<figure class="wp-block-image aligncenter size-full"><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">The SEARHC Fitness Center was formerly the organization’s childcare center for over 20 years, closing in 2013. Former hospital manager Frank Sutton said it was an uphill battle convincing SEARHC management of the benefit of the childcare center, which was licensed for 44 children, and he found it difficult to recruit staff without it. “We had any number of nurses turning us down,” he said, because of the lack of childcare in Sitka at the time. (KCAW/Woolsey)</figcaption></figure><figure class="wp-block-audio"></figure>

Lauren Wild grew up in Sitka, where she’s now raising her own family. A marine biologist, Wild brings a researcher’s sensibility to the problem of childcare. It’s not just about the struggle young families face, it’s about the numbers: Between the town’s two childcare centers, there is only enough space for 10 infants out of the 120 babies living in Sitka; and for 18 of its 120 toddlers.

That adds up to a 7-to-8 percent coverage rate for infants, and a 14-percent coverage rate for toddlers. Statewide, the availability average is almost twice Sitka’s. Nationally, there is childcare available for almost half of children in these age groups.

This shortfall is a major factor, Wild suggested, for anyone starting a family in Sitka, and plays a role in the decision to stay.

And the problem doesn’t end at home.

“Our school district is feeling this crisis in that they’re experiencing really high rates of children entering kindergarten that are not kindergarten ready,” said Wild, “and our district is spending more money on individual one-on-one care — paras (paraprofessionals), social services, etc., to meet the needs of children that are increasingly entering the public school system behind and not ready. So we’re experiencing these increased social, developmental, and behavioral delays with children.”

Wild is a member of the Early Childhood Coalition. She and other coalition members comprised the seven-member panel during a lunchtime event hosted by the Sitka Chamber of Commerce on October 9 – one of six planned through December. In survey work conducted by the Chamber, the lack of childcare and the lack of affordable housing alternate between the top 1 and 2 concerns of employers in Sitka.

This is nothing new. Former SEARHC Hospital administrator Frank Sutton, speaking from the audience, recalled a time in the 1990s when he struggled to recruit staff – especially nurses.

“We had any number (of nurses, especially), I recall, turning us down because ‘I don’t have childcare, I can’t do it,’” said Sutton.

SEARHC’s solution was to establish an on-campus childcare center licensed for 44 children, under the direction of Becky Workman, who also sat on the panel. Sutton said it was an uphill battle to convince SEARHC management to agree to the facility, even though costs were partially covered by fees, which could run up to $3,000 a month for two children in all-day care.

SEARHC closed its childcare center in 2013, (but as recently as 2020 told KCAW that it hadn’t ruled out reopening another) and Sitka’s two other childcare centers were strained, but absorbed the added demand.

Lauren Wild thinks that pressure has increased  over the last 10-15 years with the changing social structure of the country, especially the prevalence of two-income households. Wild said it may not be affordable for a family to have a stay-at-home parent, and in some cases “it’s not a preference,” she said.

One of the two organizations anchoring Sitka’s childcare services is the Betty Eliason Childcare Center, which opened in the early 1980s. Board president Joel Markis spoke on the panel, and described the unsustainable business model that affected childcare across the country: It doesn’t pay.

While Markis said Betty Eliason had been buoyed by Covid money, and exceptional support from the Sitka Tribe, which had allowed it to double its infant capacity, the center had high fixed costs regardless of enrollment, and was insolvent.

“We are very aware of the glide slope that our current financial situation has us  in,” he explained.

Markis said the center looked forward to engaging with the community to make the changes needed “to keep the organization,” including municipal support, utility relief, rent-free land (which it leases from the Russian Orthodox Church of Alaska, and will be renegotiated in 2036), and other strategies that SEARHC used during the two decades it operated its childcare center.

Nevertheless, there is some progress in the state that is hopeful for Sitka. Panelist Annette Evans, who manages the new therapeutic preschool for Sitka Counseling, said that Anchorage last year decided to allocate revenue from a marijuana tax to early childhood efforts.

“They have $8 million,” she said. “They’ve mapped out how they’re going to spend it, and there’s definitely a trend:  they’re going towards retaining, recruiting, retaining, and supporting current providers and innovative pilot projects.”

Likewise, Valdez and Juneau were looking to innovative solutions for childcare. Evans added that Sitka’s Health Needs and Human Services Commission has been tasked with making recommendations to the Sitka Assembly on the issue by next January, and she suggested that anyone interested check out the commission’s work on the City of Sitka website.

The next in the series of panel discussions on Sitka’s Childcare Initiative will be hosted by the Sitka Chamber of Commerce on Wednesday, October 30.

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