There’s an unusually interesting conversation going on over at Park Slope Parents about Berkeley Carroll’s decision to close its child care center. This decision has caused some controversy around the Slope.

Understandably, parents with children at the child care center are fighting mad that the school is closing as it is one of the only program of its kind in the neighborhood for full day, year around, early childhood education in Park Slope. Of course the closure has consequences beyond the parents and children at the school as one PSP parent writes:

This closure puts twenty-two exceptionally dedicated, creative, and hard working early childhood educators out of work in the worst economy seen in decades.  All of the jobs eliminated are held by women – and roughly half of these are women of color.  Most of the teachers are also mothers (and grandmothers).  This is a significant issue of racial, gender, and economic justice.

An article in the New York Times on Sunday, November 9, 2008 angered some parents because a spokesperson from Berkeley Carroll School called the child care center a "luxury,"

Boy, was that a dumb thing to say. Everyone knows that affordable and good early childhood education is not a luxury but a necessity for working families.

Yes, the price of child care is exorbitant, tuition at the child care center comes to something like $11 dollars an hour, which is actually less than what most people spend on an in-home care giver. More from a PSP parent:

It is expensive to care for children – primarily because you (or your agent in the form of a school) must employ other people to do the job.  We can talk all we want about "affordable" child care, but that conversation isn’t realistic until we factor in what it costs to employ people – to pay market salaries, health insurance, retirement benefits, paid sick and vacation time, professional development, and so on.  Someone has to pay for this.  Personally, I believe that we should have publilcly funded daycare (hey, lets all move to Sweden!) that offers teachers this sort of package of fair compensation. 

The fact of the matter is: we have no such thing in NYC.  I have many students who are from the most economically impoverished communities in the city – the "public" daycare that their children are often forced to attend (because there are no other choices, and people now have to work in order to continue receiving public assistance) would – I assume – be thoroughly unacceptable to all of us in terms of the standard of care.  These daycares are thoroughly unacceptable to the young parents I know who are forced to use them – but they have no other options.  Given this context, I do not think it is a fair criticism to argue that the CCC does not deserve our support because it is not "affordable" or "publicly funded.

So what are the child care center parents doing?

Some have banded together to try to keep the school open. This effort has met with much difficulty as well. Another PSP poster had this to say about the effort to take over the Berkeley Carroll Child Care Center. Note: New York Methodist Hospital owns the space  where the child care center is located. 

New York Methodist Hospital and Berkeley Carroll have created a circular argument where NYMH insists that they have not evicted Berkeley Carroll Child Care Center in ’09 and that they would offer a final lease extension to Berkeley Carroll but to no one else (not to a parents collective, not to another neighborhood institution willing to make a permanent home for the Center or anyone else).

And then Berkeley Carroll states that NYMH really does want them out and that they have a bad relationship with Methodist and thus refuse to ask for OR accept an extension.

What is intriguing is that both institutions stand firm to their talking points, both refuse to move position, yet each maintains that neither wants to label the other – ‘the bad guy’.

The families have pursued possible take-over partners and have been generally met with enthusiasm and follow-up efforts.  However, it would take a near miracle to secure the partner, the site, renovate to meet new Dept. of Health Child Care Ctr. codes, get through the permitting and licensing process – let alone make contracts with teachers and parents by the spring / summer ’09 (either by a collective or a take-over). 

The families who signed on for daycare this year had no idea that they would be spending their fall, just 4 weeks after the start of the school year, looking for new daycare and single-handedly running the entire effort of finding a permanent home for this program within four months [mid-Feb. when generally is asked to make financial commitments for the fall of ’09].

BC Child Care Center families have asked that both institutions sit together in a room with parent reps. and negotiate to grant a final year lease extension for ’09-’10 so that a take-over plan can be implemented.  They have decisively refused this.

It is apparent that the Child Care Center is a thorn in the side of both institutions and they simply want to be done with it.  Fair enough – but to definitively turn-down a reasonable request which would allow for the Center to be transferred to new leadership and permanent location, allow for the existing daycare slots to survive, and keep teaching staff employed in rough economy: this does not compute – and this is why all the fuss persists.  Berkeley Carroll has said that the Center is profitable enough, allowing for a final transition year from either institution is not going to upend either one.  The negative PR is bound to continue for both institutions until one of them actually takes some proactive position.

And yes, even though it has the Berkeley Carroll name on it, it is still a daycare that costs me $10-$11 / hr. depending on hours used (far less than my former babysitter), has a fantastically warm and capable family of teachers, a legendarily low rate of staff turnover (most have been there over 10+ years, a few for 20 yrs.), a real preschool curriculum, and lots of fun and action.  Most importantly, the kids love it and the parents do not worry for a moment about what is happening during the days that they have to go to work.

Our goal: keep as many of the teachers together and continuously employed for the same terms or better.  Keep as many of the families, who have become like family or at least good friends, together for the period they had expected to be together.  We are reaching out to whoever can help us accomplish this.  Neither institution is actively participating or willing to compromise.  As a Berkeley Carroll spokesperson told the NYT City section reporter this past Sunday – "the daycare center is a luxury to parents and not a community service leaving the neighborhood."  They clearly don’t get that their own Center is actually comprised of a pretty diverse group of people, including many who can’t afford to go to private schools, let alone pay $10-$11/hr. without some serious sacrifice.

It is deeply confusing and distressing to see two of the largest institutions in Park Slope fall so vastly short of what one would hope is part of the mission of an educational non-profit and a neighborhood hospital, with goals for a positive relationship with the community.