The sun is beginning to warm the ground. Across the street, cars are starting to fill the parking lot as drivers search for closer spots. Here the cars are filling in and out around the circular drop off. A few of them actually are parking in the three spots labeled “ten minutes only, please.”
“Please,” a word not commonly found on street signs, but here it is a gesture to the little people climbing from the back seats and into their world.
One by one parents drop off their little ones to begin a day of learning and fun at the Karen Slattery Educational Research Center For Child Development. A mouthful for a four-year-old, but a pleasant sight for FAU students, faculty, and staff with children.
“My daughter said, ‘I’m not learning I’m having fun,’ an interesting comment that really says a lot about the place here,” says Matthew Sarnelli. Sarnelli’s daughter is grandfathered in with his wife having just graduated from FAU with Masters Degree in Education.
The ERCCD is FAU’s on campus day care facility available for FAU students or employees only. It is home to 96 preschoolers and infants from ages six weeks to five-years-old.
The school consists of four preschool classrooms two for three-year-olds and two for four-year-olds with 22 students in each. There is also one infant room with 12 children ages six weeks to two-years -old, and one room for two-year-olds only with 16 children. It has two playgrounds located on each side of the building and sits across from the Henderson Elementary School in the east side of FAU’s Boca Raton campus.
Each classroom has a certified teacher and two assistants. The assistants are what make this day care unique. Either parents volunteer to help out or students participate and learn first hand the duties of an early childcare developer.
The students helping out may not be from the education program as a matter of fact they come from almost every aspect of FAU’s degree programs. Nursing, Engineering, and Business majors often are found helping out in the classrooms.
Michelle Barrows a senior elementary education major at FAU is one of the students working at the center. She says that “The training that I have to have to work here along with the teachers that I have to work have helped me with what I want to do. I am better in the classroom because of that.”
Barrows and the others students work at the center only for experience since there is no credit towards a degree offered by FAU.
“Right now it doesn’t because we have no Bachelors degree in early childhood education at the university. That is going to change,” says Director Lisa Feeney.
The change looks to be coming in the fall as the board of education has joined with funding to begin a program starting in the fall.
The degree should only be an extra additive for students to be looking towards the ERCCD for on site experience.
First and fore most, FAU students need to know that a day care on campus is a convenience that should not be passed up. Currently only 60 percent of the ERCCD’s enrollment is from FAU student’s children.
“I think the problem is younger students wait to long to try and enroll their children,” explains Feeney. “Mostly graduate students get her early enough for their children to get in.”
“Early” is the operative word at this juncture. FAU students have priority when it comes to who gets in to the ERCCD, but if they wait too long there will be no more room for their children.
The reason that students are first on the list is because although the ERCCD runs on almost all the money brought in by tuition, it also receives money from student government. Twenty-two cents of every credit hour paid by students in A&S fees goes directly to the ERCCD.
“Last year that accounted for $133,000,” says Feeney. “It is the main reason we are able to bring such a high quality of education to the students.”
If the name Research Center scares students away, Feeney wants them to know that their children will not be taken advantage of.
“Parents have the final say if their child will participate in the research,” says Feeney. “But the research that is done at the school is primarily observation. The students are always given an activity to have fun with.”
This is apparent in the study done on abilities to read better. Students checked out laptop computers from the library and took them home to see if it would help in their process of learning to read. The study didn’t even alienate any students since the computers were taken home, no students felt left out.
Jessica Rucker, a former FAU student says, “I think it is so important, but they always enjoyed coming here. My children never cried coming here or me leaving.”
This research opens up another aspect of the ERCCD that is related to FAU. Most research is presented to the ERCCD from graduate students in the College of Education. The facility also designs its own studies.The connection with FAU has helped the ERCCD grow; a recent news story in the UP described the ground breaking for the toddler rooms that are now open. The funding came from a grant given to Student Government from the state.
“The department of Student Affairs, Dr. Leslie Bates, they told us that FAU student Government had gotten money from the state to improve conditions for students on this campus,” says Feeney. “We did and they gave us $800,000 to build the center.”
The growth is not going to end there. Feeney says she does not want to make the current building larger but another building to accommodate students who would like to drop their children off just for the four hours they are in class is an option.
Currently the ERCCD is a half or full day school. The prices vary for students and employees, but the $675 for infants of employees, the highest amount, is lower than most other daycare facilities. Students can pay from $260 to $389 a month for a half or full day of care.
With the Henderson Elementary School and the plan to build a Henderson High school, in the near future the ERCCD may be the starting point for a child to get all of their education on FAU’s campus from six-weeks-old to their Doctorate Degree from the University.
“I think its awesome and I think I have heard the president say that too,” says Feeney. “How powerful is that. You could be here from infancy and go all the way through. That’s kind of nice.”
The knowledge of the ERCCD needs to grow so more students can have their children develop at the center. Most importantly, students need to understand that convenience is the last component of why t heir children should learn at the center.
Rucker says, “This was early childhood development, and facilitating appropriate development, social development, and educational development in young children. Even if I had gone to school somewhere else I would have wanted them to come here, because apart from FAU this is an extraordinary place.”
Rucker can sum up the response from most parents as she says, “There aren’t enough words to say what I like about this school.”
Monthly rates for local all-day child care centers:
ERCCD students rateææææ $389.00Busy Bees Academyæææææ $480.00Kindercare Learning Center $620.00Appleseed Preschoolææææææ $488.00Building Blocks Academyæ ææ $360.00Leap Ahead Learning Center $480.00
Source: UP survey
