The Assembly had already paid for child care in the city, argued Assembly member Wade Bryson, by funding the Juneau School District to the highest allowable levels under federal law.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
“We should get a portion of that school money back because we already paid for the child care,” Bryson said. “We’ve wanted child care corrected for years, now we’ve not only not solved that problem but we’ve exacerbated it (by closing schools).”<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
Bryson was a member of the city’s Childcare Committee<\/a> which struggled to find child care solutions under more normal circumstances, and tasking yet another body with a more complex problem in a shorter time-frame didn’t make sense.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t “Thinking that we’re going to have pop-up child care with all the requirements and restrictions (required by law), then saying, you’re only going to need it for a year because kids can go back to school,” he said. “We’re hoping to have people that would do child care for one year, is really the question that would be asked and that is an unrealistic expectation.”<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t Earlier this month, the Juneau School District announced it the new school year would begin Aug. 24 with students staying mostly at home, forcing some parents to scramble to find child care.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t “We’re getting calls from families who were supposed to do kindergarten at the district and are trying to do kindergarten with us here now because they need to go back to work and we’re open for childcare so they’re trying to switch into our program,” said Laura Talpey, Executive Director of Juneau Montessori School in Douglas.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t Montessori is a private school which until the coronavirus pandemic, was entirely privately funded, Talpey said, but the school had since received grants from federal, state and local governments.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t Juneau Montessori School student Abby Auerswald was eager to share a worm she found on Tuesday, Aug. 11, 2020. She doesn’t usually hold big worms, she said, but noted she was holding this particular worm in spite of its large size. (Peter Segall \/ Juneau Empire)<\/p><\/div>\n\t\t\t\t “The support this summer has been amazing, city funding this summer allowed us to stay open even with low enrollment and low-income tuition,” she said.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t The school had reduced its class sizes to allow for more social distancing, Talpey said, and classes were now kept completely separate from one another. Smaller, separate classes means the school needs a higher adult-to-child ratio, even with lower enrollment.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t![\"Juneau](\"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/22390445_web1_ChildCare-JUE-200811-Kids_2.jpg\")
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