Portland’s recreation director is putting out an emergency call for staff, saying he doesn’t have enough people right now to run the city’s popular after-school program.

If he can’t find 10 more people for the Before & After the Bell Program, administrators will have to switch gears and fill in, he said.

“The last couple years it’s been a little tougher to field staff, but this year is the worst position we’ve been in in my time here,” said Nick Cliche, who has worked for the city’s parks and recreation department for 16 years.

When school is in session, the city runs the Before & After the Bell program at eight sites across the mainland and one on Peaks Island. The program is scheduled to start Sept. 6 – the first day of school – and currently has 450 children in kindergarten through fifth grade signed up for the after-school portion.

Another 155 children are on a waitlist, and the city has stopped accepting waitlist applicants as it’s unlikely that more spots will open up.

Before & After the Bell isn’t subject to state-set staffing level requirements, but Cliche said it has its own self-imposed minimum of one adult to 15 children for the first-graders through fifth-graders and one adult to 10 children for kindergarteners.

Right now, Cliche said, the recreation department has about 25 after-school staff scheduled to work this fall. Before the Bell, the early morning portion of the program, has a smaller enrollment and isn’t facing the same staffing challenge.

The after-school jobs are part-time and duties include leading gym activities and arts and crafts, and helping with homework. Pay starts at $16.67 to $17.50 – and Cliche said anyone with an interest in child care would make a good candidate, including retirees and high school or college students.

Students at the University of Southern Maine and Thomas College who work for the city for 18.75 hours or more per week are eligible for tuition discounts. The state also is offering a stipend of $200 per month through its Child Care Subsidy Program for qualifying city staff who work in the after-school program, Cliche said.

But recruitment has been a challenge in a time of nationwide employee shortages.

As of mid-July, Portland had about 225 vacancies out of a staff of 1,400, many at the Barron Center, a city-run long-term care facility.

Like long-term care, child care has been particularly hard hit by COVID-19. More than 170 child care providers in Maine closed their doors during the first year of the pandemic. Others have struggled to find staff, in part because of the low pay.

“I honestly think everyone is fighting for the same group of employees,” Cliche said. “We just have less people who are looking for work right now. They either have full-time positions or already have part-time positions. It’s a really competitive market.”

Without more staff, Cliche said, the city’s after-school program won’t be able to accept any children off the waitlist and it will need to take an “all hands on deck” approach to keeping the program running.

“Myself as the director, I will be at an after-school site to make sure we can meet the minimum numbers for the people we’ve accepted,” he said. “The last thing we want to do right now is pull back on people that are already expecting to have the care provided.”

Kim England, whose son Jackson is entering first grade at the Gerald E. Talbot Community School and is signed up for after-school there, said the program was invaluable to her when Jackson was in kindergarten.

She’s a surgical technician. Her husband’s a travel nurse. At some points last year, she said, she was operating as a single parent while her husband was working out of town.

“Normal people’s hours don’t go with school hours, so having that aftercare is super helpful for me to be able to continue on with my work and also know my child is taken care of and enjoying his time,” she said.

She said Jackson has enjoyed the program so much that he asked her to sign him up for every weekday afternoon this year, even though she is able to pick him up at the end of the school day on Wednesdays.

“It’s truly rewarding,” England said. “My son comes back after school happy, having learned new things and having met new people.”

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