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Just looking at the winter calendar sends Michelle Homme into a panic.
Monday marks the start of 2½ weeks with no child care, when her 3-year-old son’s Pacific Palisades preschool shuts down for the holidays. For Homme, a single mother and self-employed interior designer, that means 18 days of almost no time to earn the money she needs to support her family.
“You cannot work with a preschooler at home. It doesn’t matter if there is one parent or two parents,” said Homme, who has neither help from extended family nor an employer that provides her with vacation days. Work has been slow this year and money tight. She looked for temporary care, but cannot afford the $100 a day it would cost.
“I dread it whenever I see these holidays are coming up,” she said.
For school staff and parents with flexible schedules, the winter break offers a much-needed time to recharge, reconnect with family and even take a long-awaited vacation. But for parents like Homme who cannot take time off, the winter holidays represent a time of hardship, as they struggle to make up for the loss of child care and often the free meals that school usually provides. L.A. Unified schools close for three full weeks, from Dec. 18 to Jan. 5.
Perla Ortega with her youngest son, Matthew Rodriguez.
(Michael Blackshire / Los Angeles Times)
“Access to child care is really fundamental for most parents’ ability to go to work,” said Maureen Coffey, a policy analyst at the Center for American Progress. Yet school schedules were built decades ago around a single-earner family where one parent stayed home and could manage early pick-ups and long vacations. The world has changed, but school schedules have not, said Coffey.
While the pandemic brought more flexibility to some white-collar jobs, that is not the case for many lower-wage workers in the service and retail sectors, further widening the gap between families with resources and those without, she added. “At the end of the day, even in 2023, the people making the sacrifices in most cases are mothers. It’s a pretty disproportionate burden of caregiving, even today.”
Many depend on a network of family support — especially grandparents — to fill in when schools close. But for those without this support system, the holidays can be particularly stressful.
In San Diego, Michelle Galindo, the working mother of an 8- and 6-year-old, has built a network of neighborhood moms who step in for each other when needed. “It’s beautiful, but it’s not always reliable,” she said.
In Palms, Bruna Pedroza Martins, an executive assistant, has to bring her 5-year-old son to work with her and is grateful for flexible bosses who approved it. “I really don’t mind the three-week break” of Los Angeles Unified, she said. “I have a really soft spot for teachers and school staff.”
Earlier this year, L.A. schools Supt. Alberto Carvalho proposed shortening the length of the district’s winter vacation from three weeks to two, but the plan faltered amid pushback from teachers and many parents. At the time, school board President Jackie Goldberg, who supported the proposal, said that while surveys of district parents suggested widespread support for a three-week vacation, a quiet minority of parents struggled with child care and work demands over such a long break.
Whether year-round school or weeklong Thanksgiving break, school calendars provoke passion. Now there’s debate and pending legal action over the length of winter break.
She said she thought of “the parents last winter who said to me: ‘I don’t know what to do with my kids a third week. There were some parks stuff for the first two weeks because all the schools were out, but I didn’t know what to do with my kids.... I have a job where if I miss a day I’m fired.’”
For parents like Perla Ortega in East L.A., that struggle begins on Day 1. A single mother with three children, ages 10, 7 and 4, Ortega works full-time as a certified nurse assistant, sometimes pulling double shifts that take her out of the home for 16-hour stretches. She pays her mother $800 per month to provide needed care for her children, all of whom attend LAUSD schools.
Alison Rodriguez shows her doll to her mom, Perla Ortega.
(Michael Blackshire / Los Angeles Times)
Because Ortega recently started a new job, she said she does not feel comfortable asking for days off, so her mother will care for them the entire time. But she said the additional expenditures for care and food diminish her paycheck. She plans to rely on coupons, look for deals on modest gifts and visit a food pantry to get by.
For the record:
2:22 p.m. Dec. 15, 2023An earlier version of this article said the cost of winter camps for a family with three children could total $1,200 to $4,500 for three weeks. The correct range is $1,800 to $4,500.
There are winter camps run by teachers, nonprofits and tutoring centers, but they can cost from $200 to $500 each week per child. For a family with three children, that can mean an extra $1,800 to $4,500 in fees over a three-week vacation.
But the worst part, Ortega said, is not being able to spend the time with her children. “I wish I could be with you guys, but I’m not able to,” she tried to explain to them. Ortega said she wishes schools would offer more enrichment programs over the break.
LAUSD is providing a three-day Winter Academy at certain schools across the district, for elementary, middle and high school students. Free meals and transportation will be provided. But Ortega said her mother cannot bring them to a school across town that is offering the academy. Recently, she learned that her children may be able to get transportation from the district and is hoping she can still sign up.
LAUSD will also send home a digital packet of instruction and enrichment activities, a spokesperson said. And in a further maze for parents to navigate, some LAUSD school-based preschools and early education centers will be closed for only one week — a much shorter break — while Head Start classrooms will be closed for the full three weeks.
California law restricts preschools from expelling kids, yet an increase in behavioral problems since the pandemic is proving a big challenge for teachers.
Magnolia Science Academy, a charter elementary school in Northridge, tries to bridge the gap by offering a free camp over school vacations, including the winter holidays. This year, all students will be able to attend the camp for two of the three weeks off, which includes meals. Last year, a third of students enrolled.
About 80% of LAUSD students are economically disadvantaged, and many depend on the free breakfast and lunch provided by schools. When schools are closed, children may go without a nutritious meal that day, said Lucy Ford, who coordinates resources for families at the Child Care Resource Center, a nonprofit that helps connect families in Los Angeles with child care.
“Parents feel that when the kids are eating at school, they know that they’re getting somewhat of a balanced meal that they’re not always able to provide,” said Ford. “Vegetables are expensive.”
Yelmi Martinez, a single mother of three in Fresno who works overnight stocking shelves at a Walmart, said she’ll likely need to visit a food bank over the holidays. But at times, the random canned food she receives is difficult to use. “I don’t know what I’ll do with a pumpkin pie can sometimes. I don’t know how I’ll prepare a meal.”
Often, she has to use extra money from her paychecks to buy additional food to cover the missing school meals — something her budget does not allow.
Siblings Matthew Rodriguez, from left, Alison Rodriguez and Alan Rodriguez, 10, play in their room after school.
(Michael Blackshire / Los Angeles Times)
“Holidays are always the worst hardships for me. I fall behind on my rent and bills.”
Her paycheck quickly disappears as she pays for missing school meals, holiday gifts or food for Christmas events. “Sometimes I have to really scrape what I have to even have them take a box of Capri Sun” to a potluck, she said.
This article is part of The Times’ early childhood education initiative, focusing on the learning and development of California children from birth to age 5. For more information about the initiative and its philanthropic funders, go to latimes.com/earlyed.
