The shortage of childcare teachers is a well-known problem, but the shortage of qualified teachers does not receive as much attention. By law, facilities are required to care for a certain number of adults in the children they care for. Without reliable substitutes, full-time teachers can’t leave the room to take a short break, let alone make long appointments for something like a trip to the doctor. The program also provides volunteer “business advisors” who provide support from the office to institutions that need it.
“The field of early care and education is just full of smart people trying to find ways to strengthen the system in any way possible,” said Elizabeth Pufall Jones, director of preparation programs and career environment at the Center for the Study of Child Labor. She said that early childhood teachers are often seen as babysitters whose roles can be easily fulfilled, she said, but that is not true. With ECSC members, “you know they’re the right person to get into these classes.”
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” featuring a program in Seattle that houses a high school and a daycare center under one roof.
He visited the Seattle program with the goal of trying to start a similar model in Denver. The pandemic upended his plan to build an independent center, but Armao was able to raise more than $440,000 in state and local funding for ECSC’s model of placing older adults in child care centers as substitute teachers and office workers.
In the past three years, ECSC has placed about 150 volunteers in Montessori programs and other childcare centers in the Denver area. Those who want to work as teachers take three to four months of online classes offered by Red Rocks Community College. Those who want to work with children but do not want additional training take the 19 hours of training offered by ECSC. Volunteer business advisors take seven hours of free training on child laws before they are placed in the center. Some of the participants in this program are paid, while others provide support to childcare centers for free.
Family Star Montessori educates 230 children, from 8 weeks to 6 years old, in its two schools and its home-based learning program. Alexander’s presence in the classroom means teachers can leave to take the phone or go to the bathroom without worrying about whether there are enough adults in the classroom.
“We don’t talk enough about shower breaks,” Armao said. “If you need to go to the bathroom, someone has to come in to block you in that space, and that can make for an uncomfortable workplace. Meeting the needs of older people helps with morale.”
ECSC has attracted continued attention from the local media, which is how many older adults learn about the program, but getting members to meet the demand remains a challenge. Armao said he has received inquiries about duplication from people in California, Ohio, Oregon and Washington state.
Just as Family Star executive director Lindsay McNicholas relies on Alexander to help care for the children, she relies on another ECSC member, Jean Townsend, for administrative support.
Before he retired, Townsend owned a local economic consulting firm and, among his other accomplishments, helped start the Colfax Marathon, an annual race that draws thousands of runners. He came to Family Star with extensive connections among business and political leaders and a roll-up-your-sleeves attitude.
“I learned that when you have a problem, you solve it,” Townsend said. He is working with this center as we plan to sell one place and buy another with modern heating, near where most of the families live.
Townsend’s business background has been invaluable, McNicholas said. “I was able to meet with officials and city planners in Jefferson County, which is a new county for us. That gave us a head start on this amazing opportunity for our organization.”
Armao said board members come from different professional backgrounds and have different sets of experience expectations. Along the way, they gain insight into the most invisible work. “They discovered school when they were growing up and they understood it deeply. Some cling to the fact that it is an economic driver.
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 at Temple Emanuel in Denver. Karbler works 20 hours a week, more if needed. “What am I going to do that gave me this return from the wind?”
Kamal Fakhouri, 68, has worked in education and business throughout the Middle East. At Monarch Montessori, a public school with 250 children ages 6 weeks to 5, Fakhouri fills a teacher’s position.
Born in Lebanon, he lived in the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Egypt before moving to Denver to be near his daughter and grandchildren. This was during the height of the Covid pandemic. Fakhouri said that he highly prizes the moments of communication. “I was studying with a child in a class that I had not been to for a long time [a child] he just came and hugged me from behind and started telling me about the work they are doing,” he said.
Bethanne Rodriguez, executive director of the five-location Thrive Preschool network in the Denver area, which welcomed the team members, said she appreciates their “old faces and old energy” — and the example they set for the rest of the staff. “They have had a job and have life experience to know and understand the investment involved in this project,” he said. “They know what it means to show up for work and they know what it means not to yell when you’re having a bad day.”
One of the team members at Thrive’s Littleton location is Yvonne Wilder. After his first week in the nursery, his muscles ached in places he had forgotten existed. A retired wetlands biologist, who had spent decades documenting the ecosystem of the city of Tampa, he found that the eight-hour hike there required a different kind of stamina than the fieldwork he had experienced.
“It’s a very physically challenging job,” said Wilder, 57. “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 sick, and his older children asked him if he really wanted to continue. However, her immune system soon caught up, and she found that spending time with children, germs and all, made her happy.
“I have asked them, ‘Are you my grandmother?'” he said. “And I’ll say, ‘I can be your school grandmother.’ It is an honor to know them and to be known by them.”
Support for this report comes from the Better Life Lab in New America.
