Lori McFate’s job is supposed to be behind a desk.
Instead, she’s often washing clothes and toys, cooking meals and changing diapers.
McFate operates the day-care center at St. John’s Lutheran Church, one of 97 day-care centers and homes in Rowan County. When an employee calls in sick, she can’t turn children away.
She can’t operate with a short staff, either. The state forbids it.
So she fills in.
“A grocery store won’t close with one less checker. A bank won’t close with one less teller,” McFate said. “This is the only field where you cannot operate if you’re short a staff member ... We need substitutes.”
The Rowan County Partnership for Children is trying to create exactly that. The organization hopes to recruit and pay to train a pool of about 15 substitute day-care workers for centers and homes throughout Rowan County.
“We’re not just looking for bodies,” said Sheila Simpson, director for the Partnership for Children. “We’re looking for healthy, intelligent, educated people.”
“Parents want to know that their children are taken care of, and day-care centers aren’t just going to take anyone off the street,” she said.
The state’s new day-care rating program has put pressure on centers to keep a consistent number of trained workers. Begun in April 1999, the tougher licenses rank centers and homes on a level of one to five stars, replacing a licensing system that ranked facilities “A” or “AA.”
Centers earn from stars based on the education of teachers and staff and their ratio to children enrolled, space and furnishings, personal care routines, methods of teaching language and reasoning skills, activities, interaction of children with each other and with the staff and the center’s history of compliance with child-care laws.
“With the star-rated license program have come a lot of demands,” Simpson said.
The Partnership for Children will pay for subsitutes’ training with money from Smart Start, the state program aimed at preparing children for school. It will cover the cost of physical and medical tests and two courses in child care at Rowan-Cabarrus Community College or other community colleges.
The agency had seven applicants as of Friday and is still searching.
Simpson said she’d like to see such substitutes offered throughout the state. Stanly County tried a volunteer pool but the volunteers got hired away, she said.
McFate said many hopeful day-care employees have a misguided first impression of what the work is like. It carries a lot of responsibility and little compensation, she said.
A full-time employee at a fast-food restaurant might make $6 an hour with health insurance, paid vacation and sick time and even a 401K plan, she said. The typical day-care worker makes about the same amount, seldom finds health insurance and almost never has paid time off.
“Most people don’t know what it’s like to be in four walls in a classroom,” McFate said. “Not everyone is cut out for it.”
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