Merrick House, located in Tremont, has long been providing high-quality early care and education to Cleveland’s children. When the COVID-19 crisis hit in March, the Merrick House team came together and overwhelmingly agreed that they should pursue a pandemic license because it was the right thing to do.

While staff members had fears about the virus, Merrick House’s leadership took a lot of care to ensure they had health and safety plans in place. The Director of Early Childhood Education, Laurie Santos, in partnership with Executive Director Michelle Curry read and re-read the state mandates to create their own plans and procedures.

They thought through each part of the day—how to keep kids in their classrooms and figure out staffing to ensure there was a teacher in each classroom; how to handle sanitizing bathrooms, the playground, and the large muscle play area between groups; separating toys into two groups to be used on alternating days to allow for sanitizing; pick-up and drop-off. The team figured out where they needed to put up signs and practiced procedures together to determine where there might be issues and to work those out before families arrived. They put together a sanitizing team of staff members to sanitize common areas and high-touch surfaces five times per day.

On March 26^th, the center closed for two days to prepare. When they reopened, their enrollment was low at first and for two weeks they were concerned they wouldn’t be able to remain open. But by the third week, the phone started ringing and families began enrolling. Nine new families came to Merrick House when it was open as a pandemic center.

One of the new families brought their child because the child care center their son had been attending closed and the mom was a nurse. As an interracial family, the parents were thrilled with the diversity at Merrick House. Their son was “a breath of fresh air” in the center. He was engaged and happy to be there every day. Michelle Curry said she was so pleased to be able to offer a positive, safe learning environment to families of essential workers whose children had been uprooted from their child care centers during such trying times. The families enrolled said they felt very comfortable at Merrick House and could see all the positive changes that were made to support health and safety. One mother of a child at Merrick House is a doctor and regularly told staff how impressed she was with their health and safety procedures, which made the staff and leadership confident in the changes they had made.

As child care centers were permitted to re-open, Merrick House leadership reevaluated their procedures and made some small changes. One example is allowing parents with infants to bring their children into the center to the classroom door to be able to talk to the teachers because the staff and parents said that was important. Parents of older children still drop their children off at the door to the center and a staff member brings them to their classroom.

Throughout their time as a pandemic center and upon reopening to the wider community, Merrick House has been supported through generous donations of supplies. They were able to get PPE from the county as a UPK Provider and also received hospital-grade supplies through MedWish. Tremont West also put out a call for items the center needed and community members would regularly drop supplies off.

While much of their day-to-day operations changed, Merrick House was committed to ensuring their high-quality programming remained in place. As a five-star rated program, their teachers still planned daily lessons using Creative Curriculum, and continued high-quality classroom practices such as circle time and family-style meals in the classroom.

Of course, it hasn’t all been smooth sailing. There have been moments of confusion and frustration as the staff and leadership have tried to navigate shifting mandates and regulations. For example, when they were transitioning out of being a pandemic center, they divided classrooms based on guidance,  but then were told they had to purchase additional items because the regulations weren’t clear. However, their state licensing representative was very responsive to questions and supportive throughout the transition into and back out of operating as a pandemic center.

Even as Merrick House has shifted their operations to serve the kids who are attending, they’ve also been supporting those kids who have not returned. They’ve been providing grab-and-go meals as a summer feeding site and implemented Bloomz, a communication tool, to share lessons with families and stay in touch with the kids, sending messages of support and ensuring they continue to feel included in the Merrick House community.

The staff at Merrick House went above and beyond to ensure their children and families’ needs were met. Michelle Curry said, “As we entered into the pandemic, I saw Laurie’s team come together and think quickly on their feet and Laurie’s leadership really shined. She was very good at talking through ideas, implementing new policies, and encouraging lots of great teamwork.” Laurie credited her staff members for ensuring smooth operations during the pandemic. She said that while staff members had concerns, they still showed up every day. As Merrick House looks toward what’s next, the leadership is carefully evaluating what they will be able to do to support the community during the school year. Knowing all they’ve done so far, those efforts will be nothing short of heroic.