SOUTHEAST MAY CLOSE DAY CARE; LACK OF PARTICIPANTS MAKES FACILITY UNFEASIBLE

Evening child care at Southeast Missouri State University will likely be discontinued after just one semester because too few students have enrolled their children.

Evening care is offered Monday through Thursday from 5:40 to 9 p.m. at the Center for Child Studies on campus. Student workers earn credit to care for the children.

But despite a survey that indicated more than 200 students wanted evening care available on campus, less than 20 actually enrolled their children.

"If we don't have a sufficient number of children to train our university students who work at the center, then we just can't justify being involved in the program," said Sue Haugland, director of the Center for Child Studies.

Haugland said evening care won't be discontinued immediately. Students who are earning credit at the center are required to complete a full semester of work.

But unless enrollment increases dramatically, the center will drop the program in May, she said.

Evening care began with the start of the spring semester Jan. 13. Although the center can accommodate 88 children, a total of only 21 stay at the center each week.

The maximum number of children at the center in one night is 10 on Wednesday. No children are enrolled on Monday, only four on Tuesday and seven on Thursday. Some of the children are children of faculty and other university employees. Three students work at the center each

night.

Haugland said she is baffled by the lack of interest in evening care. In a survey taken last fall of 432 non-traditional students at Southeast, more than half said they'd use night-time day care or at least consider it.

About 25 percent of Southeast's nearly 9,000 students are considered non-traditional, which means they're older than 24, married or divorced, have children, or didn't enter college immediately after high school.

"The survey indicated that all 88 spots would be filled," Haugland said. "In fact, it indicated more spots than that were needed. If it weren't for that survey, we wouldn't have done this."

Michelle Dewrock, owner of A Step At A Time Preschool, also tried opening her center at night, specifically to accommodate university students with children. She discontinued night care in the fall after only two months.

"I really didn't think from the beginning many people would put their kids in child care at night," Dewrock said. "Parents usually want their kids at home at night so they can go to bed before 9 p.m."

Night classes at the university begin at 6 p.m. and conclude by 8 or 9 p.m.

Dewrock said there was only one night per week when more than one student brought their child to her center for night-time care. The cost was $4 per night for about 3 hours of care.

Dewrock said of the lack of interest in night-time care despite the survey's results that: "I think what a lot of people wanted was free day care at the university. The university is just like any other business; they can't offer it free."

John Cooley, a graduate student and member of the Student Government Child Care Task Force which conducted the survey, said the future of on-campus child care is "in jeopardy" because of the lack of interest in evening care.

"I do believe that a child care facility is needed on campus, and we were trying to use the night-time care as a way of showing this to this administration," Cooley said. "Now with the situation as it is, it's going to be hard to confront the administration and ask for child care."

He said one reason students might not be using evening care is that it's easier to find relatives to babysit at night than during the day. But he said the cost of the care is reasonable and probably not a deterrent.

Students pay $85 per semester to enroll one child in evening care, which equals an hourly charge of $1.43. For students who have not contracted to use the center for the entire semester, the hourly charge is $1.71.

The total cost of evening child care was estimated to be more than $17,000, $10,000 of which was contributed by Student Government. Student Government also funds most campus organizations and clubs using student fees.

Cooley said despite the small enrollment in evening care, he hopes university officials don't give up on the idea.

"We see it as something Southeast Missouri State is going to need to offer in the future," he said. "The student population is becoming more and more non-traditional."