COVID-19 - January hours

Good morning EEC Families,

We have had an amazing run with COVID-19 not having a huge impact on our staff or families. At this time though, with the newest variant we do have staff, and an administrator that have tested positive. While no children are impacted by the new cases, the teachers and staff have not been at work, this does effect staffing. We are going to make all efforts to reduce the impact this has on our families. Shortening hours of operation helps significantly. This reduces the number of staff members we need and also allows us to keep the classrooms even more contained.

We will be closing at 4pm on 12/30. IF you can keep your children home tomorrow, 12/30 it would be incredibly helpful so that we can provide care to the families who absolutely need it tomorrow. We know these are incredibly challenging times and these are not easy decisions. Please let your child’s teacher know today if your plans for tomorrow change.

For January 3rd-14th EEC's hours will be 7:30am-4:30pm. If any families have situations that this cannot work, please let us know. We know this is an inconvenience, but this will allow staff to get healthy and not get burnt out. This may continue for the month of January. We don’t know what the future holds. We also urge you to please have emergency backup care available. We will do everything we can to mitigate closure or further decrease in hours.

Our priority containment is for our youngest children who have reduced ability to fight all infection. This is no different than cold/flu/RSV season for us. We always try to reduce the number of staff that are in infant classrooms. This will remain consistent. If someone in your immediate household is sick, please test, please keep your children home. If your child is sick, please keep them home. Regardless of COVID-19, kids need to stay home when sick.

Delaware Department of Health is currently reviewing the newest information from the CDC. We are awaiting an update from the Office of Childcare Licensing on how the updates impact childcare. At this time, nothing in our regulations have changed, but we hope to have updated information by the end of the week. We are still seeing the spread mostly in adults, while the cases in children are increasing. We will continue to monitor and make decisions. Our teachers will be increasing the cleaning of toys and surfaces. We will continue to prioritize the health and safety of our staff and children, while balancing the needs for childcare of our families.

These are not easy decisions to make. We thank you for your continued support throughout these most difficult times.