Parent cooperative preschools will continue without YVCC connection

YAKIMA, Wash. — When school reopens in the fall, the little ones will be there, after all.

All seven parent cooperative preschools formerly affiliated with Yakima Valley Community College will continue their programs for youngsters during the next school year.

That means it's status quo -- or somewhat so -- for the schools.

Five of the preschools are located in Yakima: two at Central Lutheran Church, one each at Davis and Stanton high schools and the Learning Together preschool on North 72nd Avenue. Two others are in Zillah and Selah.

"We're staying open, but it's going to be a big change without YVCC," said Sandra Simmons, board president of Children's Center Parent Education Cooperative in Zillah.

YVCC will no longer provide funding for instructors who oversaw parent education.

The college was paying a total of $92,556 in salaries associated with the program, said Linda Kaminski, YVCC president.

A full-time coordinator of the program -- providing some operational oversight over the seven schools -- was paid a salary of $39,000. The remaining $53,556 was paid to family life instructors who were part-time faculty at YVCC, Kaminski said.

The family life instructors coordinated parent meetings, selected parenting topics and worked closely with the site teacher, who worked directly with the children. The teacher is hired and paid by the individual preschool.

YVCC offered the cooperative preschool program for some 35 years. However, with reduced money coming from the state, the college is cutting $2.3 million from its budget next year.

And part of those cuts affect the preschools, both in the loss of family life instructors paid by the college and in community college credits that parents could accrue for participating in the cooperative program. (They're called parent cooperatives because parents serve as volunteer helpers in the classroom.)

Kaminski said parents were eligible to take the parenting classes at 85 percent of the regular tuition because of the co-op arrangement, something the college can no longer afford.

The full-time coordinator position is no longer in the budget for the coming school year, while she said the part-time faculty positions may still, in some capacity, be part of YVCC's 2009-10 budget.

The seven preschools serve about 130 children a year, generally from 18 months to 5 years old. Tuition ranges from $25 to $70 per month, depending on how many days the child attends.

Co-ops are a good alter-native for parents who make too much money to
qualify for Head Start pro-grams but may not be able to afford more expensive schools that don't require parents to volunteer, their advocates say.

So now, without the sponsorship of YVCC, if any school wants to retain the services of a family life instructor, it will have to pay that person. That's on top of the salary it already pays the regular teacher.

Zillah is electing to do exactly that -- come up with more money so parents can continue to have the services of Nancy Sealock, their family life instructor.

"We couldn't do it with-out Nancy," Simmons said.

Simmons, who also has
a daughter at the pre-school, explained that the school wants to provide continuity for parents and children.

"It's important to have the same person from year to year," Simmons said. "Nancy has been wonderful."

To make that possible, the school may have to in-
crease tuition and under-take more fundraising, according to Simmons.

The school operates three days a week with 16 children supervised by the teacher and three parents.

Just like the other preschools, the three schools affiliated with the Yakima or Selah school districts are losing the parent education piece from YVCC.

Stanton and Davis schools are geared for the children of students, while the Selah program is for anyone in the district, depending on space.
Some Selah slots are also
reserved for develop-mentally disabled children or for low-income parents.

Kim Cruzen with the Selah Early Childhood Education program also expressed regret that parents won't receive parenting instruction from their YVCC family life instructor, Rosemary Rief, who ran evening meetings, family events and parent trainings.

"Rosemary was a great asset and a huge advocate for parents and children," Cruzen said.

Participants reported that the parenting sessions were valuable to them, she said.

The program is consid-ering offering quarterly parenting sessions, but "we won't be able to cover the breadth of topics that Rosemary did," Cruzen said.

Even though the schools are remaining open, they won't be the same, said several advocates.

For the family-life instructors, who have worked with the various preschools for a number of years, it's a sad end to a service that helped parents for more than three decades.

Many parents are equally disappointed.

"I feel we're making the best of a bad situation," Simmons said.

The seven preschools formerly affiliated with Yakima Valley Community College are remaining open. They are (some contact numbers may not be in operation until late summer):

* Central Lutheran Parent Education Cooperative Preschool 509-697-6272

* Central Lutheran Parent Education Cooperative Toddlers 509-697-6272

* Learning Together Parent Education Cooperative Preschool 509-966-0733

* Children's Center Parent Education Cooperative in Zillah 509-829-5016

* Stanton Academy - 509-573-2596

* Davis Childcare - 509-573-1221

* Selah Early Childhood programs - 509-697-0706