YMCA Child-Care Programs May Be Squeezed Out : Education: Because of growing enrollment, Pleasant Valley schools may have to reclaim classroom space.

By CAITLIN ROTHER

Dec. 17, 1991 12 AM PT

SPECIAL TO THE TIMES

The children enrolled in YMCA child-care programs in five Camarillo elementary schools are in danger of being uprooted next year because of a growing need for classroom space.

Officials running Camarillo Family YMCA’s school-based programs, which serve 161 children ages 2 1/2 to 12 throughout the day, have been warned by Pleasant Valley Elementary School District officials that they might have to relocate.

Parents who learned of the possibility Monday expressed concern and anger, saying they could not understand why voters did not approve a $55-million bond issue in November or a $75-million bond issue in June. The money would have been used to renovate the district’s 13 aging schools and build a new school in eastern Camarillo.

If the YMCA is forced out, “I’d be pretty outraged,” said David Sawada, a father of two. Because of his and his wife’s working hours, he said, “This location is pretty convenient for us.”

YMCA officials, who transform a gymnasium at Las Colinas School into a child-care facility and back again every day because of the space shortage, also voiced their fears.

“Some teachers at this site have said, ‘Oh, you’re not going to be here next year,’ but it’s just word of mouth, nothing formal,” said Connie Herndon, associate YMCA program director at Dos Caminos School.

Assuming that the district’s enrollment continues to surge at the current rate of 250 students a year, the 63 vacant seats left will be filled next year. To handle the overcrowding, administrators are considering moving teachers and students into the five classrooms, the gymnasium and the multipurpose room that the YMCA leases for $300 per room per month.

The YMCA program uses three classrooms at Dos Caminos, one of which also houses an iguana and a group of baby chicks the children are raising.

“We got a lot of neat stuff to play with,” said Nicolas Theodore, 9, of Camarillo.

Associate Supt. Howard Hamilton said he would rather see the district’s “latchkey kids” stay in the YMCA’s on-site program, but the trustees might decide otherwise.

“My personal recommendation is to do everything I can to keep them there, but I don’t know whether it’s going to hold,” Hamilton said, adding that he will propose to Pleasant Valley trustees that portable buildings be used for classrooms instead.

Pleasant Valley Trustee Jan McDonald said the district’s first obligation is to students and their primary education.

“Well, obviously, I’d hate to see the child-care program displaced, but if it gets down to not having a place for our students, we just don’t have a choice,” McDonald said.

School officials are studying other options, including moving district boundaries, splitting students into two daily sessions, and operating year-round schedules.

Trustees voted this month to postpone putting any bond issues on the ballot until possibly 1993.

Sharon Rich, executive director of the YMCA child-care programs, said she too is looking into using portable classrooms on school grounds. But like Hamilton, she acknowledges that would be costly.

Installation of plumbing and heating for each classroom would cost $5,000. Rental of the units can run about $10,000 in the first year and $4,000 in subsequent years, Hamilton said.

Rich said buying a portable unit would cost about $20,000, and installing furniture, toys and educational equipment for child care would be another $40,000.

“I don’t think it would be as good, but if we could get any kind of classroom, it would be better than no classroom,” said YMCA Counselor Cindy Videla.

But the portable classroom proposal did not sit well with Debbie Harrington, a mother who came to pick up her daughter from the program at Dos Caminos School on Monday.

“Little mobile homes in a park--that sounds terrible,” Harrington said.

Harrington said that she couldn’t understand why the bond measure did not pass.

“I don’t know who would vote ‘no’ for that,” she said. “This is a family-oriented community.”

Parent Craig Taylor, who lives in Ventura but works in Camarillo, blamed the situation on voters’ distrust of school officials and the way they spend tax dollars. He called the proposal to dislocate the YMCA program another sign of the times.

Because of the economic downturn, he said, “our standard of living is dropping. There’s nothing we can do about it” until voters get concerned and start voting again.