Yessika Magdaleno, owner of a home-based child care program in Orange County, Calif., is a problem-solver by nature. When she opened her program 20 years ago, she attracted families by expanding her hours to nights and weekends to accommodate those with non-traditional work hours. When she felt that her own children were not well-served by the local afterschool program, Magdaleno expanded her program to include afterschool care.

But even with her knack for problem-solving, Magdaleno was unprepared for the extreme stress and uncertainty of being an early childhood educator during this pandemic year.

There were small challenges, like getting 2-year-old children to wear masks, or finding electrical outlets to accommodate all the laptops that the school-aged children in her care needed for remote learning. There were major headaches, like figuring out how to stretch state subsidies intended just for afterschool care to cover the costs of full-time care. There were humiliations, like the time, early in the pandemic, when Costco wouldn’t accept a letter authorizing Magdaleno to purchase goods for use in her “essential” business.

But most of all, there was fear. Fear about maintaining her business when the country shut down. Fear about paying her staff when enrollment declined. And at the root of it all, there was fear about the virus.

There was fear every time a child arrived with a runny nose, and every time a child mentioned attending a birthday party over the weekend. There was fear with every call that Magdaleno—a leader among home-based providers in California—received from worried colleagues.

At first, they called asking how they could keep their businesses afloat, how they could get the cleaning supplies they needed. Later, providers called to share the news that a student’s mother had tested positive, that a husband, an uncle, a mother, a sister was sick, that a friend was in the hospital.

In December, she said, “Today, I got three phone calls from three providers that got infected, and they have to close. And they don't know if they're going to get paid. That's how difficult we're living.” There’s not a lot she can do. “And listening to them, you can’t say, ‘Well, everything is going to be O.K.,’ because you don't know if everything is going to be O.K. [It’s] heartbreaking, because you have to be strong for them."

Read the full article about early childhood educators during COVID-19 by Rachel Burstein at EdSurge.