WAUWATOSA — After the latest coronavirus order from Gov. Tony Evers, day cares around the state are forced to limit the number of children they can service.
The new order limits the number of employees at a day care to 10 and only 50 children are allowed, as well. If a day care can't comply, they must close down.
"It's so uncharted," Danielle Rageth, Director of the Wauwatosa Daycare & Learning Centers said. "It's scary."
Rageth's daycare is in the shadows of the Milwaukee Regional Medical Center. They see many families with parents in healthcare. They are what can be considered "essential employees" during this pandemic.
"Both my wife and I are in healthcare and consider ourselves essential," Greg Stadter said. "We don't have a choice. One of us would have to not do essential duties otherwise."
While not essential, other parents say they don't have a choice. They must work.
"Both my husband and I work full-time," Erin Raffel said. "It's been quite the shuffle, trying to figure out childcare and who is going to watch our children and also make the difficult decision to drop off at daycare with everything going around right now. We're not as essential as people working at the Medical College or Froedtert or Children's but we're in a position right now that both my husband and I have to work to be able to provide for our family."
At Wauwatosa Daycare & Learning Centers, they say they will not turn down a family because of their job title. They say they had capacity for more than 150 children before the pandemic. Now, they have two facilities they can utilize to allow for 100 children total. They say they still have plenty of room, having only 34 children Wednesday.
"We're trying to make it work on both ends as best as possible," Rageth said. "Families just have to decide what's good for them."
The facility is also taking more precautions in cleaning and separating students. One of their facilities is for children under the age of two and the other is for kids between 2 and 11 years old. They're cycling toys out each day to keep clean and children aren't allowed to use playground equipment. They're also wiping down and sanitizing even more than they used to.