The child development center resumed operations at both the Liberal Arts Campus (LAC) and Pacific Coast Campus (PCC) at Long Beach City College in October 2020 after a 7 month shut down. Since then, the center has added new safety measures to help ensure the safety and health of the children.
“Distancing the kids from each other was one of the more challenging things because they want to be together,” said Stacey Smith-Clark, the child development center manager.
To avoid putting anyone’s health in danger the center has implemented the standard safety procedures such as temperature screenings for children upon arrival and reduced furniture to implement social distancing.
With teachers they have a daily routine to take COVID-19 tests as well as temperature screenings.
They’ve had to make some serious changes as a result of COVID-19.
Additional changes include having the classrooms at half capacity and having two educators per classroom at a time as opposed to three to four educators.
Besides the mask requirements the center is providing the classrooms with pairs of aprons, gloves, face shields and disinfecting products.
“Before we came back we were really worried about how we were gonna do this but as soon as we came back together it felt really good and natural,” said Smith-Clark.
Smith-Clark went on to explain that there are 64 children total at the LAC and PCC a day compared to 110 children per day they used to have.
Currently there are 14 children per classroom in their pre school classes and 12 children per classroom in the toddler classes.
The kids are told to be in small groups that if any of them were to get too close to one another it would be easy for one of the educators to notice.
The children are well aware of COVID-19 and the instructors talk to them about it and the importance of social distancing.
Parram who has a 3 year old son who enrolled at the child development center at LAC explained she was worried at first about sending her son back when the center reopened.
“At first I was kind of nervous because you don’t know what other families are doing, you only know how to protect yours,” said Parram.
Parram explained once she had arrived at the school and noticed the methods the center is taking to protect the children, it gave her peace about sending her child.
The child development center ensures parents that their kids are safe by taking pictures on an instagram page that is extremely active and by sending out weekly newsletters which has become a key component to let families know what’s going on in the center.