| HAIGHT -- Low-income parents face daunting childcare
decisions, particularly in San Francisco, where quality childcare can easily cost
$750 a month or more per child. But the Whitney Young Child Development
Center could hold the answer for low-income parents looking for a solution in
the Haight. Its childcare is subsidized by the California Department of Education,
parents pay on a sliding scale, and no one pays more than $10 a day per child,
according to Ken Hamilton, deputy director of the Whitney Young. Looking
to expand beyond its centers in Bay View/Hunters' Point and the Western Addition,
Whitney Young leased the site at Haight and Masonic streets in 1999 from the Ashbury
Children's Foundation. Whitney Young offers comprehensive child development
services, including full-day childcare for preschool children of working parents,
in addition to services for developmentally and physically handicapped youngsters.
Eighty-five children are currently enrolled in the school, a boxy, yellow
building originally constructed by a dental school that owned the property from
the 1930s to 1970s, according to Hamilton. Ten spots are still available
for children five months to five years old. And in April, Whitney Young will open
a new state-licensed program for toddlers, which will offer 16 slots for newborns
to 18-month-old kids. In addition to its general academic curriculum, Whitney
Young provides instruction in ballet, Karate, African dance, computer graphics,
music, clay modeling, painting, and drama. "We believe that these special
classes make a significant difference in the lives of our children. These classes
enhance motor skills and socialization skills, creativity, memory, and self-esteem,"
says Hamilton. In an era of budget cuts, art programs are usually the first
to go, says Rik Livingston, director of visual arts for the school. "Private lessons
are out of the question for most families," he says. "No other center provides
an art program with the variety and expertise of Whitney Young." Early
Successes Founded in 1958 by executive director Rosie Lee Williams as the
Christian Welfare Society, Inc., the agency was for 20 years a relentless advocate
for the community's poor and disadvantaged. It became the first school in the
nation to serve low-income handicapped children. In 1977, in honor of social
activist Whitney M. Young Jr., the agency changed its name and launched a unique
and innovative children's program under the leadership of Careth B. Reid. It set
a standard for urban childcare programs and became well known for its use of specialists,
artists, therapists and other instructors in addition to regular teaching staff. |
Specialists still fill its ranks today, including Juan Pasmino, the school's
ballet teacher, a trained dancer who has performed in Europe, and Livingston,
an artist who holds an MFA in painting and sculpture from the San Francisco Art
Institute. The school's reputation for innovation is borne out by Theresa
Stewart, a teacher who is also the parent of Kalani, a four-year old student at
the school. Stewart, a 20-year San Francisco childcare veteran, beams when she
speaks of the school she's taught at for three years. "I love to work here and
I love the kids. Because of everyone, it's like a family," she says. Stewart's
own living testament to the school's methods, though, is her 17-year old daughter,
Whitney, who attended the school's Western Addition center. "She was reading at
three," says Stewart, an accomplishment she attributes to the school's programs.
Whitney will attend college in the fall on a scholarship. The school depends
on grants and state subsidies for its regular programs. Hamilton obtained grants
for the renovation and refurbishment of the school building and what he calls
the art shack, a 100-year-old building hidden behind the school building on the
site. Things looked bleak in 2002, while the school scraped by to fund its programs
and made due with a school building in disrepair. "I didn't think we were
going to get the grants we did to renovate," Hamilton says. "But then I would
have had to close the doors and tell 80 parents they'd have to quit their jobs
because they had no child care." Funding came from a Haas Foundation grant
and the Low Income Investment Fund, among other sources. The Whitney Young
Cultural Center Mansion on the site is housed inside a three-story100-year-old
Edwardian mansion that hosts regular art shows. Organized by Livingston, the shows
highlight local artists and help support the Whitney Young. Twenty percent of
all show proceeds go to school's kids and 80 percent to the artists. Livingston's
vision of the mansion as a multifaceted community resource has been delayed by
renovation problems. But he hopes to turn it into a place where local artists
can use the rooms to practice their music or dance, or display their work in exchange
for performing or setting up information classes or demonstrations for the children.
The next show, a photography exhibit called "Nish F21," opens April 24. The
Whitney Young Child Development Center
campus is located at 1101 Masonic St. Call (415) 821-7550 for more information.
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