The shortage of child care teachers is a well-known problem, but the lack of qualified substitute teachers doesn’t always get as much attention. Legally, centers are required to maintain a certain number of adults for the children in their care. Without reliable substitutes, full-time teachers can barely leave the room for a short break, let alone make longer appointments for something like a doctor’s visit. The program also offers volunteer “business advisors” who provide administrative support to centers in need.
“The field of education and child care is full of smart people who are trying to find ways to shore up the system in any way possible,” said Elizabeth Pufall Jones, director of work environment and readiness programs at the Center for the Study of Child Care Employment. Early childhood teachers are often perceived as babysitters whose roles can be easily filled, she said, but that’s not true. With ECSC members, “you know they are well-qualified people to walk into these classrooms.”
Lisa Armao, who has worked in early childhood education for more than 30 years, founded ECSC in 2022, inspired by a documentary called “The growing season” which features a program in Seattle that houses a senior center and daycare under one roof.
He visited the Seattle program with the intention of trying to start a similar model in Denver. The pandemic upended their plan to create a free-standing facility, but Armao has been able to raise more than $440,000 in state and local funds for the ECSC model of placing seniors in child care centers as substitute teachers and office staff.
Over the past three years, ECSC has placed about 150 volunteers in Montessori programs and other child care centers in the Denver area. Those who want to work as teachers attend three to four months of online classes offered by Red Rocks Community College. Those who want to work with children but do not want the additional training take 19 hours of training modules offered by CECA. Volunteer business advisors receive seven hours of free training on early childhood standards before being placed in a center. Some of the participants in the program are paid, while others support daycare centers for free.
Family Star Montessori educates 230 children, ages 8 weeks to 6 years, in its two schools and its home learning program. Alexander’s presence in a classroom means teachers can leave to take a phone call or go to the bathroom without worrying about whether there are enough adults in the classroom.
“We don’t talk enough about bathroom breaks,” Armao said. “If you need to go to the bathroom, there has to be someone to come in and cover you in that space, and that can create a very uncomfortable work environment. Meeting the needs of adults helps improve morale.”
ECSC has attracted a steady stream of local media attention, which is how most seniors find out about the program, but finding corps members to meet the need remains a challenge. Armao said he has received inquiries about replication from people in California, Ohio, Oregon and Washington state.
Just as Family Star CEO Lindsay McNicholas relies on Alexander to help care for the children, she relies on another ECSC member, Jean Townsend, for administrative support.
Before retiring, Townsend owned a local economic consulting firm and, among other accomplishments, helped start the Colfax Marathon, an annual race that attracts thousands of runners. He came to Family Star with extensive contacts among business and political leaders, as well as a roll-up-your-sleeves attitude.
“I’ve learned that if you have a problem, you solve it,” Townsend said. She is working with the center as she plans to sell one site and buy another with more modern heating, closer to where most families live.
Townsend’s business experience has been invaluable, McNicholas said. “I’ve been able to meet with officials and urban planners in Jefferson County, which is a new county for us. That has given us a boost to this really incredible opportunity for our organization.”
Armao said corps members come from a variety of professional backgrounds and have a variety of different expectations for the experience. Along the way, they gain insight into a largely invisible profession. “They get an early childhood education and come to understand it in a deeper way. Some hold on to the fact that it is an economic engine. Others hold on to the simple fact that these children will be humans who will run our world.”
Kit Karbler, 72, is a glass artist whose work is on display at the Denver Art Museum. “If I hadn’t found this, I can’t imagine what I would be doing,” she said of being a substitute child care worker at an early learning center based in emanuel temple in Denver. Karbler works 20 hours a week, more if needed. “What would I be doing that would give me this emotional return?”
Kamal Fakhouri, 68, worked in education and business across the Middle East. At Monarch Montessori, a public school with 250 children ages 6 weeks to 5 years, Fakhouri holds the position of substitute teacher.
Born in Lebanon, she lived in the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Egypt before moving to Denver to be near her daughter and grandchildren. This was during the height of the Covid pandemic. Fakhouri said he especially values moments of connection. “I was reading with a boy in a class I hadn’t attended in a while, when [a child] “He just came and hugged me from the back and started telling me about the work they were doing,” he said.
Bethanne Rodríguez, executive director of the five sites thrive preschool The network in the Denver area, which has welcomed the corps members, said they appreciate their “older faces and older energy,” as well as the example they set for the rest of the staff. “They’ve had a career and they have that life experience to know and understand the investment that this job is,” he said. “They know what it means to show up to work and they know what it means not to yell when you’re just having a bad day.”
One of the corps members at Thrive’s Littleton location is Yvonne Wilder. After her first week in the baby’s room, her muscles ached in places she had forgotten existed. The retired wetlands biologist, who had spent decades cataloging ecosystems for the city of Tampa, was discovering that an eight-hour shift there required a different kind of stamina than field work had ever had.
“It’s a very physically challenging job,” Wilder, 57, said. “I change diapers all the time. I do everything. I admire all the people who do this full time because it’s not easy.”
During his first year, Wilder says, he was constantly getting sick and his adult children asked him if he really wanted to continue. However, her immune system soon caught up and she discovered that spending time with kids, germs included, makes her happy.
“I’ve been asked, ‘Are you my grandmother?’” she said. “And I’ll say, ‘I can be your grandma from school.’ It’s a great privilege to know them and be known by them.”
Support for this report came from New America’s Better Life Lab.
