Pennsylvania Department of Human Services Secretary Dr. Val Arkoosh visits the Academy Preschool & Early Education Center in Altoona on Thursday while promoting a proposal to expand a state program that provides bonuses for preschool teachers in an effort to keep them committed to the profession. Mirror photo by William Kibler

Preschool teacher Billie Jo Bardell of Bellwood got into her profession by accident, 15 years ago, when she began working at a preschool where one of her sons was a pupil.

Bardell found that she loved it: it’s a job where she has seen children, particularly those “on the spectrum,” who are frequently frustrated by their struggles with language, nevertheless expand their ability to communicate, thus reducing their frustration and enhancing their prospects to thrive later in school and in life.

But teaching in preschool tends not to pay well, which is why Pennsylvania Department of Human Services Secretary Dr. Val Arkoosh visited the Academy Preschool & Early Education Center in Altoona, where Bardell works, Thursday.

She was promoting a Shapiro administration budget proposal for enlarging an existing program that provides bonuses for preschool teachers in an effort to keep them committed to the profession.

Based on the current state budget, the state is providing a total of $25 million for employee recruitment and retention bonuses to preschools that participate in the federal Child Care Works program, which provides subsidies for the child care costs of needy families, so that parents are able to work while their children are taken care of.

The proposed Shapiro administration budget calls for an additional $10 million to bolster that bonus program.

There is a shortage of child care spots in the state, due to a shortage of child care teachers, due largely to the low pay — and that shortage of child care availability is depriving the state of $6.5 billion worth of “economic activity” — due to parents who can’t work because they aren’t able to get care for their kids, according to Arkoosh.

Owners of child care establishments have trouble paying their workers enough to compete with employers like Amazon and Walmart, according to Arkoosh.

They can’t pay more because the families of their students generally can’t afford to pay more, according to Arkoosh.

The dearth of workers puts “a ceiling” on the number of families they can serve, Arkoosh said.

State government is powerless to increase wages for child care workers, but the bonus program can help, she said.

The program not only helps kids, but also the business community in need of workers, Arkoosh said.

Academy Preschool got $15,500 in the current fiscal year from the program to distribute among its staffers, she said.

Academy teachers earn between $11.50 an hour and $23 an hour, depending on experience and education, according to owner Samantha Pope.

The average is between $14.75 and $15 an hour, an employee said.

Many teachers live paycheck-to-paycheck, with most working 40 hours a week, according to Pope.

Academy charges $218 a week for an infant at the center five days a week, according to Pope.

It charges $190 a week for pre-K pupils, who require less intense care.

Families that receive the Child Care Works subsidy pay a steady amount and aren’t affected by tuition increases, Pope said.

But private pay families are affected by increases, and the Academy needs to be sensitive to that, according to Pope.

“It’s a balancing act” between tuition charges that mustn’t go high enough that it chases families away and wages that mustn’t be so low that workers vanish, she said.

Bardell, whose family is “working class,” plans to use her recently allocated $640 bonus to help her older son with books he’ll need as he heads to college for the fall, and to help her younger son with the equipment he is constantly needing for basketball, track and soccer.

Academy Preschool has three locations — in Altoona, at the former Wright Elementary School, operated by the Nehemiah Project, from whom the Academy rents; in Hollidaysburg; and in Bellwood, Pope said.

It will be opening a fourth location shortly in Tyrone.

The bonus program is not an entitlement, and needs to be authorized each year by the General Assembly to continue to operate, according to Arkoosh.

Arkoosh predicted the program would be renewed and the additional money added, as the program has bipartisan support.

The state House is majority Democratic, while the state Senate is majority Republican.

Gov. Josh Shapiro is a Democrat.

The Shapiro administration is also proposing an additional $7.5 million for the Pre-K Counts programs to help providers raise wages, in hopes of stabilizing the early educator workforce; and $2 million for the Head Start State Supplemental program for a similar purpose, according to an administration news release.

Mirror Staff Writer William Kibler is at 814-949-7038.