The Butte College Child Development Center (CDC) strives to provide high-quality child care that is respectful of and responsive to children by developing a partnership with the parents and families. To provide high-quality lab instruction to incoming students who are learning to work in the Child Development Center. Our goals are to promote optimal growth for their child, while supporting student learning spanning a variety of disciplines.
The CDC serves nearly 250 college students per semester. These services range from offering laboratory opportunities to providing child care to students from all disciplines. The CDC serves as a lab for the following programs: Child Development/Family Relations (CDF), Nursing, EMT-Paramedics, Foods and Nutrition, Communication Studies, and Education. The CDC is conveniently located on the main campus. Last year nearly one hundred families were served. These were made up of college students, faculty, staff and the greater community. Our funding sources come primarily from the District and from parent tuition. The CDC has four classrooms serving infants, toddlers, and preschoolers. Breakfast and afternoon snack are offered to all children in our program. The CDC is reimbursed for meals through the Child and Adult Care Food Program (CACFP). In fall of 2015 we received child care vouchers for Student Equity students giving them free childcare as well as giving our center three student interns who help support the center in a variety of ways. In 2016 we recieved a California State Preschool grant that allows us to provide free to low cost child care options for our preschool ages only. In October in 2017 we aquired the CCAMPIS federal grant to assist with growing our infant toddler classrooms and provide low cost child care to student parents. The Strategic Plan directs us to focus on and increase student success. The CDC serves a population not mentioned in the strategic plan, parents. More than 90% of the children served by the CDC are children of Butte College students. Many of our students have young children and need reliable child care in order to continue their education. The CDC is committed to the success of these students and provides high-quality child care on-campus, thus alleviating the student’s anxiety over transportation and care needs of their young children. The CDC fulfills an essential need for these students and, therefore, is a vital link to their success. In addition to providing high quality and reliable child care, the CDC is continually looking at ways to help students. We were approved for student equity funding to support our student parents on the dashboard. We also secured funding from the California Department of Education to help secure slots for preschool aged children. This CSPP program on site provides free to low cost child care for parents who qualify. In the past few years, the CDC in collaboration with the Child Development and Family Relations (CDF) instructors have been working on the Curriculum Alignment Program (CAP) and a Transfer Degree to develop foundational core courses that can be easily transferable between community colleges and the California State University system. The CDC is moving forward to provide students with the best experience possible within these core classes that utilize the CDC lab. This effort has primarily focused on a number of time students are in the lab as determined by each lab related course. The result is a less flexible yet highly efficient schedule with concentrated groups of students moving through the lab within a 13-week window. Recently the infant classroom began to take in children less than 12 months old and is maintaining a 1 to 4 teacher ratio. This change has allowed for college students to return to school even sooner by creating a safe environment for their baby while they are in class. In addition, this change has also allowed our lab students to observe children as young as 6 weeks old through 5 years old. As we look to the future, it is important that the CDC continues to fulfill its mission as well as develop new plans. By increasing quality, early care and education the CDC is aligned with a campus strategic initiative, enhancing and innovative, flexible, responsive and accountable culture, as well as increasing the availability of critical services. The community’s need for high quality early care and education is recognized and plans are being developed to better meet these needs.
The Child Development Center was funded the kitchen repairs to the cabinets and dish sanitizer. The Poject has not been completed as of 2/18.
The CDC has no formal review process of SLO's.
The Child Development Center not only meets CDF certificates and degree completion data by being a quality lab for our students in the Child Development and Early Childhood Education programs but in all other programs in the college as well. We provide child care for student parents in all programs on campus. Grants like student equity, California State Preschool Programs, and CCAMPIS are now having us college grades and program majors for all student parents we serve. If they are struggling with program completion the CDC is there to provide with resources at Butte College.
The CDC site and Children's Program Specialists help all CD and ECE majors complete SLO's in all lab courses.
The CDC unit plan is our Administrative Program Review.
Strategy 1 - Renovating and Infrastructure- New Equipment
The Child Development center is in need of infrastucture repairs/equipment replacement in the following ways:
The CDC requires equipment and materials for the health and safety of children and students.
The CDC was just notified 1/25/18 that the software we use to manage our locked door and access to the center will be obsolte. We currently pay $500 dollars a year annually for our Child Care Manager Pro software. This software also allows for us to track student lab hours to report to the faculty. This program will no longer be avaiable and the replacement will be $1200 a year to upgrade. This kind of software is necessary for privacy and our budget.
Strategy 2 - Staffing
The CDC requires:
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In the past, the Child Development Center had a set of two Co-directors, an Administrative Secretary ll, and a Clerk. Due to funding, the district condensed the program to only having one director and one Administrative Secretary ll. The CDC is in a positive position where we are now holding two grants that are providing support for student parents. We have used these grants to cover immediate staffing needs but it has also uncovered that one director cannot manage the programs on their own, especially if the director is also stepping on the floor to cover breaks, make meals, and close down classrooms. Currently, the Administrative Secretary ll position is helping the center manage the paperwork and help keep our program running. Nicole Cancilla is managing child files, enrolling children, and checking immunization records of enrolled children, tracking attendance data for grants and so much more. We currently have a desk audit in with Human Resources on how these two grants that are helping our student parents are now impacting her workload. The position for Administrative Secretary ll has never been a good fit for this role at the center. The job requires specific knowledge of the Child Care licensing regulations, managing case files, and now looking at student’s grades and majors, which is not part of the Administrative Secretary ll class spec. We are asking for the job to become a Program Assistant. Currently, we have two classrooms with only one Children Program Specialist. For safety reasons, there should be two qualified staff in each classroom. We secured classroom support with our CSSP grant on the preschool classrooms and short-term funding through CCAMPIS to support our infant-toddler classrooms. When the funding ceases from CCAMPIS this still leaves us with only one infant/ toddler teacher. It is challenging to supervise the children and support the college lab students at the same time. Ideally, each classroom should have an opening shift and a closing shift for each of the four classrooms institutionalized by the district. We cannot rely on grants that will only fix the issue on the temporary basis. Having the Children’s Program Specialists Assistants institutionalized is of high need. These positions are necessary to give the quality care to the children at the center. These positions cover breaks, lunches, and off the floor time for reviewing lab students. We currently do not have staff coverage for the infant and toddler teachers breaks until our hires happen. Often times the center uses subs or the director works the floor. It is not in the best interest of the program safety or quality to have the director in a classroom. The high demand for paperwork for the CACFP program and CSPP is difficult to complete when the director is covering ratios. We are mandated to maintain ratios by our Community Care Licensing regulation. We also need support doing dishes and preparing meals, which is often placed on the director who has the CSPP, and CCAMPIS grant duties to complete.
The Child Development Center also requires front desk coverage. Currently, we have one student assistant that can sit at our window assisting with front desk coverage for 16 hours a week. This comes from our CDF department budget as well as some funding here at the CDC. We do not have financial means to increase hours or gain additional support. There have been frequent times where the director had to step into the classroom, the administrative secretary was in an enrollment meeting and someone needed assistance. Our facility is locked and parents/students can only gain entry if they have a code. This makes it challenging if someone needs to gain access and no one is available. This results in us putting up a sign for people to come back later or leave us a note. We often need to let the phone go to voicemail because we do not have the bandwidth to answer the phones. This is often frustrating to student-parents who are looking for information or lab students looking for support. We currently do not have funding for Student Assistant/Internships at the CDC. Working in the CDC is usually the first step on the student’s career pathway often offering them their first real-world experience. These internships have continually proven to lead to competitive jobs in the field of Early Childhood Education both within the surrounding communities and beyond. The CDC requires a larger Substitute budget due to the high need for support at the center. If a Children's Program Specialist is gone someone has to teach their class. Maternity leave, disability, and regular sick days put significantly higher usage of subs. These high substitute costs are not sustainable by the center’s tuition budget and we often need budget augmentation to cover the costs. |
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Strategy 3 - Instructional Materials for Lab
The CDC serves a large number of students on a daily basis. They come into our classrooms looking for models of the highest quality teaching examples. Our environment needs to be updated dramatically. The field of Child Development, much like Psychology and Medicine, is a field that sees constant change; and yet the CDC has remained exactly the same over the past few decades. Due to budget restrictions, the CDC has not been able to purchase much needed instructional materials for the classroom. Every semester the CDC completes an Environmental Rating Scale and every semester the results come back the same. The CDC does not have the items in the classroom required of them to be a high-quality learning environment. In order to model what a proper learning center looks like, we need to purchase many items. Most of the toys in the classrooms are used items that the Master teachers have brought in. Many items in a learning center are only good for a few years and need to be replaced such as puzzles, books, easels, and dolls. The CDC desperately needs these things in order to serve the children and lab students.
The CDC needs to enhance its instructional materials to model appropriate learning environment. Most of the toys have to be repurchased due to health and safety concerns. Toys are worn, have sharper edges, and need to be updated. As the field changes so do the quality and safety standards. Outside playground structure in toddler needs to be replaced due to recommendations of our playground safety inspection.
In order for the CDC to provide high-quality safe services we need:
Strategy 4 - Promotional Materials
The CDC is at a time of growth and development. Bringing back our infant component has brought back the interest of employees and student parents. We did receive a CSPP grant and CCAMPIS funding to provide staff for our infant and toddler program and will need money to promote the center in the surrounding communities. Flyers, brochures, and other promotional materials will help us to advertise our growing center. Along with these promotional items, the website needs to be redone and updated with current and relevant information
The center is at the very back of the campus. In order to get more information about our program the CDC needs to advertise. The CDC will need promotional materials in the form of:
Strategy 5 - Budget Augmentation- Tuition shortfall
The CDC tuition pays for supplies for the center as well as the salary for the secretary and the director position. In previous years we did not use this augmentation. Lack of staff means fewer children in the center for tuition accounts. At this time we are seeing a rapid increase in enrollment but can not keep up with student parent demand. We secured a California state preschool grant and the enrollment needs to grow. Taking on this contract caused a huge increase in tuition. The more children we have the more center needs in supplies like food and gloves. The Centers budget is no longer functional for the budgetary needs of the program. The ability to pay for our grant funded staff relies on wether we earn our CSPP contract. Last year, we ended the porgram year with a deficit of $23,000. This augmentation will keep the facilities running while we work on bringing in more staff and gain more enrollment.
Having the budget augmentation will allow the CDC to keep operating regardless of the amount of tuition it brings in. This sustains the quality care and lab classroom. The more staff the center has bigger the capacity for enrollment. The larger the enrollment the more students and children we can serve.
Strategy 6 - NAEYC Accredidation
The CDC is now required to pursue Accreditation through a nationally recognized agency such as the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC). CCAMPIS funding rquires that we attain NAEYC accredidation within the 3 years.The areas for self-study and improvement would include: This will require an enormous amount of work on behalf of the staff, administrative secretary, and director. The process witll require for the CDC to prove that we are up to NAEYC standards in the following areas:
· Leadership and management
· Teacher qualifications
· Professional Growth and Development
· Group sizes and ratios
· Relationships
· Families and community relationships
· Assessment of children's progress
· Assessment tools
· Health and safety
· Physical environment
· Curriculum
In a highly competitive market and an ever improving field, national accreditation would help the CDC to continue to be a leader in the community and within the field of Early Childhood Education. This would help the CDC in the following ways:
None at this time.
The CDC is presently being funded beyond the Child Development Program by the following:
CSPP (California State Preschool Grant $74,000.00
CACFP (Food Program) $ 11,000.
Parent Tuition/Registration $120,000.00
Student Equitiy Scholarships for student parents $60,000.00
CCAMPIS Grant funding in the amount of $211,000
$170,000 of this funding is for staffing on the infant/toddler side.
| Original Priority | Program, Unit, Area | Resource Type | Account Number | Object Code | One Time Augment | Ongoing Augment |
| Description | Supporting Rationale | Potential Alternative Funding Sources | Prioritization Criteria | |||
| 1 | Art/Fam (CDC) | Personnel | 11-000-520-1-30500 | $100,000.00 | $100,000.00 | |
| Support for Child care services | The CDC requires: Change Administrative Secretary ll to Program Assistant Four Master Teacher Assistants to be institutionalized. Clerk/ Front desk coverage Paid Internships/Student Assistants Substantial substitute funds *In the past, the Child Development Center had a set of two Co-directors, an Administrative Secretary ll, and a Clerk. Due to funding, the district condensed the program to only having one director and one Administrative Secretary ll. The CDC is in a positive position where we are now holding two grants that are providing support for student parents. We have used these grants to cover immediate staffing needs, but it has also uncovered that one director cannot manage the programs on their own, especially if the director is also stepping on the floor to cover breaks, make meals, and close down classrooms. Currently, the Administrative Secretary ll position is helping the center manage the paperwork and help keep our program running while maintaining licensing requirements. We are asking for the job to become a Program Assistant. *We are asking that new grant-funded Children’s Program Specialist Assistants become institutionalized due to them being necessary to the center’s high-quality childcare and college lab student programs. We will not be able to achieve NAEC accreditation for our program without these positions. *The Child Development Center also requires front desk coverage. Currently, we have one student assistant that can sit at our window assisting with front desk coverage for 16 hours a week. This comes from our CDF department budget as well as some funding here at the CDC. We do not have financial means to increase hours or gain additional support. There have been frequent times where the director had to step into the classroom, the administrative secretary was in an enrollment meeting and someone needed assistance. Our facility is locked, and parents/students can only gain entry if they have a code. This makes it challenging if someone needs to gain access and no one is available. This results in us putting up a sign for people to come back later or leave us a note. We often need to let the phone go to voicemail because we do not have the bandwidth to answer the phones. This is often frustrating to student-parents who are looking for information or lab students looking for support. *We currently do not have funding for Student Assistant/Internships at the CDC. Working in the CDC is usually the first step on the student’s career pathway often offering them their first real-world experience. These internships have continually proven to lead to competitive jobs in the field of Early Childhood Education both within the surrounding communities and beyond. * The CDC requires a larger Substitute budget due to the high need for support at the center. If a Children's Program Specialist is gone someone has to teach their class. Maternity leave, disability, and regular sick days put significantly higher usage of subs. These high substitute costs are not sustainable by the center’s tuition budget and we often need budget augmentation to cover the costs. |
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| 2 | Art/Fam (CDC) | Equipment | $60,000.00 | $0.00 | ||
| Renovating and Infrastructure- New Equipment | The CDC requires equipment and materials for the health and safety of children and students. New Software to manage tuition and lab student hours. Appliances are outdated, worn, and will need to be replaced when they fail to work. Several sidwalks and grassy areas are uneven and cause tripping in our playgrounds. This came as a saftey issue during our Keenan safety review. The CDC was just notified 1/25/18 that the software we use to manage our locked door and access to the center will be obsolete. We currently pay $500 dollars a year annually for our Child Care Manager Pro software. This software also allows for us to track student lab hours to report to the faculty. This program will no longer be available and the replacement will be $1200 a year to upgrade. This kind of software is necessary for privacy and our budget. |
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| 3 | Art/Fam (CDC) | Operating Expenses | $7,000.00 | $0.00 | ||
| Promotional Materials | The CDC is at a time of growth and development. Bringing back our infant component has brought back the interest of student parents. We secured a california state preschool grant offers free to low cost care to our preschoolers who qualify. That being said we will need money to promote the center in the surrounding communities. Flyers, brochures, and other promotional materials will help us to advertise our growing center. Along with these promotional items the website needs to be redone and updated with current and relevant information. |
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| 4 | Arts/Fam (CDC) | Equipment | $3,000.00 | $1,000.00 | ||
| Instructional Materials for lab | The CDC needs to enhance its instructional materials to model appropriate learning environment. As the career changes so do the material and safety standards. Many of our ECE lab courses have assignments which student evaluate our program for quality. Each classroom has its own Environmental rating scale or ERS. If we do not have quality classroom materials this impacts the CDC's college lab students. In order to provide high quality and safe services the center must have: dolls math manipulatives books fine motor manipulatives science materials multicultural materials new materials for outside infant climbing structure puzzles |
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| 5 | Art/Fam (CDC) | Operating Expenses | $60,000.00 | $0.00 | ||
| Budget Augmentation-tuition shortfall | The CDC tuition pays for supplies for the center as well as the salary for the secretary and the director position. In previous years we did not use this augmentation. Lack of staff means fewer children in the center for tuition accounts. At this time we are seeing a rapid increase in enrollment but can not keep up with student parent demand. We secured a California state preschool grant and the enrollment needs to grow. Taking on this contract caused a huge increase in tuition. The more children we have the more center needs in supplies like food and gloves. The Centers budget is no longer functional for the budgetary needs of the program. The ability to pay for our grant funded staff relies on wether we earn our CSPP contract. Last year, we ended the porgram year with a deficit of $23,000. This augmentation will keep the facilities running while we work on bringing in more staff and gain more enrollment. |
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| 6 | Art/Fam (CDC) | Operating Expenses | $5,000.00 | $1,000.00 | ||
| In a highly competitive market and an ever improving field, national accreditation would help the CDC to continue to be a leader in the community and within the field of Early Childhood Education. This would help the CDC in the following ways: Collaboration with other agencies such as Head Start/Early Head Start and State Preschool for services would be seamless. Maintaining CCAMPIS funding. Planning would be better focused for future endeavors, making the CDC a sustainable program. Students would have the benefit of experiencing a lab that was aligned with jobs they will pursue in the community. The CDC would be more responsive to the needs of families through high-quality child care. The program would be highly accountable and transparent in expectations. This also aligns with our strategy 4 and stragey 2 for staffing and quality materials for lab. NAEYC is the highest quality marker for ECE and Child Development professionals and it will take materials and staffing to acheive it for our children and college lab students. |
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