{"id":2457788,"date":"2020-04-28T22:56:00","date_gmt":"2020-04-29T04:56:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/news\/parents-officials-cautious-about-piktin-county-day-care-reopenings\/"},"modified":"2020-04-28T22:56:00","modified_gmt":"2020-04-29T04:56:00","slug":"parents-officials-cautious-about-piktin-county-day-care-reopenings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/local-news\/parents-officials-cautious-about-piktin-county-day-care-reopenings\/","title":{"rendered":"Parents, officials cautious about Piktin County day care reopenings"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure class=\"wp-block-image p402_hide\">\n<div class=\"caption-container\"> <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"620\" height=\"465\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.aspentimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2019\/07\/page2-atd-071019-1.jpg\" class=\"attachment-large size-large wp-post-image\" alt srcset=\"https:\/\/cdn.aspentimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2019\/07\/page2-atd-071019-1.jpg 620w, https:\/\/cdn.aspentimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2019\/07\/page2-atd-071019-1-300x225.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 620px) 100vw, 620px\"><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">Roaring Fork Valley child care providers want specific guidance from Pitkin County and other authorities about how to reopen their facilities and support a measured approach to doing so, an official said Tuesday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">In addition, most providers have been able to obtain government assistance for their employees and none are yet in danger of closing, Shirley Ritter, director of the city of Aspen\u2019s Kids First child care resource program, told Pitkin County commissioners Tuesday during their regular weekly work session.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">\u201cThis new reality is something we\u2019re all trying to get our heads around,\u201d Ritter said. \u201c(Most providers) appreciate Pitkin County taking it slowly so hopefully we won\u2019t have to go through (clampdown orders) again.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">Child care providers in Aspen and Pitkin County have been closed since restrictive public health orders began last month. Some child care workers were referred for in-home child care for essential workers, but there wasn\u2019t a lot of demand for the service, she said.<\/p>\n<div class=\"row\">\n<div class=\"col\" readability=\"6\">\n<div class=\"row at-donation at-donation-mobile p-0\" readability=\"7\">\n<div class=\"col-xl-4 p-2\">\n<div data-bg=\"url(https:\/\/cdn.aspentimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2020\/03\/AT-logo-white.png)\" class=\"p-0 mt-2 mb-2 h-75 text-center rocket-lazyload\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.aspentimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2020\/03\/AT-logo-white.png\" class=\"logo m-0 p-0 invisible\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><h3 class=\"d-inline mr-3\">Support Local Journalism<\/h3>\n<p><button class=\"btn d-inline\" type=\"button\" onclick=\"handleDonationButtonClickMidArticle()\">Donate<\/button><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">Officials have said child care facilities are one of the businesses they will consider opening during the next round of easing of the public health order set to begin May 9.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">Providers are waiting for specific guidance from Pitkin County public health officials to prepare to open again, Ritter said. One of those criteria will certainly be allowing group size to increase from the current restriction of five people, though other questions about day care in the age of COVID-19 remain.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">They include whether to conduct health checks at facilities, what to do about facilities in shared buildings and whether parks will even be open this summer, Ritter said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">And then there\u2019s the most obvious obstacle to reopening child care facilities.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">\u201cTwo-, 3- and 4-year-olds don\u2019t do social distancing well,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">Commissioner Patti Clapper said she was concerned that child care facilities would still be around when the economy opens further and parents are asked to return to work again.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">Ritter, however, said most providers have been able to obtain Paycheck Protection Program money from the federal government and are continuing to pay their employees during the shutdown.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">Some (employees) are on unemployment,\u201d she said. \u201cBut, to my knowledge, we haven\u2019t lost any child care facilities yet.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">The city of Aspen is looking at providing financial aid for parents who go back to work and cannot afford child care, as well as rent relief for facilities that need it, Ritter said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">Commissioner Kelly McNicholas Kury \u2014 a mother of two young children \u2014 said she\u2019s heard feelings of trepidation about reopening child care facilities from some parents.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">\u201cSome people I\u2019ve talked to are not sure they\u2019re ready to send their kids back to day care,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">Ritter said that two-thirds of parents she\u2019s heard from also are \u201cconcerned and cautious about when they might bring a child back to a group setting.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">The Pitkin County Board of Health is likely to talk Thursday about the parameters under which child care facilities can open.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText Tagline\"><a href=\"mailto:jauslander@aspentimes.com\">jauslander@aspentimes.com<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/news\/parents-officials-cautious-about-piktin-county-day-care-reopenings\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">via:: The Aspen Times<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Roaring Fork Valley child care providers want specific guidance from Pitkin County and other authorities about how to reopen their facilities and support a measured approach to doing so, an official said Tuesday. In addition, most providers have been able to obtain government assistance for their employees and none are yet in danger of closing, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2457788","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-local-news"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-08-17 21:50:01","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSPN The Valley&#039;s Quality Rock","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2457788","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2457788"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2457788\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2457788"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2457788"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2457788"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}