Great Barrington — The leaders of three local out-of-school childcare providers spoke with the Selectboard about financial challenges at the board’s meeting on Monday, May 19.
The discussion was listed as an agenda item at the May 19 meeting, but the board did not make any resulting decisions.
In introducing the agenda item, Selectboard member Ben Elliott said that child care is a strategic planning priority of the board that has led to the formation of the town’s Child Care Committee.
“Through these conversations [at the Selectboard meeting and committee meetings], the town is learning that quality child care for all ages of children is not only critical to the social, physical, and emotional development of a child, it is also fundamental to our town’s economic health,” Elliott said. “Affordable housing and transportation are critical to economic development, but child care is an equally critical component of our economy. Without access to affordable child care, it can be impossible for some parents and caregivers to hold jobs, making it more difficult for employers to hire qualified workers.”
Berkshire Hills Regional School District Out-of-School-Time Programming Director JP Okin gave the first presentation.
The school district operates the Community, Learning, & Enrichment Opportunities (CLEO) program for students in grades one through eight. The program operates Monday through Thursday in three 10-week sessions. This summer, the program has been reduced from five to three weeks.
“All the activities [provided by the program] are developmentally significant,” Okin said. “We make a point of trying to make sure there are enrichment opportunities. This is not ‘child storage.’ We provide highly engaging activities.”
According to Okin, up to 100 school district students take part in the program, and at least 64 percent of students are what the state considers “high need”: either economically disadvantaged, an English language learner, or on an individualized Ed Plan (education plan).
Okin said the school district provides free bus transportation to students in Great Barrington, Housatonic, Glendale, and Stockbridge.
“Our funding situation [for the program] is in flux,” Okin said. “This program was 35 percent funded by a federal 21st Century Grant ending this year. There is some question if it will exist for anybody starting next year due to the dissolution of the Department of Education.”
According to Okin, the grant provided $113,492 for the program, with its total budget for this year set at $326,000. Without the grant, he said, the program would operate at a $41,020 deficit for the 2026 school year.
The school district plans to propose a $10-per-day contribution from parents to make up the deficit. “[The 2026 school year budget] is hypothetical, and we are still exploring options,” Okin said. “Up to this point, no child, no parent, has had to contribute anything to this program. We are looking at the possibility of asking for parent contributions in the coming year.”
Okin added that the school district “would never deny a student enrollment for an inability to pay.”
Next up at the meeting, Berkshire South Regional Community Center Executive Director Jenise Lucey spoke about the center’s out-of-school programs. The center offers “Action Adventures” programs for students from five to 14 years old. The center also has a summer camp from late June until August and operates its “Sunshine Preschool After School” program for students from three to five years old.
Berkshire South charges for its programs, including the after-school and out-of-school programs. According to its website, the center charges $26 for its daily after-school program, $35 for its half-day after-school program, and $52 for its full-day program during school vacations and snow days.
Lucey told the Selectboard that its “Action Adventures” after-school program is only at 40 percent capacity, with approximately 72 students so far this year.
“We have always provided child care, but we have needed to charge for it,” Lucey said. “It’s obvious our community has great need and does not have the ability to pay what it costs to run these programs.”
Lucey explained that the center’s after-school program sees low enrollment “because parents can’t afford to come.” “They also may feel somewhat stigmatized if they need to apply for financial assistance, which we do have available for up to 50 percent for our programs,” Lucey said. “We also accept state vouchers, so in many cases [the parents] are paying nothing, and we also have financial aid. We’ve only provided $31,500 in financial assistance in the last year for programming, but we expect that to go up shortly.”
Lucey said that about 50 percent of students in Berkshire South’s programs are in a “high-need” area.
“[Working in after-school programs] is a hard job, and it’s underpaid across the board,” Lucey said. “Pay rates [for our staff] are important for us, but there is long-term vulnerability around funding. We are not sure if we are going to get all those grants [we applied for] this year, including the ones that we budgeted for. Our goal is to increase funding so that we can then either increase the amount of financial assistance that goes out to get more people enrolled, or to find a way to creatively lower the overall daily cost to families without jeopardizing our voucher funding to be able to get people in there.”
The final speaker at the Selectboard meeting, Greenagers Education Director Cynthia Gray, said that the organization partners with CLEO and several other Berkshire County schools to offer its out-of-school programming to students.
While not specifically getting into budget or student numbers, Gray said that Greenagers is also struggling financially in several different areas. “One of the things that we struggle most with is transportation,” Gray said. “We have a 12-passenger van that we utilize, and because we have so many programs in different schools, we’re sharing that van here and there. We could offer more programming to kids if we had more transportation available. But as you well know, transportation for students is expensive, and getting them around our area is difficult.”
Grey said that Greenagers is looking for grants to purchase a larger van for its programs. “Greenagers relies on a combination of foundation grants, state grants, and partial funding from our partner organizations to cover the costs of running our programming,” she said. “Our current model allows us to provide programming at no charge to the students. One of the things that is coming up is that programs like CLEO are losing their funding, and part of our funding is going to go away, too. In the next year or so, I don’t know how our programming is going to be supported without partial payment from CLEO. We’re trying to figure that out, and I don’t want to charge the students who already are underserved and underrepresented to do the things that we do. Our programs are unique and special, and I want the kids who are typically underrepresented to have a chance to get to do the things we do.”
