Saratoga News

WVC plans to expand child-care center

By John Pancharian

West Valley Community College will soon expand its child-care center. The state of California has provided more than $350,000 to the college district's child-care program. This is part of an effort to support those on the new work-oriented welfare system, CalWorks, with child care while they train for jobs that can take them off welfare.

The West Valley-Mission College District will use about $270,000 of the money to purchase two portable classrooms--one for the West Valley campus and one for the Mission campus--to house the expanded day-care program. West Valley currently operates two centers for children aged 3-5, one of which provides day care for 36 children, and the other for 24 children. Mission College has one center serving 26 children.

With the expansion, West Valley College will add a center serving school-age children from 6 to 10 years old, while Mission will add a toddler center for 16 infants and toddlers.

Terry Shue, child-care director at WVC, said she hopes to offer the expanded facilities by this time next year.

The child-care program will also expand staff accordingly, allowing them to maintain the current 8-to-1 child-to-adult ratio. Mission will gain on-site administration of its centers, previously overseen remotely from West Valley.

Other funds will increase subsidies which provide low-income patrons--who make up two-thirds of the families using the center--with a sliding scale so they can afford child-care services. Shue said this program stems from new state priorities in welfare. CalWORKs includes in its plans the goal of providing "sufficient funding to cover the estimated cost of providing child care for all individuals who are anticipated to need child care to participate in the welfare-to-work programs and to transition to work."

Shue said many of the students who use the center are enrolled in vocational classes or preparing to move on to a four-year college in order to lift themselves out of the cycle that brought them to West Valley as young, poor parents. Although she is unable to track the success of students who move on to other colleges, she said those who stick with the educational programs at West Valley generally do well.

"It's very unusual to have any money at all in early childhood education," Shue said of the new funds coming in. She added that the extra money will allow her to offer day care to community members as well as students. West Valley students will receive first priority, but Shue said she does not expect more demand than the centers can meet.

In addition to offering child care, the centers provide internships for students studying early childhood education. Shue said that typically three teachers and two to four student interns watch a classroom at once.

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