So, I’m sitting in the Early Childhood Care and Education Board meeting and we’re talking about the lack of quality childcare for the 321 children ages 0-5 in Allied Drive involved in W2 caseloads. From the report:
Child care options currently available in Allied Drive are few. They include two licensed Centers: Dane County Parent Council and Small Wonders, along with a limited number of regulated in-home child care providers.
On November 18, 2006 the Department of Health and Family Service Bureau Regulation and Licensing revoked the child care license of Small Wonders for habitual violations of licensing regulations. Small Wonders has appealed the revocation. The appeal hearing was originally scheduled for June 19, 2997, but has been postponed while the owner tries to sell the business. Small Wonders currently serves approximately 25 children but has a licensing capacity of 49. With the likelihood of Small Wonders closing, 25 children will be displaced, with a need to find alternative child care.
Dane County Parent Council (DCPC) provides part-day Head Start programming as well as full-day child care at two locations (Red Arrow and Verona Road). The children enrolled in DCPC programs consist of children from the Allied neighborhood as well as surrounding neighborhoods.
While the DCPC has 206 kids enrolled, it has a waiting list of 123. Also from the report:
W2 requirements often necessitate a parent finding care immediately in order to stay eligible for the program. A parent’s main concern for child care becomes cost and location, and the urgency of the situation leaves little time or ability to inquire about quality. Dane County Parent Council reports that many families on the waiting list have lost their child care funding, as a direct result of not securing child care which, in turn, affects their ability to obtain employment.
With recent changes in W2, low-income families are faced with higher child care co-payments to the centers/providers. Families are even less able to make these payments, which can be as high as $84 a week, or more than $4300, for a family with 2 children and an income of $11,000 a year. Because families cannot make the payments, programs serving a high percentage of low-income families often operate at a deficit due to uncollected fees. Without a stable source of income, the sustainability of quality child care programs is jeopardized. If instead a center determines that it cannot serve low income families, the quality of care for the children in the families suffers.
Meanwhile, remember that on February 1, 2005 (that’s not a typo, it was over 2 years ago), the council passed a resolution where we were given land and $300,000 to develop a childcare facility in the Allied Drive area. Once again, nothing has happened. Even worse, I understand that the Director of the Department of whatever-silly-name-we-gave-it, formerly known as the Department of Planning and Development did not include a capital budget request to leverage the existing resources (land and money) when there was a proposal prepared as follows:
Provide City of Madison capital budget funding needed to construct and provide for the start-up costs of a model center for early education and care. The City, working in partnership with the University of Wisconsin has developed a design for a 11,000+ square foot child care center for 80 children ranging in age from 6 weeks to 6 years, with the goal of serving 40 children from the Allied Drive area and 40 children of University faculty, staff and graduate students. Research shows that children in integrated economic settings make larger gains in critical areas than children whose only peers are also low income.
Collaboration between the City of Madison, the University and Dane County Parent Council will focus on combined missions of teaching, research, outreach, service to low income families and economic revitalization. The proposed center will provide the highest quality of education and care to develop competency in social, academic and problem solving skills. Low income children will be retained in the center through periods of parent unemployment, so that gains are not lost due to repeated absences. This will help facilitate stabilization of the family, making job seeking and permanent employment easier.
When the City of Madison partnered with Gorman & Company in the development of Avalon Madison Village, the City received, as part of that project, $300,000 from the sales price of the land to Gorman & Company to be used as a match for development of a child care center and a 17,556 square foot parcel via Warranty Deed to develop a child care center.
A request of $2.3 million will cover construction and start-up costs based on the space program for the center developed/proposed.
In addition, there would need to be an operating subsidy to allow the center to serve low-income children whose families have unrealistic co-payments under the current Wisconsin Shares program.
Meanwhile . . . tick. tock. And meanwhile, families and kids are being negatively impacted by our lack of action.
