Help One More Day!!!


There is just one more day to vote, and you can vote over and over. Please take the time to just vote one more day. One parent voted 2400 times!

No matter where you are reading this blog, please take time to help our little school win a city wide toy contest. Your votes could help our children win 200 new toys. Our needy children will take some of them home, and have a wonderful year of great new toys. Go to www.wtvw.com and vote The Garden School – often.

Judy and the gang say thanks! And there’s a prayer for you today!

The Garden School Tattler

Everyday I post articles I find from around the world, from next door in the nation and stuff I get from distributors because I think these things are interesting and keep readers abreast of the face of early childhood. Who is doing what, thinking what where and why. It all helps to understand children and the people who care for them. I want to reach out to every corner of the interested childcare world.

Yet part of the personal drama goes on during every teacher’s day. What I do for a living that enables me to write this takes place between 6:15 a.m. and 3:15 p.m. – my school hours.

For those of you first reading, my partner and I own a little school in Southwestern Indiana – about two – three hours from anyplace you’d recognize like Louisville or Indianapolis or Nashville or St. Louis. I work with Mrs. St. Louis, Miss Molly, Miss Rachel, Miss Stacey and Mr. Tom. We have somewhere between thirty and forty children who come to play at our place – The Garden School.

I’m going to try to write a new little addition on the kids at play. It might give some parents a laugh, and some parents an insight into what we, as teachers, see during a full day at school. Be prepared for naming names!!!

I think we will call this “The Garden School Tattler.” Here goes:

The day opened with breakfast on the patio – donuts and apple slices and milk. The kids think they are very grown up to do this. After breakfast, we had circle time and we did yoga and tried to do the frog and we had a balancing contest. The kids love yoga.

One of the joys of early childhood is the hilariously funny antics of very young children. This morning I went into the kitchen which is a nook about 10X10 – just beyond art – and there was Triston three feet in the air clinging to a shelf while he helped himself to a box of candy. “Get down,” I bellowed, and he gave me a chocolaty grin. Was he in trouble the rest of the day!

Dawson bit his brother because his brother bothered him, so Dawson lost his medal and got scowls from his brother. We use a medal on a chord that signifies good behavior. If you lose it for making another child cry on purpose, disrupting a class or if you are chronically disobedient, you don’t get treats when the treats are passed out. Most kids work hard to keep their medals especially on fudge days. We have a few kids, like Hadley, who never lose their medals.

Class time went uneventfully.

We had tacos and cheese and sour cream and salsa for lunch with beans and rice and bananas and apples that I bought yesterday at the orchard. We had cherry-pineapple critter and a salad too and milk. The kids ate it all. They usually do, including Aidan who eats nearly everything for us. He tried critter today and asked me to give the recipe to mom. I’ll post it this weekend with some other Garden School recipies.

One of our more creatively disobedient children, Ty, ate lunch near the biter and the rock thrower and the candy snatcher, and while the three of them were doing acrobatics at noon prayer, he was reverently saying his prayers – a feat of personal engineering. He was well rewarded, needless to say, and enjoyed a super sized piece of cake later at the party.

We had birthday. Brian is four. He’s a sweet child who mostly zero’s into life from a very right brained point of view. He used to carry a green teddy bear, but now he’s decided that it’s too much trouble to bring him, so bear stays home. Brian is tall with huge eyes and a smile the size of Pittsburgh.

We had a cake at 1:30 on the playground for Brian. We usually avoid “frosting lick” by using 6 oz Dixie cups and a popsicle stick. We put a small piece of cake frosting side down into the cup with a pizza palate and we’ve found the child actually eats the cake and enjoys the trouble of scooping with the stick. Works for most.

After that I taught geography to fifteen of our bigger kids. Dhezmond knew you can’t live in the ocean. You have to live on ground. Geography kind of goes over the little kid’s heads, so I took a crew into Miss Rachel’s room and we talked about the World and the United States and how one fits into the other. The kids colored parts of a map and then we adjourned to the playground.

We ended the day catching a thief. We have a donation envelope at the front of the school for a family who used to attend the GS. Daddy had a bad accident last week and died, and we are taking up a collection. Someone reached in and took the cash. But today we caught this parent on video camera.

It’s all in a day’s work.

Planned National Children’s Study

NICHD September Announces Contracts to First Research Centers for Planned National Children’s Study

The National Children’s Study-planned to be the largest study ever undertaken to assess the effects of the environment on child and adult health-took a major step forward today with the announcement that contracts have been awarded to 6 Vanguard Centers to pilot and complete the first phases of the Study.

The full nationwide study would follow a representative sample of children from early life through adulthood, seeking information to prevent and treat such health problems as autism, birth defects, diabetes, heart disease, and obesity.

“The National Children’s Study would follow more than 100,000 children, from before birth-and, in some cases, even before pregnancy,” said Duane Alexander, M.D., Director of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, one of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). “It would meticulously measure their environmental exposures while tracking their health and development, from infancy through childhood, until age 21, seeking the root causes of many childhood and adult diseases.”

The announcement was made at a news briefing in Washington, D.C. In the search for environmental influences on human health, and their relationship to genetic constitution, National Children’s Study researchers plan to examine such factors as the food children eat, the air they breathe, their schools and neighborhoods, their frequency of visits to a health care provider, and even the composition of the house dust in their homes.

Study scientists also plan to gather biological samples from both parents and children and analyze them for exposure to environmental factors. The planned National Children’s Study is led by a consortium of federalagency partners: the U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services (including the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development and the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences at NIH, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Dr. Alexander named the following Institutions as the Vanguard Centers for the National Children’s Study
* University of California, Irvine, for the Study location of Orange County, California; * University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, for the Study location of Duplin County, North Carolina;
* Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York, for the Study location of Queens County, New York;
* Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, for the Study location ofMontgomery County, Pennsylvania;
* University of Utah, Salt Lake City, for the Study location of Salt Lake County, Utah;
* University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, for the Study location of Waukesha County, Wisconsin.

The federal agencies sponsoring the Study are still negotiating toestablish two additional Vanguard Centers that will serve counties inother areas. The Vanguard Centers were selected from a pool of applicants through acompetitive process.

These centers have successfully demonstrated advanced clinical research and data collection capabilities, with the ability to collect and manage biological and environmental specimens; with community networks for identifying, recruiting, and retaining eligible mothers and infants; and a commitment to the protection and privacy of data.

The Vanguard Centers, which include a variety of universities, hospitals, health departments and other organizations, will work within their communities to recruit participants, collect and process data, and pilot new research methods for incorporation into the full study. The Study has adequate funding to launch the Vanguard Centers.

The federal agencies leading it hope to award additional Study Centers to work in a total of 105 sites, subject to the availability of future funding. Future centers would be selected in a competitive process like the one just completed for the Vanguard Centers.

The timing of a new competitive process also depends on future funding. Dr. Alexander added that a coordinating center, Westat in Rockville, MD, has been awarded the contract to manage information for the plannedNational Children’s Study, starting with the Vanguard Centers.

Westat will collect data, compile and analyze statistics, and ensure that thestudy proceeds according to design. Dr. Alexander noted that, in many cases, study researchers would recruit women before they are even pregnant, as well as the women’s partners. Because many pregnancies are unplanned, the researchers will also recruit women who are not considering pregnancy.

“The study might eventually lead to preventions or treatments for many common conditions,” said Vice Admiral Richard H. Carmona, M.D., M.P.H.,FACS, the United States Surgeon General.

“We’re looking to find the root causes of many common diseases and disorders,” Dr. Carmona said. “When we do, we’ll be in a position toprevent them from ever occurring.”

Dr. Carmona added that the study could also shed light on such indoor environmental exposures as secondhand smoke, lead, radon, and asbestos. “We now know that one in five schools in America has indoor air quality problems, which affect millions of children who don’t even realize it,”Dr. Carmona said. “And that’s where The National Children’s Study comes in. The study could help us map how our environments, habits, and activities affect our children’s health.”

Other speakers at the briefing included representatives of the federalagencies sponsoring the study, as well as representatives of associations concerned with children’s health.

The NICHD is part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the biomedical research arm of the federal government. NIH is an agency ofthe U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The NICHD sponsors research on development, before and after birth; maternal, child, andfamily health; reproductive biology and population issues; and medical rehabilitation.

Naples Daily News
Bonita firm sees day care as an investment
By RIDDHI TRIVEDI-ST. CLAIR,
rtrivedi@bonitanews.comSeptember 13, 2005

With a 2-year-old daughter, living in Cape Coral and working in Bonita Springs was a juggling act at best for Denise Fortune.

Each morning, she would take her daughter to day care at 6:30 a.m., then drive to work at Source Interlink, where she has been an analyst for about a year and a half. Her husband would pick Sandra up about 5:30 p.m., then stay home with her until Fortune got home.

“By the time I got home, she would have dinner, and she goes to bed by 8:30 p.m., I saw her for about two hours a day,” Fortune said. “I have been trying so many things to find time to spend with her.”

The answer came from her employer.

Employee surveys done by Source Interlink’s human resources department repeatedly turned up affordable child care as one of the chief issues facing its workers, said James Gillis, president and chief operating officer of the Bonita Springs-based company.

“It was almost impossible for people to find good quality day care in south Lee County at affordable rates,” Gillis said. “With the length of the commute to where they were going for day care, it was expensive and adding hours to their day.”

They had space available in the company’s headquarters in Riverview Center near the Imperial River and U.S. 41. Space that they budgeted for when the company recently expanded its offices by 25,000 square feet.

The planning began a year ago and the day care opened about a month ago. The center is licensed for 25 children from 6 weeks old to age 4. The company already has 16 children, and several other expectant mothers have signed up for the services.

Parents who have their children in the day-care center are thrilled.

“I can have lunch with her, take her home with me and it’s $40 cheaper (monthly) than the one I was using in Cape Coral,” Fortune said. “If she gets sick, I am right here and if there is ever an emergency at home, she is right here.”

Like Fortune, most parents have lunch with their children and many even come see their children during shorter breaks.

Mary Stehle says she likes how much fun her daughter, Megan, is having at day care. The South Fort Myers resident used to start her day at 6:30 a.m. to take her daughter to day care at a church in Fort Myers before coming to work around 8 a.m. She and her husband would trade off picking up Megan. But that meant she had no flexibility in her schedule.

“I absolutely had to be out of the door at 5 (p.m.), and in season the times just didn’t work,” Stehle said. “Generally we would get home at about 7 p.m., shove food in everyone’s faces, take a bath and go to bed so you can do it all over again.”

Now she gets to work earlier because she can bring Megan with her. She also gets to see her daughter several times a day, and if she doesn’t, Stehle said, she knows Megan is safe and close to her.

“I used to feel there’s a choice between my career and family, and this makes it a little easier,” she said.

The children have a variety of activities to choose from, including finger painting, playing house, music and reading. They are supervised by Jacquelyn Gillis, who is the daughter of James Gillis, and her staff.

Jacquelyn Gillis, who has a bachelor’s degree in government, worked at a home for abused children for more than five years in Connecticut and decided she wanted to keep working with children.

“It took me a whole week to realize I had actually started (the day care),” she said. “But the kids are just great and their parents are so happy with the program.”

Company officials say the decision to start a day care center isn’t just a good deed; it’s good business.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, nearly three in 10 employed women quit their job upon becoming pregnant. And the number of women with infant children who remain in the work force has fallen about 5 percent since 1998. In 2000, 55 percent of mothers with infant children were in the work force, compared with 59 percent in 1998 — the first decline since 1976.

Various studies commissioned by the Census Bureau also show job flexibility and child care at the workplace are two major factors in deciding whether women come back to work.

Source Interlink spent more than $300,000 on the day care center. The company since has received most of it back in after-the-fact grants from county, state and federal governments, James Gillis said.

Even if that hadn’t happened, the day care would have been a good investment, he said.
“We have 350 employees here in Bonita Springs and our turnover has been going down consistently,” he said. “We want to make the benefits nice enough so people will stay with us.”

Nunatsiaq News, Canada


Nunatsuaq News
September 23, 2005

Long Waits Loom for Nunavut Day Care
More kids than spaces, despite some funding initiatives

Seepoola Nauyuk watches over kids while Bernice Kelly, on left, reads from a book. Iqaluit’s First Steps Daycare is full up with 39 kids.

Some Iqaluit kids got lucky this fall. After two years on a waiting list, they were finally able to saunter into Aakuluk Day Care.

The biggest day care in Iqaluit looks after 44 kids every day, but they still have a long waiting list.

“All day cares are like that in Iqaluit,” said Michelle Mackay, who runs Aakaluk.

First Steps Day Care, which is now full with 39 kids, has about 70 infants and 45 to 50 pre-schoolers on its waiting list. That’s “a good two-year wait,” says Shannon Graham.

The waiting list at Kids on the Beach is also “a couple of years long,” said Danielle Budgell. That day care has 24 seats, 12 of which are reserved for students of Nunavut Arctic College.

Nunavut has 959 licenced day care spaces, said Lesley Leafloor, manager of early childhood development for the Department of Education. That number includes aboriginal head start programs, pre-school programs and full- and part-time after school programs.

But for many parents, that’s not quite enough.

“I sympathize,” said Budgell, describing how she breaks the news to parents. “There’s not much I can do. It’s normal. There definitely needs to be more day cares in Iqaluit.”

Rates have also increased at Kids on the Beach. Last year, parents paid $170 per week for full-time care, and $100 for half-day care. As of Oct. 1, full-time care will cost $200 per week, and half-time care will cost $125.

The fee hike was necessary, Budgell said, because grocery bills are rising and the day care wants to continue providing a hot lunch and two snacks to all of its kids.

Kids on the Beach is the only day care in Iqaluit that serves a hot lunch (other day cares ask parents to pack a healthy lunch). The service is especially important for college students’ children, who may live a more student lifestyle than working parents.

Beneficiaries will feel less of a crunch thanks to federal funding from Human Resources Development Canada, which is administered by the Kakivak Association, and covers 50 per cent of day care costs.

More relief for parents could come from the Young Parents Stay Learning initiative. The Government of Nunavut added $500,000 in its latest budget to help parents aged 14 to 18 cover costs — as long as they can find spaces.

In Iqaluit, no students have taken up the offer yet at the Inuksuk Infant Development Centre, the day care attached to Inuksuk High School, which looks after 24 children, most of whom belong to teachers.

Even that day care has a year-long waiting list, said Rukhsana Ali.

The day care crunch is not unique to Iqaluit.

The Cambridge Bay Childcare Centre, Cambridge Bay’s only day care, is full with 46 spaces, and has 10 more kids on its waiting list, said manager Brenda Rideout. Parents there pay $150 per week, no matter what age their kids are. Rates go down slightly for multiple children form the same family.

The Shared Care Daycare in Arviat, across the road from the Qitiqliq Secondary School, is full with 21 toddlers and 10 babies. The only day care in Arviat, also has a waiting list, said assistant manager Frances Okatsiak.

The Kataujaq Day Care, Rankin Inlet’s largest, is also full with 30 kids, and has just “a medium-sized wait list,” said manager Debbie Greer.

Kataujaq also manages to provide a hot lunch, charging $190 per week for infants, $180 per week for toddlers and $150 per week for kindergarten students.

An outstanding problem, Greer said, is finding “dependable, reliable staff.”

“I would dearly love to see NAC host an early childhood education program here,” Greer said.

“There’s more quality care needed in the community that offers real pre-school instruction.”

The Old and the New

I like the idea of putting the young and the old in the same facility. I would like to see more of this. Older people can teach and care for young children, and young children can respond in a a very necessary way for older people. It should be done more often.
Savannah Morning News

District Welcomes Education Ally

Savannah-Chatham County Public Schools superintendent Thomas Lockamy welcomed the mayor’s further advance into education Monday and dismissed the suggestion that it could lead to a turf battle.

“I think first of all you can front-load success or back-load failure,” Lockamy said. “I think this is a real effort to front- load success, and I would certainly like to be a part of that.”

The effort Lockamy referred to is a partnership between the city of Savannah and heavy equipment manufacturer JCB Inc. to open a state-of-the-art early- childhood learning center in westside Savannah. United Way of the Coastal Empire will select an agency to run the center and assist with quality control.

The plans have been in the works for 18 months, but Lockamy didn’t learn about them until a reporter contacted him following Monday’s announcement.

He said he’d like his staff to work with those planning the center so the planners “could be certain how the preparation of children folds into the work we’re doing in pre-kindergarten and kindergarten.”

Julie Newton, principal at Bartow Elementary School on Savannah’s westside, said a well-run center could mean more students arrive at her school ready to learn.

Savannah Mayor Otis Johnson said that’s exactly what he hopes to accomplish. And he guaranteed the school system will be involved.

“We’re doing early childhood preparation that (leads) to school readiness,” he said.

JCB and the city will open the Lady Bamford Early Childhood Education Center in March in the east wing of the Moses Jackson senior center. It will initially serve about 30 neighborhood children from newborn to four, the age when they’d be eligible to move up to pre-kindergarten.

The center is being designed to serve 58 children but could be expanded to serve more, according to Ellen Hatcher, the Smart Start project director with United Way of the Coastal Empire.

The exact form the center takes will depend on the agency United Way selects to run it. But Hatcher said any program will be buttressed through its involvement with Smart Start, a joint state-non-profit ventures that offers educational incentives to typically low-paid day care workers.

Hatcher said United Way said the agency running the center must also aim to become accredited by the National Association for the Education of Young Children.

Oversight of day care facilities tends to be fairly lax in Georgia.

Hatcher declined to state the center’s projected cost since United Way has not yet received proposals from agencies interested in running it.

Researchers have shown that effective early childhood education can lead to greater academic success. A 2004 study by the Economic Policy Institute also concluded that education programs for 3 and 4 year olds can ultimately bring financial rewards to local governments through higher earnings and reduced crime.

United Way plans to interview agencies Friday that could run the center. Those agencies include Greenbriar Children’s Center, Wesley Community Centers, Parent and Child Development Services and YMCA of Coastal Georgia, according to United Way president Gregg Schroeder.
Lockamy said he and Johnson plan to meet face to face for the first time within the next two weeks.

Foundation for Child Development Annual Forum


The Foundation for Child Development Annual Forum will be held on October 20. Educators in Chicago, Independence (MO), and Union City (NJ) will discuss how they are leveraging our current, uncoordinated investments in early childhood programs to create a new first level of education – PK-3.

The session will provide practical advice on:
•Aligning standards, curriculum, and assessment from PK-3
•Funding PK-3 systems
•Working with community organizations
•Enhancing teacher qualifications
•Supporting families

When: October 20, 2005 from 3:00 – 5:00 PM

Who: Edith Allen-Coleman, Lead Teacher, Hansberry (Chicago) Child-Parent Center
Jim Hinson, Superintendent, Independence, Missouri Public Schools
Adriana Birne, Principal of Early Childhood Education, Union City (NJ) School District
Gene Maeroff, Senior Fellow, Hechinger Institute on Education, Columbia University

Where:Victor Borge Auditorium Scandinavia House 58 Park Avenue (between 37th and 38th Streets) New York, NY 10016

RSVP:Roz Rosenberg, 212-213-8337, x213 or roz@fcd-us.org

Katherine S. Johnson – Draper

Deseretnews.com Salt Lake City, Utah

Learn About Hyperactivity

In your Family Section on Nov. 15, there was a column written by Judy Lyden. It was titled “Wrong diagnosis.” I have a clinical license to practice psychotherapy and have extensive experience working with children and adults who experience hyperactivity.

I wonder what Judy’s credentials are that allow her to diagnose children as having “personality problems” and not physical ones?

I agree hyperactivity is over-diagnosed. However, to suggest that all children diagnosed as hyperactive are misdiagnosed is a disservice to them and their families. Without appropriate treatment these children grow up with feelings of low self-esteem and often develop conduct disorders. It’s time Judy went to school and learned more about this disorder.

Kathryn S. Johnson- Draper

My Response:

This letter was published a while back. Too bad they didn’t send it to me. I LOVE personal attacks like this. It makes my day. I love the one-ups-man-ship and the tone. The disregarding, condecending tone makes me giggle. My first mental response actually meets her on her own level, Look, lady, I’m not the one making the big bucks on these kids.

But it goes a lot deeper than that. Once upon a time, I received a whole big How To binder from a psychotherapist who liked my work and lent it to me because he agreed that hyperactive children were being treated for a disease that doesn’t exist. It was a trumped up money maker, said he, and in the binder labeled, How to Set up a Psychotherapeutic Center, it said Never turn away a child suspected of hyperactivity. He’s your bread and butter.

The binder was full of tests, and ways to manage an office, and a lot of helpful strategies on this illness and that mental problem. It was at that point I lost most of my respect for psychotherapists. It seemed like a scam that not only drains parents’ pocketbooks but the state resources we all pay for. And the only one reaping the rewards is the lady with the boat and the new car and the $1,000,000.00 house. You can bet the child will never be cured of this illness.

Here’s a credential for you: I am hyperactive and I’ve reared four productive hyperactives. You can’t find better more interesting, productive, energetic, on target kids than mine.

Here’s another: For over a quarter of a century I’ve picked up targeted hyperactives out of the dustbin of ridicule and disdain put there by psycho-therapists. (I always take issue with that title.)

I’ve loved these throw away kids just as they are; just as God made them. I’ve spent a life time of care re-teaching them how to live in the world, and my success rate doesn’t come out of an expensive bottle. It comes out of two hearts – theirs and mine.

Do I have an education? You bet, Summa Cum Laude, first in my class, and aces in graduate school as well, but more than that, I’m educated enough to know a fraud when I hear it. I’m educated enough to understand you can’t diagnose a personality type or medicate one you don’t like or can’t keep up with. I think that way because I do something remarkable; I actually read books.

Let’s medicate some of the hyperactives from the past and get a good laugh:

Theodore Roosevelt
Lewis and Clark
Christopher Columbus
Johnny Appleseed
Daniel Boone
Davy Crocket
Thomas Jefferson
St. Paul
Alexander the Great

And the beat goes on.

England


Blackpooltoday.co.uk

£1.2m Child Care Probe

INVESTIGATIONS are to be launched into the soaring cost of caring for vulnerable children in Blackpool.

A new report has revealed it costs almost £1.2m a year to provide specialist care for just SIX of the borough’s most at risk youngsters.

There are 295 children in care in Blackpool, and the cost of looking after them has spiralled way over budget as social workers are having to intervene in more and more cases – many of them involving physical and sexual abuse.

A special committee of councillors is now being set up to investigate the situation. In a report looking at reasons behind the overspend, cases of six children were highlighted. The cases included:

* A boy who poses a serious risk to younger children because of aggressive sexual behaviour. He requires a small therapeutic residential home, staffed round-the-clock, at a cost of £5,000 per week.
* A second boy suffers with self-harm and suicidal tendencies. He requires special mental health care costing £3,500 a week.
* A 13-year-old boy who has severe behavioural difficulties and places himself at risk of sexual exploitation. He needs to be placed away from “negative influences” within a residential school environment, costing £2,767 per week (£143,884 per year).

Last year, Blackpool Council’s Children’s Services department overspent on its £13.5m annual budget by £361,000.The results of an inspection last March found 18 of 22 cases, looked at as a sample, had paedophile involvement. The inspector commented this was “unprecedented in his experience.”

Coun Sylvia Taylor, chairman of the Children Services Development Committee, said a special committee of councillors would be set up to investigate the situation. She said: “There are a lot of transient families coming in to Blackpool. We have to look at what is best for vulnerable children and that comes at an expense. We are trying to get more children located locally, but sometimes we haven’t got facilities for children with special problems.”

Part of the reason behind more children needing care is the “threshold” for intervention by social services was reduced following early inspections of the service.

Most of the cost for care is picked up through Council Tax and by the resort’s Primary Care Trust, which is funded by central government. Blackpool’s Director of Children’s Services David Lund was aiming to review its strategy in a bid to try and keep the costs under control. One alternative might be to develop more in-house provision rather than external placements.shelagh.parkinson@blackpoolgazette.co.uk

22 September 2005

The Face of American Day Care

Finding Child Care Is No Easy Job for U.S. Parents
Written by Jerilyn Watson 25 September 2005

VOICE ONE:
Welcome to THIS IS AMERICA in VOA Special English. I’m Steve Ember.

VOICE TWO:
And I’m Faith Lapidus. Today we tell about an issue facing America’s working parents. If both a mother and a father are employed, who will care for their young children?

VOICE ONE:
A half-century ago, most mothers of young children in the United States did not work outside the home. But life has changed. The United States Census Bureau said that in two thousand two, sixty-four percent of mothers with a child under age six were in the workforce. If the father also works, the need for child care is clear. The same is true if a parent is single.

VOICE TWO:
Sometimes grandparents or other family members watch over children. But most working parents must pay for care. And they often have to pay a lot. The Labor Department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics says child-care costs for a full day begin at about four thousand dollars yearly. Many families pay ten thousand dollars yearly per child – and more.

The Urban Institute is an economic and social-policy research organization. It reported in two thousand one about working families in America. The institute said nearly half of families with a child under thirteen spent about nine percent of their monthly earnings on child care. The poorest families spent twenty-three percent.

VOICE ONE:
Some parents employ a person to supervise children in the parents’ home. This person is often called a baby sitter or a nanny. Sometimes this care provider lives with the family.

Au pairs are foreign care providers. They live with families while supervising the families’ children.

Some care providers open their own homes to one or more children. These, and other, children’s centers must meet the requirements of local and state governments. For example, a care provider can supervise only a limited number of children. The number depends on the children’s ages. Care centers must show that they are protected against fires and other dangers.

Yet once parents find a place, they cannot be sure they will stay. The care might not be as good as they hoped. Or the cost might increase. Or the parents might even be asked to take their son or daughter elsewhere if the child often bites or hits other children.

VOICE TWO:
Childcare worker Angenita Tanner reads a book to students at her home daycare center in Chicago.

Child-care companies and religious organizations operate some of the daycare centers and preschools in the United States. Organizations like the Y.M.C.A, the Young Men’s Christian Association, provide daytime child care in many cities across the country. These programs serve children from the earliest years to as old as students in middle school.

Care for school-age children is also provided at public and private schools before and after normal school hours.

VOICE ONE:
Other organizations mix daytime activities for older adults with daytime care for children. One such organization is called ONEgeneration. This nonprofit community group is in Van Nuys, California. It serves older adults and young children in the San Fernando Valley area of Los Angeles.

A ONEgeneration center for older adults is next to its daycare center. Older people who volunteer visit the daycare children in the afternoon. They sit and hold the babies and rock them back and forth, as they might do with their own grandchildren.

VOICE TWO:
Private companies and government agencies also offer childcare. This lets a working mother or father be near their sons and daughters during the day. For example, the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, looks after employees’ children at several centers. These places accept children ages six weeks to three years.

The N.I.H. centers are operated by a child-care company in cooperation with the children’s parents. The parents of children in the full-day program must help in the centers for three hours a month. If they cannot do so, they must pay an additional amount for their child to attend. Help from parents in such cooperative centers helps keep costs down.

VOICE ONE:
The General Services Administration has more than one hundred ten child care centers in federal buildings. These centers are in thirty-one states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. At least half the children in the centers must have parents employed by the government. Any places not filled this way go to the general public.

VOICE TWO:
Young children in good preschool programs learn to identify common objects. They study letters and pictures to help prepare for reading. They learn songs. They play games that use numbers and maps. Many children’s programs include activities to help them get to know the wider world. For example, children visit zoos, museums and fire and police stations.

At age five, most American children attend free kindergarten in public schools. Many American kindergartens now require skills taught in early education programs.

VOICE ONE:
Jan Forbes of Rockville, Maryland, works in two centers for young children. Missus Forbes is paid for teaching music in one center. She gives her time to the other center, which serves more poor children.

The teacher says good child care and preschool centers are important to prepare children for their school years. She notes that kindergarten classes once placed major importance mostly on social development for school. But today most kindergartens teach basic educational skills.
Missus Forbes says early education helps children develop good relationships with adults. At the same time, children learn to cooperate with other children. She praises the activities of preschool life as helping develop responsible and happy children.

VOICE TWO:
Head Start is the national preschool program for poor children. The goal is to prepare them for the educational system – and life in general. But these programs cannot serve all needy children.

Getting good child care that provides early education can be very difficult for poor families. The Census Bureau says there were thirty-seven million people in poverty in two thousand four. The poverty rate was twelve and seventh-tenths percent, up two-tenths of one percent from the year before.

Now there are worries that money needed to rebuild areas hit by Hurricane Katrina could take away from early education and child care.

VOICE ONE:
Parents often criticize the price of child care. But daycare operators say many parents do not understand all the costs involved. These include food, drinks, toys, videos, games and crafts. They also include wages, taxes, insurance, transportation and things like cleaning supplies.
One person said on a child-care Web site, “we providers are in this line of work for love of kids — not money!”

VOICE TWO:
Low pay is a major reason the industry has to replace many workers each year. Currently, the lowest pay in the United States permitted under federal law is six dollars and seventy-five cents an hour.

The government says half of daycare workers earned less than seven dollars and eighteen cents an hour in two thousand two. Those employed in schools had median earnings of nine dollars and four cents per hour.

Pay depends on education. A caregiver who attended college earns more than a person who only finished high school. But the best pay is still not very high.

VOICE ONE:
Getting the best child care can be difficult for even the wealthiest parents. The best centers may have long waiting lists. Parents often have to request a place long before their child is born.

VOICE TWO:
Now we will visit a group of three-year-olds at a preschool in Fairfax, Virginia. The children begin their day by forming a circle. They talk a little to each other and their teacher. She leads them in song. After that, the children go to “stations,” places in the center where they can choose activities.

The boys and girls get a chance to paint or work at a computer. They can look at books or play with trains or trucks or dollhouses. They can build tall structures with building sets. Then they have a little something to eat and drink.

If the weather is good, the children play outside under supervision. Those staying a full day in the preschool have a meal. Later they sleep for part of the afternoon. Then their mothers or fathers arrive.

The children’s time in the care of others is over. It is time to go home.

VOICE ONE:
Our program was written by Jerilyn Watson and produced by Caty Weaver. I’m Steve Ember.

VOICE TWO:
And I’m Faith Lapidus.