In an effort to accommodate the hundreds of families on the child care waitlist, UCLA will be opening a new child care facility in Westwood this fall for UCLA students, faculty and staff.
“We have consistently for many years had people on our waiting list numbering between 500 and 800 UCLA-affiliated families,” said Gay Macdonald, director of UCLA Early Care and Education.
The new center is set to open in September on the top floor of the Westwood Marketplace shopping center on Le Conte Avenue across the street from the Center for Health Sciences and in the former location of Long’s Drugs. The idea had been in the works for years, though renovations began in March.
The department already operates three child care centers serving more than 300 children. The Westwood center is anticipated to accommodate around 200 children, making it the largest of the four centers.
UCLA Child Care is available for students, faculty and staff, but the new center will most likely only serve faculty and staff, according to Macdonald.
“The student families nearly always need to have some kind of tuition assistance or subsidy, and there is none available at the new site,” Macdonald said. “Students are welcome to apply, but they would have to pay their own way.”
Unlike the other three centers, the Westwood child care center will be operated by an outside vendor rather than by Early Care and Education. Bright Horizons Family Solutions will be running the new location and will be paid through the children’s tuition fees while the department acts as a liaison.
“Operating a child care center adjacent to campus in such a large space wasn’t something my department would have been able to power up and do right away. … We would have had to double the administrative staff at that point,” Macdonald said. “It’s a big undertaking to renovate, staff and enroll such a big space in order to get the program started.”
Fourth-year French student Valessa Michel said she considered herself lucky to have gotten her son a spot in the department’s University Village child care location when she first came to UCLA.
“It’s great because they have an eight-children-per-teacher ratio and hands-on attention,” Michel said. “It’s really worth it … if you can get in.”
Getting in is not the only issue. According to mother and fourth-year Chicano Studies student Sombra Ruiz, the 7:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. operation hours of the centers do not allow parents to attend review sessions, special talks and other events that may occur on campus in the evenings.
“The one message I kept getting (as a student) was to immerse myself in campus life to be more successful, … but it becomes a problem for us if there is no extended-evening child care,” Ruiz said. “There seems to be a disconnect between providing services supposed to help students … and the operations of the child care centers.”
Macdonald said the department, which receives funding primarily through tuition fees and fundraising efforts, understands the need of parents but is simply strapped for cash.
“We’ve thought about (extending hours) a lot, but we can’t do it without a significant tuition increase,” Macdonald said. “We are not unaware of the need, just unable to figure out how to pay for it.”
The new center in Westwood will neither accommodate extended hours nor completely clear the waiting list. However, UCLA does offer resources meant to help parents locate other child care services in the university area.
More information on free consultations and monthly forums guiding parents toward other child care programs can be found at the Child Care Resource Program Web site. Parents interested in enrolling their children in the Westwood center for the fall quarter should contact Bright Horizons directly.