Campus day care centres appreciated
Lengthy waiting lists demonstrate consistent demand
The renovations to the outdoor play area at Loyola’s day care centre, CPE les P’tits Profs, inspired four-year-old Myriam to take some photos for posterity.
Photo by Myriam gelinas
Just one hour in a room with seven infants under a year old was enough to convince Annie Gauthier of the value of the staff at the day care centre on the Loyola Campus.
“I left there with the worst headache of my life,” she said.
Gauthier and her husband took a shift for Teacher Appreciation Day at the Centre de la Petite Enfance les P’tits Profs. She has one child registered there and serves on their board of directors. Currently, she is on maternity leave with her second child, who will attend the centre when Gauthier returns to her job in Facilities Management.
Half of the day care’s 49 spaces are reserved for the children of staff. The other half are divided between faculty and students on a first come, first served basis. Concordia also benefits from CPE Concordia on the downtown campus, with space for another 80 children.
Maria Ottoni has been with the downtown day care for 20 years, first as an educator and for four years as director. She said students’ children are con-sistently in the majority at the SGW centre, on St. Marc St.
Although no statistics are maintained on the number of parents with pre-school children who are part of the Concordia community, there are several indicators. Concordia has hired 400 new faculty members since 1995. Young faculty are more likely to be starting families. Full-time graduate students, also likely to have children, have increased by almost 40 per cent in that same time period.
The most obvious indication that 129 places are not enough for two campuses are the waiting lists at both day cares, which can be years long.
“We get calls from people planning to start families, but we only accept applications from those who are already pregnant,” said CPE les P’tits Profs director Lisa Comerford, who started as an educator in 1989 and is in her second year as director.
A quick review of her applications suggested that about a fifth of the requests she has on file were made on behalf of children not even born.
Registration at the day care means a full-time commitment. Having a day care centre on campus does have advantages.
“It’s great to be nearby. Especially in winter, kids get sick a lot and if anything happens, you can be right there,” Gauthier said.
Comerford says that proximity is built into programming. In warmer months, picnics are organized for parents and children. The day care takes advantage of campus resources, with events in the Oscar Peterson Concert Hall and library trips .
Both day cares encourage parents to volunteer as monitors for field trips. Parents also participate through the board of directors and committees.
They also find ways to appreciate the cultural diverstiy of Concordia. Lata Narayanan, a computer sciences professor is no longer on the board of CPE Concordia. Yet in early November, she returned for the fourth time to help the children discover Diwali, the Hindu festival of light.
Ottoni says that despite the waiting list for infants and toddlers, CPE Concordia has space for three children in the pre-kindergarten group (about four-and-a-half years old). It’s the first time the day care has not operated at full capacity.
The reason for the vacancies is that older children have established a routine and friends with their current caregiver..
“Few parents are prepared to switch their children just a year before they start school.” To find out if your child is eligible for the space, contact ext. 8789.
Meanwhile, CPE les P’tits Profs has just redone their yard, with surfaces built for the amount of kid traffic they receive. Staff hope to do some renovations which would allow them to hold a few more children.