Simplified: Childcare challenges don't end when a kid starts kindergarten. A new study details the challenges South Dakota families face in finding quality care for their kids before and after school, and during the summer months.
Why it matters
- There are 42,000 school-aged children in the state who are not in an after-school program, but would be if one was available, accessible, and/or affordable. Meanwhile, about 80% of children in the state have all parents in the household working, according to a report released this week from the South Dakota Child Care Task Force.
- One of the biggest barriers to families finding out-of-school time care is cost. The average annual cost of center-based programs is $7,862 per year, while school-based care is more affordable at an average of $3,306 per year.
- Sen. Tim Reed, a state lawmaker from Brookings, was one of about 20 people who helped pull the report together after realizing the state's 2023 Child Care Task Force didn't address the unique challenges of finding care for kids outside of the school day. Reed added that the report shows wide bipartisan support for state supported out-of-school time care.
"I look at this in such an overall look of what can we do to make sure children are more successful," Reed said, citing recent conversations in the state legislature about funding a new prison and noting the importance of "going upstream" to support kids as a means of crime prevention.
Tell me more
The 44-page report takes a look at the existing landscape of out-of-school time options for kids in the state.
- This is where Sioux Falls parents get to breathe a sigh of relief a bit because the Sioux Falls School District's Community Learning Center program was instrumental in addressing barriers locally, as Rebecca Wimmer, task force member and coordinator of the districts' out of school time programs, said.
- It's not so easy for rural and tribal areas, though. The report states families in rural areas may travel between 30 and 60 miles for after-school care.
The report also details why after-school care matters for parents, youth and the community as a whole.
- For parents, it's a way to provide stability in their jobs and ensure they have the infrastructure in place to work knowing their kids are safe and taken care of.
- For kids, after-school and summer programming are a huge part of both physical and mental wellbeing – particularly when the alternative for thousands of kids is to stay home alone. These programs are away to develop life skills, support academic learning, and foster social skills and development.
- For the community, after-school programming has been shown to reduce the likelihood a kid will get involved in the juvenile justice system.
"This is critical not only for the youth, but for the state, given that incarceration costs an average of $88,000 per youth per year," the report reads.
What happens next?
The report makes several recommendations – some to lawmakers, to state administration and to folks working in the childcare and after-school care industries.
- Those include adopting voluntary statewide quality standards for out-of-school time programming, finding a sustainable funding stream at the state level and researching the specific return on investment the state sees from these types of programs.
Reed and fellow task force members also encouraged the general public and other childcare stakeholders to share the report with local businesses and lawmakers.
"We have to continually talk about why this is important," Reed said.
