St. Paul child care centers ask for city support amid safety concerns

NINA MOINI: You're listening to Minnesota Now. I'm Nina Moini. Thanks for joining us.

Child care leaders in St. Paul say child care centers are facing escalating safety threats. And now they're calling on the city to provide clarity on what officials and the police can do to keep child care settings safe. The escalation follows the release of a video in December by a content creator, Nick Shirley, making yet proven claims about fraud at child care centers. And now the migration operation is having an impact, too.

Joining me back on the show is Maria Snider. She's the Vice President of the Minnesota Child Care Association and a director of a child care center in St. Paul. Thanks for joining us again, Maria.

MARIA SNIDER: Thank you for having me.

NINA MOINI: Also really happy to be joined by Dawn Uribe, CEO and owner of Mis Amigos Preschool, which has four Twin Cities locations, including one in St. Paul. And it looks like it's an active morning there. Thank you both for being here.

[LAUGHTER]

DAWN URIBE: Thank you.

NINA MOINI: Well, I want to say, these fears that you're having sound really just heartbreaking to be having. We reached out this morning to the city of St. Paul and St. Paul Police about your request. St. Paul Police told us that there have been no threats or incidents at child care centers in St. Paul, and quote, "the safety of our children is of utmost importance to us. We encourage community members to contact us immediately if they suspect suspicious activity. And there is a city council meeting this afternoon."

Maria, what is your reaction to that statement? Have you not been feeling clear about the role of police? And have you been seeing threats?

MARIA SNIDER: Well, I'm honestly surprised. I hadn't heard that statement. There have been threats to safety of children at child care centers. Dawn can speak, I think, more directly about some of those, as her centers have experienced that firsthand from both unlawful federal activity in our neighborhoods where our centers are going into lockdown to just bad actors.

Right before I got on this call, I got a video from someone's security camera of just strange people in a parking lot coming up to the door, ringing the doorbell of a child care center. Not really sure what they're doing there. This is not normal at a child care center. And it's definitely threatening activity.

NINA MOINI: Yeah, and they could have just meant for today there haven't been any threats. I do know that, obviously, your local officials have been receiving all kinds of reports about what has been going on during these operations, but what have you been doing? Dawn, I'll ask you. Do you call police or what happens when you feel threatened in any type of way in your situation?

DAWN URIBE: So our situation is we are mostly feeling the threat of the ICE pressure, the additional ICE agents in the Twin Cities. Our staff are mainly immigrants because we do Spanish immersion. And so what we are seeing is we're hearing a lot of activity. They have not been to any of our actual locations yet. But we have had staff who have been detained away from the school.

NINA MOINI: OK. What are you going to be asking, Maria, the city council for? What is the clarity that you're seeking?

MARIA SNIDER: Sure. So the city council is working on a separation ordinance right now. We're asking for that to be put into place immediately. We feel it's long overdue. We want clarity and collaboration from the city in terms of what we as child care providers and also parents can expect reasonably from local law enforcement should there be activity.

I was heartened that the mayor's office and the city council president, Rebecca Noecker, and the police chief are open to meeting with child care providers tomorrow to collaborate on our safety planning and just get our questions answered. But that's only one piece of the puzzle. We do need-- we need legal action. We need that ordinance in place.

NINA MOINI: And when you talk about the separation agreement that people talk about, it's related to, just for our listeners, how local agencies like St. Paul Police or even county agencies would interact with these federal operations that are going on. One of the things that we've heard a lot, Maria, is our local police departments and mayors saying that they are very outnumbered by the number of ICE agents that have been sent here, and that they don't feel that they could safely make arrests in different situations.

But then at the same time here, we see they are asking people to reach out if there are safety threats. So what do you think about? Are you asking to be able to call police if someone is trying to interfere with your facility and to have them come and make arrests? Seems like it would be part of their job, typically, right?

MARIA SNIDER: Right. So at child care centers, we're required by state licensing to have pretty extensive emergency plans. I know most, if not all, of the child care providers I'm in contact with have been updating them constantly, given the new safety threats that keep coming up in this crisis that we are facing.

I wrote the letter because honestly, I'm having nightmares of unlawful bad actors, whether they're federal agents or they're other people that feel emboldened to cause harm to children, that they would show up at my center and I would call 9-1-1 and no one would come. And if that is the case, if they're outnumbered, then that's something that we as child care providers, business owners, parents, we all need to know exactly what we are signing up for when we make decisions, like if we're going to remain open, if children are able to attend, if parents want to send their kids to child care, et cetera.

NINA MOINI: Dawn, I want to if you're concerned about staff showing up? You mentioned some detainments that have happened off the grounds where you all work, but there is regulations right around staff to child ratios. Can you explain that, and if you're working on just how to stay open staffing-wise?

DAWN URIBE: Yeah, it's a huge issue for us. We have multiple people who are calling off. On Thursday and Friday, we asked parents to keep their kids home if possible, because we knew that we would have a lot less staff. This week, we've normalized a little bit as we have plans in place, but we have parents who are providing housing. We have parents who are providing drop-off and pick-off to work so that our staff feel safe to come in. We also for the staff who don't feel safe, we have food pantry set up and we are doing home deliveries to people who don't have food at this time or aren't able to get out.

So we're doing everything that we can to make our staff feel as safe as possible, so that they can come to work and continue to care for kids, because this is what they love to do. This is their job, and it's often what they use to-- it's an important part of how they support their family. So if they can't come to work, they can't get paid. And so it is a really-- and then, like, the ratios are very intense.

We always follow our ratios. So if we don't have enough staff, we have to close classrooms. Right now, our entire admin team has been in classrooms covering breaks and being there so that we do maintain our ratios 100% of the time.

NINA MOINI: Yeah, and I'm seeing here for babies, it's one to four. Toddlers, one to seven. Preschoolers, 1 to 10. So those are in place for a reason, right? I mean, Dawn-- or I mean, sorry, Maria, I'd like to throw the last question to you, and then we want to keep checking in with all of you throughout the weeks to come. If you could speak to city leaders and the police department now, just what is your plea? Give us what you're asking for, the top thing that would really make a difference for how you all are feeling and preparing.

MARIA SNIDER: I think clear, written communication about what we can expect from the St. Paul Police, in my case, would go a long way. If it's not the answer that we like, it is at least an answer, and we can organize and make plans from there.

NINA MOINI: All right. Thank you both very much for your time.

BOTH: Thank you.

NINA MOINI: Maria Snider is the Vice President of the Minnesota Child Care Association, and Dawn Uribe is the CEO and owner of Mis Amigos Preschool.