By: Samuel Chacko and Elizabeth Basile
Isabel Patterson Child Development Center (IPCDC) has struggled to maintain student assistant teachers who are directly tasked in taking care of children.
The child development center can hold up to 185 families at a time, said Miles Nevin, associate vice president and executive director of student auxiliary enterprises.
According to an email from Taylor Buhler-Scott, associate director of programs and communications for ASI, there are currently 108 student parents.
Maria Rivera, the assistant director for the IPCDC’s administration office, said student assistant teachers often can’t fill the block scheduling required.
“[It] can be very hard because we have a center [that] has a lot of children here,” Rivera said.
The center’s infant/toddler student assistant teacher job posting has been open on the ASI website and range from $16 to $16.75 hourly.
Lisa Harris, assistant director of the infant and toddler program for the center, said she looks for people who can work from 8 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. or 12:30 p.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Friday.
The priority is to maintain familiar faces for the kids, AlecSandria Colchico, director of the IPCDC said.
“When they first come [children], they don’t know us,” Colchico said. “A few weeks in, they are so bonded to the new children that they’ve met and the caregivers because they see this as a safe space to be in.”
The post-COVID years have become an issue for the IPCDC, with students being less available to work for the full shifts.
“That’s a challenge in and of itself and then trying to figure out how I can utilize staff without having too many adult faces with young kids,” Harris said.
Rivera said it is hard for the children to create personal relationships or secure attachments with the adults when they are constantly rotating.
The center is seeking people to serve as primary caregivers, who are assigned infants and toddlers to feed or change diapers.
Nevin said the IPCDC has the potential to expand its infant and toddler program, but is limited.
“The center is only so big and the capacity is only so high,” Nevin said. “If we had more capacity and funding, we would expand our infant program […] we have a lot of students on this campus with really young children who need care.”
Part of the students’ ASI fee helps fund the IPCDC program, Nevin said. The ASI Consolidated Operating Budget shows the center has approximately $2.4 million in projected expenses for the 2023-2024 school year.
“Last semester, we got a tentative agreement from the federal government for a $3.5 million grant that will help us repair all of the facilities of the childcare center,” Nevin said.
Buhler-Scott said in an email the funds for the $3.5 million grant will be formalized when Congress adopts the 2024 fiscal year budget.
New hires go through a two-day, eight-hour training process that builds the new hire’s skillset to engage with children.
Colchico said students who work for the program are unaware of the differences they could make for the children.
“The skills they are going to learn are going to just really make an impression on them to become better adults,” Colchico said.