MIDLAND, Texas — There's a lot to be happy about in daycare centers throughout West Texas and the United States. Things are inching their way back to normal.
Emergency COVID-19 restrictions are no more-that is if day cares want them to be.
Steven Sanders, the owner of Mrs. Irene's Child Care, tells NewsWest 9 they actually like the benefits from the restrictions, so they're keeping a majority of them, such as employees wearing masks, wearing jackets to cover their bare arms and sanitizing before coming inside.
"I'm not a person that wants mandates, so don't take this like I want the state to say okay mask all the time, no parents in the daycare, but we found that it lowers the sickness of the children," Sanders said.
They are however, adding more kids back, upping the student to classroom ratio. Before it was only 10 to a room.
"I didn't have enough to pay my bills, I didn't have enough to cover payroll and it was hard," Sanders said.
Now Steven says they're enrolling about four children per day, with 10 or so inquiry phone calls a day.
But over at Little Lamb's Christian Learning Center, they are overjoyed to welcome parents back into the facility and ease restrictions.
"Using a mobile app to send [updates], [we] increased communication as best we could and we were looking for alternative avenues, it's just much better to have in-person communication with the teacher, to have the parent on-site, actively involved in their child's education," said Leah Sherrill, owner of Little Lambs Christian Learning Center.
They are still requiring temperature checks for children and parents coming into the center because they also saw a decline in sickness, but the decision to wear a mask is up to them.
"If they want to wear a mask, they're more than welcome to, if they are feeling healthy and feel that they don't need to wear a mask we don't require it," Sherrill said.
One thing both centers can agree on though is that they're ready for this pandemic to be over with.