordered schools not to reopen this academic year. Photo credit: Wendell Hutson
Like every other school in Illinois, Martha Ruggles Elementary School in Park Manor, will remain closed until at least August 2020 after Gov. JB Pritzker ordered schools not to reopen this academic year. Photo credit: Wendell Hutson

School Closures Have Parents Scrambling to Keep Their Jobs and Secure Childcare

State health officials said new COVID-19 cases and even deaths have slightly dropped over the past two weeks, but that means nothing to parents struggling to keep their jobs because their childcare options are limited.

When Gov. JB Pritzker ordered all schools to remain closed for the rest of the academic year, which is June for Chicago Public Schools, Zestiny Harris said she went into panic mode.

“I immediately got scared because I knew I was out of options when it comes to my kids. I was hoping schools would reopen this month so I could go back to work [as a warehouse clerk at a publishing company] and provide for my family as a single mother, but now I don’t know what to do,” said Harris, a 29-year-old Chatham mother of two daughters ages 8 and 10-years-old. “So far, I used up my two weeks vacation time on my job, so at this point, I am all out of options.”

At an April 17 news conference, Pritzker announced the school closures and said reopening schools would have created “a limitless opportunity for potential COVID-19 infections at a time when our health care workers, our researchers, our scientists, and our first responders need us to bend the curve downward.”

Coronavirus also known as COVID-19 (coronavirus disease of 2019) is the name of the disease caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus and it was originated in Wuhan, China in late 2019, according to the World Health Organization, which said it has now affected more than 1 million people. And symptoms include fever, cough, shortness of breath and breathing difficulties. The period within which symptoms would appear is two to 14 days.

And while parents said they understand the seriousness of the virus and do not want to put their children in harms way, closing schools now poses a serious problem for them.

“Every parent cannot work from home. I work as a security guard, so I have to go to work. My son is 9-years-old, so I cannot leave him home alone and the parks are closed too, which is where he normally goes as a backup,” explained Cornelius Brown, a 37-year-old Park Manor father of three children including twin 4-year-old daughters. “Daycare centers are closed and I am not an essential worker so my girls cannot go to any emergency daycare centers opened at this time. My wife works two jobs and we are not from Chicago, so we have no family here to help us.”

Earlier this month, the governor eased restrictions for childcare centers operating under an emergency license, which allows childcare centers to remain open for essential workers but with no more than six children. Essential workers as deemed by the state include those working in health care, human services, government, hospitality, transportation, gas stations, and even factories, but not security guards, which some parents said is a major employer for blacks.

A lot of blacks work security jobs because it’s the only place that’s hiring these days and it does not require any college education or previous experience, said London Breeze, a 26-year-old Grand Crossing mother of two children ages 5 and 7-years-old.

“I would be unemployed if I did not work security because all I have is a GED [General Education Diploma] and I am not that good with computers,” said Breeze. “I’m trying to get myself together so I can get a better paying job but it’s hard with two kids. And with schools closed until the fall, I don’t know how I can keep my job because it’s only so much flexibility a job is going have with you regardless of the circumstances.”

For now, Breeze has been able to get by using neighbors as babysitters but she said even that is wearing thin. She said she had to change babysitters twice because she was not comfortable with how their households were being run. “With one sitter, she had her boyfriend and his friends coming in and out the house all day and none of them looked like they practiced good sanitation,” she said.

The governor defended his decision to keep schools closed by saying health experts advised him against it.

“I’ve said time and time again my decisions are hard ones, but they will follow the science and the science says our students can’t go back to their normal routine,” said Pritzker. “We know that there are many school districts with unique challenges, but trust me, when I say this was not a decision I made lightly.”

But the governor’s explanation comes too little too late for many parents faced with yet another dilemma.

“It’s easy for the governor to say he did what he thought was in the best interest of kids because he does not have any young children,” said Antonio Burke, a 40-year-old Chatham father of two children ages 4 and 9-years-old. “At the end of the day, we as parents still have to find somewhere for our kids to go while we go to work and that’s very difficult if you make too little money and live in a neighborhood that has too little resources to help you.”

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