Rally Against Child Center Closures

About 300 teachers and parents, many pushing their children in strollers, demonstrated Thursday night against plans to close 13 child development centers.

The group began assembling shortly after 6 p.m. outside the Department of Education headquarters in Costa Mesa. The protesters then marched around the parking lot, chanting, “Save Our Day Care, Save Our Schools!” and waving signs that read, “Think about the children, not about $$$.”

Organizers circulated petitions asking the county Board of Education to reconsider and urged demonstrators to write to their legislators.

“I’m shocked and upset and frustrated,” said Kelly Zaldo, whose 4-year-old daughter, Madison, was on a waiting list for a year before being accepted at the Lindbergh Center in Costa Mesa, where she has been for the past two years.

“It’s been wonderful for her to be in a classroom environment with teachers who have early education units behind them,” Zaldo said. “They do student evaluations, they do parent conferences, they really teach the kids--it’s like regular school.”

County officials broke the news of the closures about two weeks ago, citing financial pressures.

Zaldo said she is angry because officials never alerted parents or teachers that the program was in jeopardy.

“If they had told us, the parents would have done whatever we could--we would have paid more or gotten donations,” Zaldo said. “If they’ve known it’s been in the red for years, why are they just telling us about it now?”

For the past 25 years, the program has offered full day care at centers from Anaheim to Costa Mesa for infants and toddlers, and after-school care for older children. It has also provided low-income children with school-readiness skills while enabling their parents to hold jobs and reach economic self-sufficiency, making it a critical component of the county’s welfare-to-work initiative.

“My little girl is learning from this program,” said Juan Garcia, 26, whose daughter Gizelle, 3, attends a program in Costa Mesa. “It’s preparing her for kindergarten. Without this program we’d have to find a baby-sitter, but she wouldn’t be learning the same things.”

Nearly 200 day-care teachers and aides will lose their jobs when the centers close Dec. 15, officials said, though they will continue to receive paychecks until Jan. 12.

Sharon Goldwasser, a teacher at Lindbergh, said she has a strong sense of betrayal. She continued to take child development courses and specialize in her field instead of obtaining a bachelor’s degree, she said, because she thought her job was safe.

“Now we are between a rock and a hard spot,” she said. “We’re way overqualified to be in any child development program that’s private, but many of us don’t really meet the qualifications to get into elementary education.”

Although the county does plan to halt its administration of the program for about 900 low-income children, officials say alternative services will be provided and no families will be left without child care.

“Over the next 90 days we’re working to

ensure families will transition into the other subsidized program, and we don’t expect there to be any gap in service,” said Wendy Margarita, assistant superintendent of business services. “All the children will be served.”

Officials said funding for the program is provided by the state, and the state’s obligation to subsidize child care continues even though the Department of Education will no longer oversee the program.

State officials have guaranteed that the money will stay in Orange County, Margarita said, and the state is working to find new agencies to administer the program. Since the county announced the closures, many child-care agencies have called offering to take on new clients.

“We have worked tirelessly to keep this program operating,” said Ellin Chariton, director of child development services for the Department of Education. “We’ve cut costs to the bare minimum, and . . . the Department of Education could no longer subsidize the program.”

Despite those measures, the program has run at a deficit for the past five years--mainly because costs have risen more sharply than the state’s contribution, officials said. For example, they said, teacher salaries increased 4% last year, but the state’s increase in funding was 1.4%.

The child development program has two components: Most of it, about 70%, is run through nonprofit and private agencies that contract with the county. The remaining 30% of the program is based at the child development centers. It is the latter, staffed with county employees, that is not self-sufficient.

Last year the program was in the red by $475,000 and this year the deficit is expected to be $1 million, Margarita said.

“The deficit has grown so dramatically that it’s encroaching on the rest or our budget, and we were forced to make this decision.”

Sid Gardner, director of Cal State Fullerton’s Center for Collaboration for Children, said there is a push to improve the quality of child care available in the county.

Despite those efforts, however, the availability of child care for low-income families in Orange County remains inadequate, he said.

A report published by Gardner’s center along with the Orangewood Children’s Foundation noted that requests for child care referrals leaped by 21% between 1994 and 1999. Gardner attributed the increase in part to recent welfare reform via workfare .

“It’s still very difficult for working poor families to find quality child care close to them that is affordable,” Gardner said.

*

Times staff writer Jack Leonard contributed to this report.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

13 Shutdowns

Thirteen state-funded day care centers in Orange County will close Dec. 15 because of funding shortages.

A. Knott, Buena Park

B. Holder, Buena Park

C. Reid, Anaheim

D. Trident, Anaheim

E. Hansen, Anaheim

F. Cerritos, Anaheim

G. Salk, Anaheim

H. Edgar, Garden Grove

I. Lincoln, Garden Grove

J. Figuroa, Santa Ana

K. Oak View, Huntington Beach

L. Fountain Valley

M. Lindbergh, Costa Mesa

Source: Child Development Services Program