College employees, including faculty and staff, highlight access to affordable childcare as a significant and pressing concern. Within the bounds of the town of Middlebury, childcare centers face long waitlists and struggle to balance adequate pay for center employees with affordable rates for parents.
Kailee Brickner-McDonald, the director of the Center for Community Engagement (CCE) had to wait eight months before getting off the waitlist for a childcare center.
“We had put our child on the waitlist before they were even born.” Brickner said. “My husband and I were well equipped and were lucky to get a spot off the waitlist at the center, however that is not the case for a lot of families. When on the waitlist, you have to constantly check in on the waitlist and call, which takes up a lot of capacity.”
Legislation such as the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) and the Vermont Parental and Family Leave Act (VPFLA) ensures employees have 12 weeks of unpaid leave time per year after the birth or adoption of a child. College staff are also eligible for six weeks of paid leave after the birth of a child.
Brickner-McDonald noted that there is not much families can do after the six weeks of paid leave.
“Most childcare providers do not accept children that are only 6 weeks old.” Brickne-McDonald said. “And this will impact the families with the least amount of resources the most.”
The college currently offers two types of stipends to cover family care expenses for its faculty through its Family Care Stipend Program. While the original stipend offered up to $450 for care of family members while faculty were away at professional development activities, the college has recently created another program to cover on-campus activities that are outside of faculty’s regular duties and hours, offering a stipend of up to $300.
An individual faculty member cannot receive more than $450 during any single fiscal year to cover these additional childcare expenses.
“It’s modest, in this day and age, in terms of the amount of money, but it’s a statement, and there’s some substance behind this,” said Jim Ralph, dean of the faculty.
Although the stipend covers a wide range of family care for extended hours, faculty cannot use the stipend to incur any costs of childcare during normal working hours, Ralph noted.
Moreover, there is no such program for staff.
The relatively small population of Middlebury leads to barriers with regards to employment at and the creation of additional adequate childcare facilities, Ralph described. He believes that there may be a way to take advantage of the student population at the college to eliminate some childcare needs through babysitting.
While the college administration does not have a formalized list of college sitters, Molly Johnsen, academic coordinator for the English and American Studies departments, helps to facilitate some of this work by matching students in those departments with local parents who need childcare in Addison County, including college professors and staff.
Johnsen began her matching work after hearing concerns from parents in Vergennes, Vt., where she previously lived, about the lack of access to childcare, and struggling with finding childcare herself. After getting permission to send out a request email to the English department, Johnsen created a public, shareable document in which she listed the names, availability and contact information of students willing to babysit.
“I hear a lot of gratitude from parents for it,” Johnsen said.
Students have also been very responsive to her emails, and she puts students from other departments on the list who express interest. Anyone with access to the document can reach out to students who fit with their childcare or babysitting needs, and Johnsen noted that parents might be able to find many hours of childcare by reaching out to students available on different days.
Johnsen added that other faculty and staff have asked to access the list for childcare needs, and hopes that someone with more capacity to do this work will formalize the system into a college-wide list of students available for babysitting, possibly as a student enterprise or an administration-driven group. She hopes that students can someday get involved in running a childcare center on campus to meet the wide interest among faculty and staff who need the support.
Ralph explained how the long-term trends in limited childcare have compounded challenges for staff and faculty over time, doing little to relieve the pressure on families.
“I have seen, over the last 15 years, many cases where the hope for options doesn’t emerge, and then people have to adjust,” Ralph said. He added that means parents are driving away from Middlebury into other towns to drop their children off at childcare.
The college has been invested in providing childcare to its employees since 1990, when Ralph served on the Faculty Council and helped create what is now the Otter Creek Childcare Center. While Ralph’s son had a spot at Otter Creek Childcare Center when he was born, there were no more spots available at the facility two years later when Ralph’s daughter was born, which caused them to turn to Mary Johnson Children’s Center.
“I’m an advocate for increasing the number of seats so that we can have spaces for infants and toddlers throughout our community,” Ralph said.
Lack of childcare access has also served as a hiring challenge for the college, Johnsen said.
Johnsen is a mother of a two year-old son and is expecting another baby in late July, and has struggled to find childcare in town. Johnsen’s son had been on multiple child care waitlists since November 2021, though he wasn’t due until February 2022. Her son got off the waitlist at College Street Child Center in August 2023 after initially enrolling at Bristol Family Center,
“He didn’t get off any waitlists for a while, and I was really frustrated and helpless,” Johnsen said. She noted that she was fortunate that her job allows her to work remotely, so she worked fully remote for a period with her son in a carrier at home.
“I ended up doing a few weeks in June where I was working like that, but it was brutal, and I was really desperate,” Johnsen said.
An established support system for staff could ease retention and hiring challenges, Johnsen added.
“If they had childcare as a built-in option for people, it would be a huge draw for hiring,” she said. “The childcare crisis in this state is only adding to the fact that people might choose somewhere else over the college.”
The issue of childcare access is one that the entire community feels strongly about, Ralph said. “We all as a community want to do what we can because these young people that are being looked after in childcare settings, they’re the future.”
Mandy Berghela '26 (she/her) is a Local Editor.
She previously served as the SGA Correspondent and contributing writer for the Campus. She plans to major in Political Science, with a minor in Arabic. Along with the paper, Mandy serves on the Judicial Board, social media manager for the Southeast Asian Society (SEAS), and is also involved in many campus theatre productions. On her free time, she enjoys long walks, cycling, and reading fantasy novels.
Emily Hogan '24 (she/her) is a Local Editor.
She is studying Environmental Policy with a minor in Math. In addition to writing and editing for the Campus, she also dances with the On Tap dance troupe and serves on the Environmental Council. She has previously worked with the Sustainability Solutions Lab at Middlebury.
