De Anza’s Child Development Center will remain open for at leastfall quarter next year, despite the possibility that the state willeliminate $700,000 of funding, said CDC Dean Kathleen Burson.
Although Burson assumes the center will receive a portion of these”tax-bailout” funds once the state budget is signed, the plan toremain open for fall is based strictly on other sources of funding– funding that made up about 35 percent of the total budgetfor this year.
“It’s a very happy ending for us however,” said Burson, aftermonths of worrying about the CDC’s possible elimination. “We’revery excited that the program will continue and the college hasmade this commitment to pick up the deficit for the fall quarterwhile we wait to see what happens.”
Of the 25 CDC teachers who received layoff notices last month, allfull-time and five part-time employees will receive contracts forfall quarter, though their hours will be cut 25 percent to offsetthe deficit.
The CDC staff, however, remains hopeful that they will be able tobring back other part-time teachers as well once they know theirfunding level.
“It is actually very important to us,” said Burson. “The part-timefaculty here are excellent.”
To make up for the possible deficit, the center will be open from 8a.m. to 3 p.m., as opposed to the nine-hour day it currently runs,and it will eliminate infant care due to its high costs.
“Cutting hours is a real hardship on faculty parents, who need lateafternoon or full-time care, and on student parents, whosecourse-taking options are then limited,” said Burson.
After fall, the future of the CDC will rely on whether or not itreceives any of the “tax-bailout” funds, said Burson, who hopes thefunding will be enough to lengthen the hours during the winter andcontinue at full operation the rest of the year.
CDC administrators will present their plans for next year to theBoard of Trustees today for approval.
Gov. Gray Davis’ January re-alignment proposal to transferchildcare responsibilities to the counties was deferred until nextyear, so counties could have time to implement a plan to ensurefunding of childcare centers.
Burson credits much of the outcome to the parents and teachers forconstantly writing letters to legislators and talking with theBoard of Trustees and senior administrators in their efforts tokeep the CDC open.
“I think that what we’ve seen is a very important example of peopletaking a very responsible approach to raising awareness of aproblem and getting the problem looked at,” said Burson, who alsoacknowledged the hard work and dedication of Vice President ofInstruction Judy Miner and De Anza President Martha Kanter. “Theyreally dug into these issues and made sure we kept the legislatorsinformed about the impact of the decision. Then [legislators] couldsee that [the re-alignment proposal] had a very detrimental effecton the very people they were trying to help.”
The concern most CDC employees had regarding the possibleelimination of the program was that student parents would not haveanywhere else to take their children and would therefore be unableto continue their education. Although California has a statewidesystem of childcare for low-income families, the program requiresthe parents to have full-time jobs, thereby eliminating studentparents, and the waiting lists sometimes run for two to threeyears.
“The purpose for the campus CDC is to enable student parents tobalance parenthood and education,” said Burson. “It is socritically important to help young people at this stage who aredoing their very best to take care of their children and bettertheir family circumstance by getting an education. [We] want tohelp them meet that goal.”
