Introduction
Research Questions
- How did centers fare over the first nine months of the COVID-19 pandemic?
- Did the centers close?
- Did the centers experience decreases in enrollments?
- Did the centers reduce their staff?
The COVID-19 pandemic has had major impacts on child care and early education (CCEE) in the U.S. This report describes the calendar year 2020 experiences of CCEE centers that were operating in 2019, including changes in their enrollments and their instructional staff. It also describes the extent to which centers received pandemic assistance and the associations between receipt of pandemic assistance and center closures.
We use data from the 2019 NSECE Center-based Provider Survey and the first wave of the NSECE COVID-19 Longitudinal Follow-up Center-based Provider Survey. The respondents in the NSECE COVID-19 Longitudinal Follow-up Center-based Provider Survey are representative of centers that were open in 2019. These centers reported on their experiences of during 2020. In this report, we compare center characteristics from before the COVID-19 pandemic in 2019 to those nine months after the pandemic onset in October 2020.
Purpose
This report examines changes in centers over the first nine months of the COVID-19 pandemic and, in doing so, provides a broad overview of several important questions regarding centers: How did centers fare at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic? Did they close? Did they experience decreases in enrollments? Did they reduce their staff? The NSECE is uniquely able to address such questions due to its longitudinal design, given the follow-up with the 2019 NSECE Center-based Provider Survey respondents during the course of the pandemic. We use characteristics of centers in 2019 to understand whether centers with selected different characteristics at the onset of the pandemic had different experiences during the pandemic.
Key Findings and Highlights
The majority of centers that were serving children in 2019 closed in the initial months of the COVID-19 pandemic; 87% of these centers were open and serving children by October 2020.
Centers that had the smallest enrollments in 2019 were more likely to be closed in October 2020 compared with larger centers.
Not-for-profit centers experienced higher rates of closures in October 2020 than did for-profit and government run centers, but remained the largest category of center auspice in October 2020.
On average, for-profit centers received the most types of pandemic assistance, and the for-profit and not-for-profit centers that had the largest enrollments in 2019 (75 or more children) typically received more types of pandemic assistance than the centers in 2019 serving fewer than 25 children.
Centers run by a government agency received the fewest types of pandemic assistance.
In centers serving children in 2019 and operating in October 2020, enrollments decreased, though their number of overall staff did not change in a statistically significant manner.
Methods
This study combines data from the 2019 NSECE Center-based Provider Survey with the first wave of the NSECE COVID-19 Longitudinal Follow-up Center-based Provider Survey. It classifies center-based providers providing services in 2019 as open or closed in October 2020, and compares the characteristics of providers that were open in October 2020 with their characteristics in 2019. The analysis compares weighted means and weighted totals using t-tests for comparisons.
Citation
I M Ventura, A R Datta, D Phillips, R Weber. Experiences of Child Care and Early Education Centers at the Start of the COVID-19 Pandemic, OPRE Report 2024-090, Washington DC: Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation, Administration for Children and Families, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. https://www.acf.hhs.gov/opre/project/national-survey-early-care-and-education-2019-2017-2022