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By Matt Hoisch

“Kids! We miss you!” Those are the words colorfully painted onto giant pieces of butcher paper taped to the windows at Rainbow Preschool and Rockies school age program. Inside, the schedule for the week of March 9-13th is still scrawled on a chalkboard. For over two month, childcare centers across San Miguel County closed to prevent the spread of the coronavirus. This week, relaxed public health orders mean they can open back up. Well, partially.

Megan Berry directs both the Rainbow and Rockies programs, which take three to seven-year-olds. We spoke last week as she was preparing for the re-opening. She says each program normally has about 20 kids per day, but state guidelines now limit them to half that. So, she says, her team has been reaching out to families to try to balance the childcare needs between all of them.

“For most people, they just needed a couple days,” she explains. “What we asked them to do was like, maybe you could share a kid sitter for a couple days with another family. Or—kind of getting creative with their childcare situations for the summer.”

And for the kids who do come, things don’t look exactly the same. X’s made out of colorful duct tape dot the sidewalk—marking socially distanced spots to stand on for drop off. Masks are also not going away. And Berry’s staff has gotten rid of a lot of soft toys and dress up props that would be hard to disinfect. 

“We’ve just kind of edited it so that they still have toys to play with, obviously,” she say. “Just not as many for us to clean at the end of the day.”

And yes, that cleaning includes all of the pieces in the Monopoly set that’s still out for the older kids to play with. 

But because of the extra cleaning, Berry notes, they have to shorten their hours so she doesn’t have to pay her staff overtime. That’s important because she says even though they’re opening, both programs will lose money this summer.  

“Childcare throughout the State with these limited numbers is completely unsustainable,” she says.

But, they’re still taking kids, she says, because they want to help the community. She’s just hoping for more state aid down the road. 

But, not everyone can afford to run at a loss and hope for help later. A few blocks away, dozens of colorful toys pack the wooden cubbies at another childcare center, Elaine’s Place. It’s where they’ve been since March when the Telluride toddler center closed on a Wednesday in winter.

“And then that Thursday and Friday, me and two of my employees came in here and bleached and Cloroxed every single toy and item in here,” explains Leah Roman, the Director of Elaine’s Place, which offers toddler care for 1-3 year olds. The toys, she says, haven’t moved since then.

Earlier this year, when the coronavirus shut down the business, they closed so quickly and unexpectedly, she says, that parents didn’t have time to pick up their kids’ winter clothes. There’s still several pairs of toddler snow boots neatly arranged by the front door.

But even with loosening public health orders, Roman made what she says was a “very hard” decision not to open back up this week. She says she has 12 families who send their kids, but only four told her they’d want to come back right now, and that just doesn’t work with her business model.

“We have to have two staff here at all times. And for me to do that with such as small center and number of kids—we can’t afford to stay open and do that,” she says.”

Part of it is the economy. Childcare is going to be essential for people to get back to work. But right now, as things slowly open back up, Roman says a good chunk of her parents don’t have work pulling them from home. So they don’t need the toddler care. She’s hoping she’ll be able to open up again in July.

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Back at the Rainbow and Rockies program, it’s Monday and for the first time since March, their gates are open for business. Of course, some kids are a little nervous to jump back into the more social life. Like Julia Carlson.

“Well, I’m excited because I finally get to be here now,” she says. “But I’m sort of scared because I haven’t really been at schools yet or play areas yet.”

Most parents are pretty excited to drop their kids off again. Like Cathleen Sowinski.

“Thank God it’s open again!” she exclaims with a laugh. “I don’t want to say it wasn’t that horrendous because it was very difficult having us all home all together all the time.”

Inside, the older kids are playing upstairs before opening circle time, while Brandon Baker, their lead teacher, supervises. With the health restrictions, he says it will be an interesting summer, but he wants to enjoy whatever he can.

“I have this feeling that everything’s gonna open just to be closed again late fall,” he notes. “And so I feel like this is just kind of a short little bliss moment that we’ll have.”

Downstairs, the younger kids are wearing colorful face masks decorated with characters like Disney Princesses and Peppa Pig. They’re playing with puzzles and Legos at four socially distanced tables—and listening to some Jack Johnson. 

After months of coronavirus closures no one really knows how long and how much childcare will be able to re-open over the next few months. But, for now at least, one short little bliss moment.