By Marjorie Hernandez
Daily Bruin Reporter
Samantha Gatmaitan, a sixth-year sociology and education
student, has more than tests and papers to think about: she has to
care for her two-year-old daughter, Xochitl.
But attending UCLA has eased her worries of balancing schoolwork
and motherhood.
As her mother hits the books, Xochitl spends her day at the
Bellagio Center, one of the three on-site child care service
centers provided for students, faculty and staff.
“I couldn’t imagine not having day care,”
Gatmaitan said. “My mind would just wander off because I
would really be worried. Not only do I have the study time, but I
have more focus.”
Gatmaitan is one of the few lucky students who was approved to
receive childcare. According to Executive Director of UCLA Child
Care Services Gay Macdonald, about 500 families are currently on a
waiting list.
The Bellagio, Fernald and University Village Centers are
operating at full capacity, with a total of 243 children ranging
from two months old to kindergarten age receiving care.
Student parents make up about one-third of the total families
using the service, according to Macdonald.
The problem of child care availability is not isolated to UCLA,
according to the most recent child care task force report released
last summer.
Currently, the UC system serves approximately 1,500 children of
students, faculty and staff in its own centers and 500 in private
child care providers or centers in cooperation with the
university.
The waiting lists for these centers continue to grow, and many
families become discouraged from applying.
According to the report, other issues that confront UC Child
Care Services include affordability and quality. Currently, UCLA
Child Care fees are $995 per month for infants, $975 for toddlers
and $725 for preschool-age children.
“The UC programs are probably among the highest quality
both in the state and nationwide,” said Lubbe Levin,
assistant vice president of policy, planning and research for the
UC Office of the President.
“A lot of the people look to the UC programs as models, so
that does make them a little more expensive,” she continued.
“But we feel it’s really important for us to keep that
quality level very high.”
Programs will undoubtedly be affected by the projected influx of
more than 60,000 students systemwide by the year 2010 due to Tidal
Wave II. Faculty recruitment and retention are more difficult
without readily available child care services, which may affect
UC’s competitiveness as an employer.
“When we are trying to attract the good teachers that we
need to teach the students to make this the powerful university
that we want it to be, then we have to find ways to be an employer
of choice if want to keep a desirable faculty,” Macdonald
said. “It’s hard for public universities to compete
with private universities for money, and having an excellent child
care center that’s accessible for them makes a university
extremely attractive to faculty who have young families.”
The university has a large population of professors who are
close to retirement age. In order to accommodate incoming students
and replace senior faculty, younger professors who tend to have
small children will make up the majority of the new faculty, Levin
said.
However, many UC child care centers are also having trouble
recruiting and retaining teachers.
Although UCLA was able to increase child care teacher salaries
last year, they are still not comparable to those offered by most
other child care providers.
The UCOP is currently considering a proposal to re-classify
teachers from the child care development series ““ where
teacher jobs are listed as clerical work ““ to student affairs
officers. This change will help advance teachers in the salary
bracket, according to Macdonald.
“I think it’s important for teachers to feel
respected as professional workers, as well as to be paid
professionally,” Macdonald said. “I feel that the
salary is important, but I think the respect of the professional
title is also a very important thing.”
In response to problems facing child care, UC President Richard
Atkinson has challenged each UC chancellor to find ways to raise
money for their campus centers, with the promise that UCOP will
provide matching funds to support the construction of new
facilities.
UCLA Child Care Services is currently busy formulating
strategies to raise funds with the help of Chancellor Albert
Carnesale, Macdonald said.