Despite cuts to state child care programs, EC’s child development center’s program, Child Care Access Means Parents in School (CCAMPIS, will experience an increase in federal funding, Oct. 1.
The CCAMPIS program provides child care grants to student parents at EC. The program currently aids seven families with co-paid or fully paid tuition for their children. Beginning Oct. 1, the program could accept another five children because of the increased funding.
The federal grant program, which began at EC simultaneously with the beginning of the child development center director, Sandy Parvis’, career, will complete its third period of four years on Sept. 30. The program has increased in funding every renewal period.
The fee based program at the child development center is an all day program where parents can pick up their children as late as 5:30 pm. This differs from the state program, which is a 3 hour and 59 minute morning and afternoon program.
“The good thing is that I can drop my son off before my class starts and he’s here all day so I’m not taking any time from him playing with his friends and learning. I don’t have to worry,” Tamara Tyler, early childhood development and social work major, said. “If I want to do my homework and get tutoring, I have time to do it and don’t have to rush to pick him up.”
CCAMPIS funding is allocated to parents with children in the fee based preschool program. To be eligible for the CCAMPIS grant, parents must receive a Pell Grant or provide the child development center with a letter from the financial aid office, verifying their eligibility for a Pell Grant.
Two fee based classes were recently combined into one because of the insufficient amount of children Parvis said, due to unemployment many parents were incapable of paying and had to remove their children from the program. This lead to layoffs of two student workers and one part-time preschool teacher.
“A lot of parents are not able to go to school because they don’t have the money to pay for child care. A lot of us are trying to go to school and go to work,” Tyler said. “Many parents are trying to further their education, and the state is taking away funding for child care and funding for our education. The state is making it almost impossible.”
Parents, like Tyler, are benefitting from the federally funded CCAMPIS program because they are no longer receiving child care aid from the California and Work Opportunities and Responsibility to Kids (CalWORKS), program, which has reduced its funding for child care.
According to the child advocacy organization, First Five L.A., Gov. Schwarzenegger has proposed to save the state $2.8 billion by cutting almost all funding to Child Care and Development Services. Thus, eliminating the CalWORKS program. This move would result in losing an estimated $3.7 billion in matching federal funds for CalWORKs, and another $660 million in federal dollars for child care funding.
“I have been in this field for many years and speaking to what’s been happening in the state, I have never seen in it like this,” Parvis said. “It’s a very tough time for women, children, and families in general.”