In March 2020, when public health stay home orders began in order to halt the spread of COVID-19, child care as an industry was drastically and abruptly impacted. This public health emergency highlighted the weaknesses in the child care system in the United States. This study investigated the changes in operations cost, child enrollment and…

Childcare centers have faced many stressors both during and prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. Building on stress and coping theories, this study explores how the pandemic affected childcare center practices and how center directors responded. Childcare directors were surveyed to explore their perspectives about the pandemic's effects on teachers and…

There is increasing pressure on Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) settings to align their practices and values to that of schools, with the notion that a quality education in ECEC consists of providing care whilst also ensuring strong learning outcomes. This paper employs the constructs of structural and process quality to theorise the…

New Hampshire families have not been exempt from the disruptions and challenges associated with an enduring pandemic, including disruptions to their children's care and education arrangements, pressure on household budgets due to rising inflation, and challenges of meeting children's emergent social, emotional, and physical needs amid persistent…

The COVID-19 pandemic caused widespread closures of early care and education (ECE) facilities that negatively impacted children's socioemotional, behavioral, and academic development. Policies permitting child care centers to remain open by obtaining waivers from closure directives involved varying levels of administrative burden. This study…

This brief summarizes early educators' experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic, including changes in employment and wages, supports they received, and challenges they faced. The findings come from a survey of early educators working in licensed child care facilities in the District of Columbia in early 2021. The survey is part of the larger DC…

Government guidelines for relaunching early childhood education and care (ECEC) programs during the COVID-19 pandemic have required the implementation of various practices to minimize the risk of infection transmission. These directives include recommendations regarding serving and handling food, shared spaces, and physical distancing which have a…

Early care and education (ECE) experiences shape children's developmental trajectories, particularly for children who have or may have disabilities. However, caregivers of children with disabilities have faced considerable challenges finding care for their children, which have increased during the COVID-19 pandemic. Using survey data from nearly…

This paper investigates South Korean educational responses to school closures amid the COVID-19 pandemic, viewed with a risk and resilience framework. The COVID-19 crisis emerged and worsened right before the beginning of the new school year (March 2) in South Korea, and immediately led to students' limited access to educational facilities.…

The COVID-19 pandemic offers policymakers the opportunity to rethink early childhood education and childcare in America, and to do a better job of aligning services with the needs and preferences of families. The availability of suitable childcare--affordable and convenient with adequate hours in a desirable environment--is a key component of…

COVID-19 was declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization and a public health emergency by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control in March 2020 (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 2020). In the following months, families in the U.S. experienced financial hardships such as job and income loss, increasing food insecurity, and loss of…

School districts altered instructional delivery from solely in-person to a combined virtual/in-person model in the 2020-2021 school year in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The Houston Independent School District (HISD) offered in-person and virtual instruction to early learners at school-based programs (SBP), early childhood centers (ECC), and…

As California policymakers start to chart a path forward beyond COVID-19, it is important to first understand and reckon with the pandemic's impact on child care programs and individual educators. This research paper presents findings from a survey of 953 California ECE programs and providers in June-July 2020. The results provide an in-depth view…