Crowding Plagues Day Care Centers

By MANDY LOCKE

For far too many Island parents, the joy of bringing a baby into the
world becomes clouded by the anxiety of securing and affording a quality
day-care provider.

Each parent seems to have a horror story.

One mother returns to the sitter to pick up her infant, who waddles
in a sagging diaper six hours old. Another - after a full year of
trying to find a care provider for her two-year-old - begs her
mother in law to move to the Island.

Some couples put their name on waiting lists as soon as a pregnancy
test reads positive. Others pore over the family budget only to discover
they would practically turn over one of their salaries to a child-care
giver. A few are even driven off the Vineyard due to lack of
availability and affordability.

The problem appears simple: the demand for child care far outpaces
the supply of facilities. The Island is home to less than 10 licensed
child-care facilities, only a few of which admit infants. Hundreds of
families battle for openings.

"Mothers are not staying home with their kids until they are
five years old and ready to go to public school," said Kim
Baumhofer, director of Island Children's School. Yet employers
consider even a two-month-long maternity leave to be generous.

One day-care center, the Rainbow Place, moved to a new facility in
the last year, increasing its capacity from 18 to 32.

"I thought we'd be able to help the day-care crunch with
this move. We're unbelievably full," said Cindy Andrews,
director of The Rainbow Place. "We have 65 on the waiting list. We
already started forming the 2003 waiting list.

"It's hard to listen to all the horror stories,"
she added. "It's even worse when there are special
circumstances. We put them in wherever we can." Ms. Andrews said
the state imposes "strict guidelines" regarding how many
children can be accommodated.

The Rainbow Place is not alone; the waiting list for Martha's
Vineyard Community Services' day care approaches 200, despite a
capacity of only 42 children.

Faced with such long waiting lists, parents scrounge for smaller
in-home facilities.

A call to the lone active listing under Sitter in the yellow pages
connects parents to Arba Clark. Although she runs a sitting service for
special occasions and for vacationing parents, she receives countless
desperate calls from parents seeking day-to-day child care.

"People call and beg, saying, ‘It's only for a few
hours a day.' I can empathize with them. When I was in that spot
before I found care, I just dragged my kids around with me," Ms.
Clark said.

When options run dry, parents find themselves forced to lower their
standards.

"If I'm desperate, I wouldn't look at licensing. I
would look at cleanliness," said Ned Robinson-Lynch, director of
Martha's Vineyard Community Services. "If I'm really
desperate, I wouldn't even be that picky."

While most facilities keep outrageously long waiting lists, a few
places have an extra spot or two for the first time in years. Kim
Baumhofer of Island Children's School suspects their two vacancies
relate to their requirement that children attend five days per week.
Diane Cylik-Polucci, director and lead teacher at Grace Church
Preschool, thinks her empty slots speak to larger trends.

"Demographics are changing on the Island. Younger families are
moving off. The families that are here - their kids are in
school," says Ms. Cylik-Polucci.

Enough families remain, however, to make securing a spot a
challenge. But those parents lucky enough to hold a coveted day-care
spot pay dearly. The average per-hour cost of child care falls just
below $5. Full-time child care costs almost $200 a week. A full-time
worker at the minimum wage, after taxes, earns less than that $200
figure.

"You look at the numbers and sometimes it just doesn't
make sense for both of the parents to work," said Lisa Cash,
project coordinator for Vineyard Affordable Child Care Project, an
agency that awards state Department of Education grants to help parents
subsidize child-care costs.

Competition for these grants seems nearly as steep as simply finding
availability. This year, Ms. Cash's staff distributed $40,000
among 57 families, but 30 more sat on a waiting list.

"It's heartwrenching," Ms. Cash said. "You
want to help them, but the money goes so quickly."

Grant-giving agencies like the Project examine a family's
gross income, using it as one variable on a sliding scale. But this
money can only be used for children older than two years and nine months
and only until they reach kindergarten. Infant care - far more
expensive than that for toddlers - is ineligible for funding by
these grants.

Aside from helping parents with child-care costs, the project helps
centers attain state certification, a requirement for receiving grant
money. The Project also offers financial assistance to centers for the
purchase of equipment and supplies.

But the heaps of money parents and state agencies shovel into
preschools does not find its way into the pockets of child-care workers.

"Child-care workers don't get paid much -
sometimes as little as $8.50 an hour. The person that comes and cleans
the facility gets $20 an hour," said Debbie Milne, director of
early childhood programs for community services.

Ms. Andrews' employees take on extra jobs to supplement their
incomes.

While centers charge nearly $200 a week per child, the average
weekly cost of teaching and supervising each child is $250, Mr.
Robinson-Lynch said. Rent or mortgage, equipment, utilities, salaries,
insurance and state and national licenses keep overhead high.

But child-care providers know they cannot raise their rates.

"Parents pay us $4.50 an hour to watch their most precious
treasure. But if we charged more, no one could afford it," Ms.
Andrews said.

So, while outside grants subsidize some of the cost of care and help
facilities to upgrade equipment, child-care workers see none of that.

"State grants have not made that leap to salaries yet,"
Ms. Baumhofer said.

"Since it doesn't pay that great, you must find
something else in this field that you love," Ms. Andrews said.

But love alone does not supply facilities with a wealth of
applicants for empty staff spots.

"Fewer and fewer are going into the field," Ms. Milne
said. While many directors admit the Island pay scale for child-care
workers registers slightly higher than off-Island because of the high
cost of living, many still work without health care and other standard
benefits.

And while salaries remain low, state requirements for certification
continue to grow more extensive.

Ms. Cylik-Polucci said that the state issued a list of new
certification requirements for preschool teachers to be implemented by
2002.

Ms. Baumhofer predicted that within the next eight years, the state
will demand child-care workers attain a four-year college degree. But
all of these demands come without promises of wage increases.

"There seems to be no financial compensation to accompany
being treated with professional status," Ms. Cylik-Polucci said.

Questions and frustrations continue to surface, but viable solutions
seem to be in short supply.

A few facility directors suggest that preschool programs should be
tax supported along with grades K-12.

"Until it becomes tax-based, we will never get what we
deserve," Diane said.