De Anza program removes barriers by coming to low-income neighborhood

By Patty Fisher
Mercury News
Article launched: 02/05/2007

With an exhausting job as a child care worker, limited English skills and two kids her own to raise , there was no way Virginia Gonzalez was ever going to be able to go to community college.

So community college came to her.

Gonzalez, 40, is one of 35 students enrolled in an exciting new De Anza College program that offers college-level classes in child development at Mariano Castro Elementary School, in a lower-income Mountain View neighborhood.

The evening classes are taught in Spanish. The students get college credit but pay no fees. Child care and dinner are provided. Students don't have to travel to the De Anza College campus in Cupertino or navigate the community college bureaucracy.

"The goal is to remove all the barriers that would keep these people from going to college," said Mayra Cruz, who chairs the Child Development and Education Department at De Anza.

But there's another goal that makes this program so intriguing: to bring a new level professionalism to the child care workforce, which for years has been woefully underpaid and underappreciated.

It has always bothered me that we entrust people with our babies, our most precious treasures, and we pay them peanuts. Child care workers in the United States make an average of $9 an hour--less than janitors. Even the highest paid preschool teachers make about half as much as public kindergarten teachers, though they have comparable education credentials.

We've learned a lot in recent years about brain development during first years of life and the importance of high-quality preschool in assuring success later in school. But all the child-development studies in the world won't do much good if the child care industry still has a hard time attracting and keeping good people.

So educators and child advocates have been trying to raise standards, so that child care isn't just babysitting. Well-trained caregivers help children develop the physical, mental and social skills that will make them ready for kindergarten.

The De Anza program, with support from FIRST 5 Santa Clara County and a variety of state and federal sources, will help raise the quality of child care that children in lower-income neighborhoods receive so they can succeed in school.

It's also designed to promote community leadership and help caregivers raise their standard of living.

In Santa Clara County, a child care aide makes an average of just $21,084 a year. But a program director, with a college degree, makes twice that.

By taking this class and amassing college credits, Gonzalez can qualify for a better job and annual stipends funded by tobacco tax money. Her goal is to one day run her own child care business.

Friday night, De Anza instructor Nellie Vargas was leading the class in a lively discussion of family dynamics. How do parents preserve their culture and traditions? How do they find time to spend with their children when everyone is working two jobs and the kids are overwhelmed with homework, sports and other activities.

Maribel Barajas Virgen, 31, doesn't get paid for child care, but she has four kids of her own and sometimes cares for her neighbor's children . During the class, she nursed her 4-month-old daughter while her 5-year-old son played with other kids in a room across campus. She's thrilled to have the chance to take her first college class and learn how to help her children -- and her neighbors' children --succeed in school.

"I want to learn how to understand the kids," she said. "And I want to teach them, you know, like how to do math with blocks."

Cruz who runs the program, said that most of the students have never taken a college class before.

"This is a bridge, a first step," she said. "Now they will feel more comfortable going to class at De Anza. We hope many of them will go on and get their degree. And they will become much better teachers, and much better parents."

For more information on the De Anza program contact Mayra Cruz at mayraecruz@prodigy.net

Contact Patty Fisher at pfisher@mercurynews.com or 650-688-7510