Day cares: A line parents can’t wait in

Editor’s Note: Since the January closing of Pride and Joy day care in Bloomington, the Indiana Daily Student has investigated child care options available to IU students, faculty and staff. Today’s story is the second of a two-part series.

Because of waiting lists and high costs at IU day cares, graduate student Mariella Arredondo spent weeks visiting Bloomington child care facilities before settling on Penny Lane Day Care for her two-year-old daughter.

“We’ve been visiting places almost every week,” she said. “It was like ‘let’s go down this huge list.’ ”

Childhood Connections, a referral service based in Columbus, Ind., is aware of 77 day cares in Monroe County, which includes a mixture of licensed and unlicensed providers.

The program assists day cares in 10 Indiana counties, including Brown, Lawrence and Jackson, said Rose Ellen Adams, executive director of Childhood Connections.

An updated list of child care providers can be found online at childhoodconnections.org.

The referral program keeps data on each provider it is aware of, licensed or not. When families ask for referrals, the program provides a list of 10 to 15 day cares that meet the household’s needs.

“In the community there is, let’s put it this way, there’s a large range,” Carol Spencer, director at Hoosier Courts Nursery said about Bloomington day cares. “Some are stronger. ... some are not so strong.”

Tim Dunnuck, coordinator of child care services at IU, does what he can to help families sift through the list of providers.

“One of my jobs is to help parents work through that list,” Dunnuck said. However, he said he only feels comfortable recommending other programs if they are nationally accredited.

He said there are five to six nationally accredited programs in Bloomington, including Bloomington Developmental Learning Center and Montessori.

These nationally accredited centers have prices equivalent to IU’s day cares, as well as comparable wait lists.

During Arredondo’s search she found herself on more than one of these lists.

“I knew some grad students who use Parents Day Out: wait list. We’ve heard good things about Gan Shalom: wait list. I knew Bloomington Developmental Learning Center was nationally accredited: wait list.”

While at Penny Lane Day Care, Arredondo hopes one of these options will come through. In light of the recent closing of Pride and Joy day care after the death of a 4-month-old, she said she’s nervous about relying on a local facility but hasn’t had an issue yet.

“After everything that’s going on, we’re really freaked out,” she said.

Dunnuck admits the quality of local care might not be as high as the IU centers.
“Only one in eight infant, toddler centers are reliable. This is a pretty sobering statistic,” Dunnuck said. “What’s even more sobering is that when asked, the parents thought they were receiving high-quality care.”

At the three licensed IU centers, each program director is required to have a master’s degree in early childhood education. The co-teachers, two at each site, all have at least a bachelor’s degree in a related field. Dunnuck said those credentials are fairly rare at local day cares.

“I think a lot of people think that someone who loves children can work in early childhood education,” Spencer said. “A person may be wonderful with kids but not understand appropriate curriculum.”

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Other universities such as the University of Michigan also have a larger need for child care than they can provide.

Michigan has a wait list of 298 families, and offer 517 at the university-sponsored centers – more than twice what IU offers.

Campus Child Care Homes Network was recently created to help decrease the wait list.

The program recruits local home day cares, helps them work toward accreditation and provides them with training. In return, those homes reserve spots for Michigan employees and students. Currently the network involves 15 home day cares.

Judy Collins, research coordinator for Michigan’s Work/Life Resource Center, said more people prefer the cheaper child care homes and that Michigan has a referral specialist to help families find community options.

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During the spring 2009 semester, the IU Office of Women’s Affairs conducted a survey highlighting parents’ complaints with IU day cares.

The survey provided recommendations, including expanding the number of child care slots for IU students, faculty and staff each year, increasing public and private funding and the hours of operations to accommodate parents.

So far these recommendations have not been fulfilled.

“IU really needs to step it up,” Arrendondo said. “It’s supposed to promote family values and there’s definitely a contradiction there.”

Dunnuck said the University is pushing to recruit more women professors but cannot guarantee them adequate child care.

“Many directors at IU are men, and they don’t think about it the way women do,” professor Maria Bucur-Deckard said. “I’ve been lucky to get people to understand my issues. I’ve been very happy with how I have been able to arrange my needs as a parent. Many students don’t have the balls to go up to an advisor and tell them they’re having a problem.”

–Alyssa Goldman contributed to this report.