With the announcements of a five-star rating from the North Carolina Division of Child Development and plans for a 6,900-square-foot, $1.4 million expansion that will boost capacity to 153 children, Duke Children's Campus has made March a noteworthy month for University parents seeking child care.
The renovation of the on-campus child care center and preschool will begin early next month and is scheduled for completion by this fall.
The expansion project is the brainchild of the Women's Initiative Steering Committee, a 15-member task force formed last spring as part of President Nan Keohane's gender initiative. The committee made child care one of its main concerns, helping to develop and approve expansion earlier this year. The project will add 6,900 square feet of classrooms - all with windows to let in natural light - and an indoor gross motor skills area, as well as an infant playground and a courtyard.
"The expansion of the Duke Children's Campus will help us meet the growing need for affordable, quality child care, and it represents an important step in our efforts to address women's issues at Duke," Keohane said in a statement.
The expansion will make room for 77 additional enrollments, which were previously open only to faculty and staff children but will now be made available to the children of graduate and professional students as well. The project will also add part-time care options, including half-day and partial-week enrollments.
Most of the new spaces will be reserved for infants and toddlers, the two age groups with the longest waiting lists. Currently, only four spaces are reserved for infants and only 10 for toddlers; the rest of the 76 spaces are reserved for two-year-olds and preschoolers. The expansion will allow for an additional 24 infants, 15 toddlers, six two-year-olds and 32 preschoolers.
"The expansion provides the most spaces for the area of greatest need, which right now is infants and toddlers," said Paul Grantham, director of communications for human resources. "Duke Children's Campus has been a very positive thing, and it's great to be able to take a good thing and offer it to more people."
Still on the table are questions regarding the affordability of child care for University parents. The Children's Campus currently charges $964 a month for infants, $918 for toddlers, $824 for two-year-olds and $783 for preschoolers.
Although the half-day and partial-week options may provide more flexibility for parents with lower incomes, officials say they are still working out other options, including subsidies and assistance for graduate and professional students. Keohane said the availability of staff subsidies are still to be determined.
"We are aware of the issue of affordability and intend to deal with it, although we will probably not be able to satisfy everyone," Keohane said.
Pegeen Reichert Powell, co-founder of Parents@Duke, which grapples with family-related policy issues, said that any attention to child care issues is a step forward for a campus she has criticized for not being family-friendly. She added, however, that child care affordability remains a primary concern for the group.
"The Children's Campus is so very expensive that most people can't afford to send their kids there," she said. "We need to make it not just more accessible or available, but also more affordable."
Reichert Powell said the University, aside from offering individual parent subsidies, could consider opening new centers or subsidizing or supporting existing centers near campus.
"The University could use its money and even its personnel to improve the quality of care in other centers around Durham that offer different kinds of care and different rates," she said. "I don't doubt that they're considering these issues, but it's important to note that the expansion of the Children's Campus in itself isn't going to take care of this."
Despite concerns about the affordability of child care at the Children's Campus, everyone agreed that the quality of care was top-notch. The center announced Sunday that it received a five-star-rated license from the N.C. Division of Child Development - a rating shared by less than 10 percent of child care centers in the state.
The rating is based on scores received in three areas: program standards, staff education levels and compliance history. The Children's Campus scored perfectly in all three areas, earning the highest rating possible.
When the Children's Campus was evaluated six months ago - one year after it re-opened at its current site on Alexander Road - it received a three-star rating.
"We knew we had a better program than that," said Marie Ramirez, regional manager for Bright Horizons Family Solutions, which manages the center for the University. "We re-evaluated the program and applied again six months later, and now we have a five-star rating. What changed was that our teachers continued in their professional development, so it was really just a steady improvement over all areas in those six months."
The center currently has its eye toward achieving national accreditation, for which it is now eligible, Ramirez said.
"We're extremely proud of our effort and of the quality of care we provide for children and families," she said. "The five-star rating isn't easy to come by, and we certainly have earned it."
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