When Jessica Euyoqui first enrolled at El Camino College in the 2002 summer semester, she was a 17-year-old single mother with a daughter.

Less than a year later, she dropped out of school.

“Honestly, I didn’t know what I was doing. As far as services and community, I was not exposed to much to that,” Euyoqui said. “So I was kind of intimidated by college, you can say; I stopped coming to school.”

Euyoqui returned to continue her education as a full-time political science student after 20 years and having four children.

This time, El Camino has improved its efforts to connect student parents, like Euyoqui, with the resources needed to support their families and succeed in school.

One of these resources includes lactation rooms.

As more colleges across Southern California install on-campus lactation rooms, El Camino is emerging as a leader in the trend.

El Camino currently has the most lactation rooms on a single college campus compared to other institutions across Southern California. Other colleges may have more lactation rooms in total but there are in separate campus locations.

This comes five years after the passage of Assembly Bill 2785, which requires California community colleges to “provide reasonable accommodations to a lactating student… to express breast milk, breast-feed an infant child, or address other needs related to breast-feeding.”

As of November 2023, El Camino has four lactation rooms on campus.

“As far as we know, there aren’t any plans for new lactation rooms in the meantime,” Kerri Webb, director of public information and government relations at El Camino, said.

One lactation room is in Room 288 in the Student Services Building.

After completing the Arts Complex and the Behavioral Arts and Sciences Building in the fall of 2022, three more rooms were added to El Camino.

However, where and how to access these rooms is unavailable online.

Searches on the El Camino website for lactation room, lactation and lactation accommodation result in a link to an administrative policy regarding designating lactation spaces on campus.

Jaynie Ishikawa, director of Title IX, diversity and inclusion at El Camino, is working to change that.

“We are talking about putting a link to the map because it’s going to be on the campus map as well,” Ishikawa said. “So hopefully that will be a good resource for people to know where to look.”

Despite having a space to nurse their children or pump privately, childcare options for parenting students at El Camino are still limited.

Leslie Delgado is the Cooperative Agencies Resources for Education, or CARE, student success coordinator at El Camino.

“A lot of our students come to us because they need more childcare resources,” Delgado said. “If we have a child care center here, then that would make things a lot more efficient, I think they would be more motivated to take classes on campus.”

Sharon Savene, a lactation consultant and La Leche League of Los Angeles leader since 2012, applauded the inclusion of lactation rooms at El Camino. La Leche League is a non-profit organization that helps breastfeeding mothers with support, education and advocacy.

“It’s a step in the right direction. It’s difficult to balance a new baby with school life,” Savene said. “When you are doing difficult classes every semester, it is difficult to get into a routine.”

Over 25 Southern California community colleges surveyed by The Union have at least one on-campus lactation room. Colleges with more rooms are often divided between separate campuses.

According to the California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office Data Mart, El Camino had 30,654 students enrolled for the 2022-2023 academic year. The Data Mart provides information on a wide range of factors involving community colleges.

Mt. San Antonio College in Walnut has more lactation rooms than El Camino. They have seven designated lactation rooms and three portable “pods.”

Mt. San Antonio also had 54% more students enrolled for the 2022-2023 academic year at 66,446.

Santa Monica College had 37,280 enrolled students in the 2022-2023 academic year, 23% more than El Camino. They currently have four lactation rooms divided between their main campus as well as their Emeritus, Bundy and Malibu locations.

Santa Monica Health Services assistant Harald Austin said their Performing Arts and Center for Media and Design campuses will also receive one lactation room each in the future. These would bring their total to six lactation rooms.

College of the Canyons, near Santa Clarita, had 37,173 students enrolled in the 2022-2023 academic year, 23% more than El Camino. Their six lactation rooms are divided between their Valencia and Canyon Country locations.

Long Beach City College has two campuses for the 34,680 students who enrolled for the 2022-2023 academic year, 13% more students than El Camino. Long Beach City has two lactation rooms, split between their Pacific Coast Campus and Liberal Arts Campus and is only for faculty use.

El Camino associate professor of childhood education Cynthia Cervantes, a mother of three, is optimistic for the future of student parents on campus.

“We didn’t see many kids on campus during the [COVID-19] pandemic,” Cervantes said. “This semester we’ve seen more young children in their strollers, [the lactation rooms] send the message that you, your family, your kids are welcome on campus.”

For Euyoqui, the inclusion of lactation rooms is a step in the right direction in creating a more inclusive space for student parents.

“I think it’s an encouragement for women who have children that want to pursue their education, that they have a safe space,” Euyoqui said.