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With so people out of work, many are doing childcare in their home.  I own a preschool/childcare center and have been loosing children steadily.  When a dad gets laid off I not only lose a preschool student but the mom now does childcare in her home, thus creating a new competitor.  When I had to reduce my staff by one third, one of the former employees now does childcare in her home, thus creating another competitor.  Oregon is very loose in their childcare regulations so anyone can watch up to three children that are not their own without any State oversight (quality control, sanitation standards, first aid trainnig, etc.) With preschool becoming a luxury and childcare becoming an unregulated cottage industry, it is hard to compete when I have fixed overhead.  I have a professionally trained staff, but even with a high quality program we can't compete with "the bottom line" when parents are only looking at the cost.

posted 4 years, 1 month ago
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