It’s an iconic scene: The final bell blares on the last day of class. Students send papers airbourne in jubilation. Alice Cooper’s raspy anthem fills the halls.
School’s out for summer.
Students anticipate this ceremonious end all year, but for many young families it’s the beginning of a season of uncertainty.
“Summers become more expensive” because of the cost of child care, says Jossy Martinez, the mother of 4-year-old Christian and 9-year-old Ileana. Since both she and her husband are full-time employees, it’s a necessity.
“During the school year, [Ileana] has somewhere to go every day,” Martinez says. “In the summertime, it’s hard if I don’t have anything lined up for summer camp or child care.”
Every spring, families face the question of how to best support their kids during the summer when school ends. Parents can already expect to fork out an annual average of $21,000 per child for high-quality, full-time, year-round daycare through preschool in Boulder County, according to estimates from the Wild Plum Center. Child care rates can vary depending on age and hours they attend. Add in increased cost-of-living expenses across the board, plus the end of pandemic-era supports like maximum allotted SNAP benefits, and many families are stretched to the limit — or beyond.
Martinez says she’s lucky to find full-time child care this summer for Christian, who just graduated from speech therapy offered through his program. After being on a waitlist for two months leading up to the summer, Martinez was only able to find a camp for Ileana two days a week for the month of June for $400.
“There’s not an easy answer to child care in general, let alone summer,” says Julie Van Domelen, executive director of EFAA. Photo courtesy TLC Learning Center.
When Ileana isn’t at camp, she joins her mom at work, or stays with friends or family. While Martinez would rather have Ileana at camp five days a week all summer, something is better than nothing.
“If I didn’t have child care, I would not be able to work,” she says. “And if I was not able to work, then there’s a lot of bills that would go unpaid — our rent, our vehicles, food — necessities that we need.”
But Martinez’s circumstance is only the cover of a deeper story. Sources say families across the county struggle to receive adequate child care in the summer, and are often left on waitlists of hard-to-find and expensive external programs, or rely on the support of friends, family and neighbors.
“Summer is such a hard time for parents in terms of not having child care, and you have to keep working,” says Julie Van Domelen, executive director of the Emergency Family Assistance Association (EFAA). “It’s just really, really hard.”
It’s especially demanding for young kids, like Christian and Ileana, who are in a crucial period of physical, mental and emotional development and already reeling from the COVID-19 pandemic’s continued impact on education.
While there’s awareness around the challenges stacking up against families in the summertime when school resources are unavailable, some worry how students and families navigate an unmonitored and expensive patchwork of child care without falling through the cracks.
“This is an issue that matters for everybody, not just young families with children,” says Matt Eldred, executive director at Longmont-based TLC Learning Center. “It’s employers, it’s our community, it’s the whole economic system.”
‘A lifeline for kids’
The amount of students in variable housing highlights some of the most extreme family challenges in Boulder County’s school districts.
Last year, the Colorado Department of Education’s McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance (MKV) program recorded the highest number of unhoused students in the last decade in Boulder Valley School District (BVSD) at more than 800 students. (By May 2023, that number dropped to 700 due to withdrawals.) That same year, St. Vrain Valley School District (SVVSD) identified 722 kids to receive assistance from MKV.
According to the Colorado Coalition for the Homeless, more than 2,000 people in families with children experienced homelessness in Colorado in 2022. EFAA believes that is an undercount.
Students who lack “a fixed, regular and adequate nighttime residence” qualify for MKV. A number of fees are immediately waived for students in the program, including meals and transportation.
Adriana Favila Humara, an MKV program specialist at BVSD, says it’s too early to tell what the program’s numbers will look like next year, but she thinks it will remain high.
Van Domelen says family homelessness looks different than adult homelessness.
“You may not see as many homeless families with children on bike paths and street corners,” she says, because many families will couch surf, sometimes doubling or tripling up with other families, before hitting the streets. “But the numbers are growing in our community, which has a tremendously negative impact on children.”
School is more than class, says Allison Billings, executive director of Impact on Education, a foundation that provides resources for students and their families.
“What are things going to be like if home is not a happy place, or home is not a stable place, or home is not a place where you’ve got access to food regularly?” Billings says. “Then school is a lot more than a place where you learn. School is a lifeline for kids.”
Summer school options are available for a limited number of students district-wide: About 100 students in the MKV program, and just under 1,500 total students (out of nearly 30,000) accessed BVSD’s Summer Summit Program or its online summer education, according to staff. Martinez says she tried to enroll Ileana in one of SVVSD’s summer programs, but it was full.
Billings says it’s hard to reach students when they aren’t required to be at school in the summer.
“I know a lot of folks in BVSD worry about the kids over the summer, especially the ones that we don’t see who don’t have stable environments at home, but I don’t know what more the schools can do.”
Impact on Education estimates 40% of students don’t meet Boulder County’s self-sufficiency standard, which is more than $100,000 for a family of four. Last year, 25% of students in BVSD were on free or reduced lunch, a 5% increase from the previous academic year. This number has steadily risen since 2019.
The Colorado Department of Education’s Summer Food Service Program (SFSP) offers free breakfast, lunch, snacks and supper to youth in Colorado all summer long, but doesn’t collect data on who attends. Anyone 18 years and younger is eligible. Last summer, more than two million meals were distributed through the program around the state.
There are 12 SFSP sites scattered around the county. Most are in Longmont. None are in Boulder.
Van Domelen says it’s “very different” for families having to travel to get food in the summer compared to having food where students are in the school year.
Maggie Sava, a staff member at Broomfield FISH, an organization providing family support services like food, transportation and rental assistance, says families can face higher food costs in summer months because kids aren’t in school.
While food insecurity is a year-round issue, Broomfield FISH is seeing record high visits to its marketplace as families search for food. According to Sava, the organization has seen 26% more people this summer (June 1 to July 20) compared to summer 2020, and nearly 9% more compared to summer 2022.
Van Domelen says low-income households with small children are hit the hardest by these changes, especially in the summer months.
“People can’t afford what they used to be able to afford, and it doesn’t take much to tip you into the negative when you’re right at the water line,” she says.
High demand
According to state data, there are 297 child care facilities in Boulder County, which Eldred says isn’t enough to meet demand for the estimated 13,000 kids under 5 years old in the county. TLC Learning Center has a waitlist that is “miles long of families waiting to get in,” Eldred says.
Nationally, the median annual price of child care for one child in counties the size of Boulder County is more than $10,000 for infants, the most expensive care. For school-age children, that number is nearly $7,000. Almost every county in the nation experiences high child care prices relative to family income. Meanwhile, child care workers receive low wages at a median of $13.22 an hour.
High-quality early childhood education can build a foundation for social, mental, emotional and physical development. Credit: TLC Learning Center
Some families at TLC Learning Center pay $1,600 a month for child care, according to Eldred, amounting to $19,200 annually, a number that’s rising statewide.
Martinez received financial aid for each of her kids this summer, a “huge deal,” by her account. Without it, she estimates she would’ve paid upwards of $1,500 just for June. She’s noticed higher camp and child care prices this year compared to last year.
Because of limited availability and expensive child care, Eldred says families often rely on friends, family and neighbors for support in the summer.
“Now for some families that’s by choice. If you’ve got family and relatives in town, and you have grandma watching in the summertime, that’s a family choice,” he says. “For other families, it’s a necessity that potentially an older teenage sibling is watching the younger sibling during the summertime out of need, not necessarily choice.”
Relying on unstructured or unmonitored child care can put stress on families. Sava pointed toward some circumstances where single parents were forced to take off work to support their children, bringing less income to the family.
Eldred says students who are not in early childhood development programs are more likely to enter kindergarten a step behind their peers, creating an achievement gap that grows through elementary school.
The first five years of life impact long-term social, mental, emotional and physical development. High-quality early childhood education can help reduce gaps, but early life stress like physical abuse, family instability and poverty are linked to developmental delays and poor health outcomes.
Van Domelen says the effects of homelessness stay with children for a long time.
“If the child has gone through homelessness, [they are] more likely to be out of grade, [have] lower achievement levels and have behavioral health issues,” Van Domelen says.
‘We don’t have a lot of answers’
Martinez describes her kids as adventurous and outdoorsy explorers. Christian is her “wild child,” and Ileana is calm, patient and brave.
She says it’s challenging to balance providing a summer filled with friends, learning and growth for them and a steady income for her house.
“As a parent, you wouldn’t want to hold them back, especially when it comes to finances,” she says. “But I feel like that’s where we hold them back because sometimes we can’t [afford it].”
In the past, Martinez has picked up a second job to support child care.
County leadership is discussing solutions to this growing problem. In June, the Boulder County Commissioners voted against the establishment of an early childhood special district that would have secured public funding for programs and services to support young children.
Eldred says it will take a “mixed-delivery system” combining assistance programs and private and public support to address what children and families need in Boulder County.
It’s proven that investing in kids pays off. Economic studies, like those completed by the National Forum on Early Childhood Policy and Programs, show every dollar invested in early childhood programs can bring returns between $4 and $9.
When it comes down to it, Van Domelen says someone has to pay for child care and family support services — whether it be local governments, nonprofits or parents.
“I think we should address it as a community because really, our best investment is in the kids in our community,” she says. “They’re the ones that are gonna save the day, right? They’re gonna be our future.”
