The school of the 21st century: Creating opportunities for school-based child care

The School of the 21st Century: Creating Opportunities for School-Based Child Care

Matia Finn-Stevenson, Karen Linkins, and Elizabeth Beacom Yale University

ABSTRACT: Shifts in the s t ructure and needs of families in the United States are prompting public schools to expand thei r role by offering school-based child care and family support services. This article describes a nat ional in i t i a t ive - - the School of the 21st C e n t u r y - - i n which the public school serves as a hub for the delivery and coordination of services for families and children. Factors related to providing comprehensive, quali ty child care and family support and concerns regarding school-based child care are discussed. Included are prel iminary evaluat ion results of 21st Century School programs. Findings indicate t ha t schools can play a role in the delivery of a comprehensive system of child care and parents favor the use of schools for this purpose.

During the 1980s, many public schools began to respond to working parents' needs for child care services. This article describes a national school-based initiative--the School of the 21st Century--that has captured the interest of an increasing number of school officials and paved the way for the implementation of a range of child care and family support services in the public schools. In describing the School of the 21st Century, we will focus on some of the factors that contrib- ute to the development of school-based child care and family support services and highlight some of the issues associated with their successful implementation. Also included in this discussion will be pre- liminary findings from an evaluation of selected 21st Century School programs which illustrate that schools can play a major role in providing a comprehensive system of child care, that parents favor the use of the school for such purposes, and that by opening doors to young children and their families and responding to their needs, schools can help ensure that all children have an opportunity to develop optimally.

Requests for repr ints should be addressed to Mat ia Finn-Stevenson, The Bush Center in Child Development and Social Policy, Yale University, 310 Prospect St., New Ha- ven, CT 06511-2188.

Ch i ld & Youth Care F o r u m , 21(5), O c t o b e r 1992 �9 1992 Human Sciences Press, Inc. 335

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B a c k g r o u n d

Today, families in the United States face particular challenges that were far less pervasive just 20 years ago. Rising rates of divorce, teen parenthood, and single parenthood are altering our notion of what constitutes a family. In addition, parents' increasing need to assume both work and family responsibilities creates a great deal of stress in families. Etzioni (1989) points out the "parenting deficit" that can occur when working parents return home from work physically and mentally exhausted. The stress these parents experience simply from leading two lives--work and family--is compounded by the diffi- culties they encounter in trying to find suitable care for their children. A panel of child development experts convened by the National Research Council in 1990 found that the supply of child care services failed to meet current and future needs for out-of-home care, that many children are being cared for in inappropriate facilities that are not conducive to their optimal development, and that many parents experience difficulty finding accessible, affordable, good quality child care (Hayes, Palmer & Zaslow, 1990).

In response to the lack of child care, an increasing number of public schools have begun to sponsor child care services for school-age and preschool children. By virtue of their location in schools, these child care programs are convenient and accessible to working parents, and many of these programs offer affordable fee schedules. By providing convenient and affordable child care, school-based child care services can be used by all families, regardless of their economic status. Also, school-based child care enables school districts to better use the sub- stantial investment taxpayers have made in school buildings (Zigler, 1987).

Schools' provision of child care services was facilitated in part by the trend toward early childhood education for low income children. Studies indicate that early intervention programs can enhance the educational performance of economically disadvantaged children (La- zar, Darlington, Murray, Royce & Snipper, 1982) as well as address social problems such as school drop-out, teen pregnancy, and juvenile delinquency (Berrueta-Clement, Schweinhart, Epstein & Weikart, 1984). Cost-benefit analyses demonstrate that for every dollar spent in early intervention, at least five dollars are saved by reducing the later need for remedial and special education services (Weikart, 1989) and welfare services (Committee on Economic Development, 1987). As a result, the number of early childhood programs located in the public schools has increased in recent years, with kindergarten programs now nearly universal (Pendleton, 1986) and prekindergarten programs growing in popularity (Marx & Seligson, 1988). Many of

M. Finn-Stevenson, K. Linkins, and E. Beacom 337

these programs provide part-day nursery school experiences targeted at economically disadvantaged children.

Although early childhood programs have influenced the development of school-based child care services, especially those for young children, there are important differences in the rationale underlying the two types of programs. Early intervention programs are based on the premise that providing children with early experience in school will yield educational and other long-term benefits. Hence, an estimated 60% of these programs offered in public schools focus exclusively on economically disadvantaged or other at-risk children (Mitchell, 1988). The majority of these programs are financed by gov- ernment funds. In contrast, school-based child care programs are designed specifically to provide child care to all families needing it, with economic status relevant only for the purpose of subsidizing the cost of care. The majority of these child care programs operate on a fee-for- service basis.

The School of the 21st Century

Another trend in the emergence of school-based child care services has been the development of the School of the 21st Century Program. The School of the 21st Century, conceptualized by Edward Zigler (1987) and prepared for national implementation at the Yale Univer- sity Bush Center in Child Development and Social Policy, has been implemented in school districts in ten states around the nation. The program not only addresses the need for affordable and convenient child care, but also provides other services to support families. Conse- quently, the School of the 21st Century is not a program per se, but a constellation of services available to children and their families through their neighborhood school.

Components

The services under the 21st Century School umbrella are offered as a continuum of care and support from the prenatal period through age 12. These services include two child care components and three outreach services:

1. all-day, developmentally appropriate child care for children ages 3, 4, and 5;

2. before- and after-school and vacation care for children ages 6 to 12; 3. home visitation and education for parents with children ages 0 to

3;


4. outreach to and support of family day care providers in the neighborhood of the school; and

5. information and referral services.

These services are offered and/or coordinated by the school and are used only by parents who want or need child care and other support.

The School of the 21st Century builds upon successful early interventions such as Head Start and the Parents As Teachers program, incorporating elements which have contributed to the success of these efforts. Based on what is known from child development research, the overall goal of the School of the 21st Century is to promote the optimal development of children through the provision of good quality child care (as delineated in Bredekamp, 1987), and family support services. Toward this end, schools implementing the program are expected, by the Yale Bush Center, to adhere to the following Guiding Principles, which ensure standardization of quality across sites. All Schools of the 21st Century must:

�9 ensure equal access to child care and family support services by offering sliding-scale fees;

~ focus on the development of the child as a whole; ~ provide high quality, developmentally appropriate child care �9 offer child care on days schools are closed, including school vaca-

tions, in-service days, holidays, and the summer; ~ regard child care providers as professionals, offering living-wage

pay scales and opportunities for career development; ~ encourage parent support and involvement.

Unlike many other child care services whether in or out of the school, the School of the 21st Century is designed not only to address the need for more child care services, but also to create a system within which to address the various issues affecting the quality of child care- -such as provider training, salaries and tu rnover - - tha t emerge as more and more parents rely upon out-of-home care for their children (Zigler, 1987; Zigler & Finn-Stevenson, 1989).

The School of the 21st Century seeks in part to alleviate the stress families experience by providing access to services noted above. It is based on the rationale that there is no one magic period during which services should be made available to families, nor any one type of support that meets all the needs of families. Rather, at different times in their children's development, parents may need different services to help them cope with the stresses they may experience. Providing services as early as the prenatal period and during infancy ensures regular prenatal care and enables risk assessment and health promo-


tion, which can enhance family life and improve developmental outcome. In order to realize the long-term benefits of providing services to very young children, support services must be continued as children grow and develop and as families' needs change.

Implementation

The Yale Bush Center's role in the School of the 21st Century can be summarized as occurring on five levels: (1) Conceptualization of the program; (2) Implementation design; (3) Technical assistance; (4) Dissemination of information; and (5) Evaluation. In*~erested school districts approach the Bush Center's 21st Century School Implemen- tation Unit to obtain information regarding designing and implementing the program, and then the Bush Center provides the necessary training and technical assistance to support the districts' implementation efforts. To date, school districts in six states have implemented the program while many others around the country are in the process of planning for implementation.

The Bush Center does not fund these programs; rather, school districts with 21st Century Schools have financed the pragrams in a variety of ways. Districts in Missouri, Kansas, Wyoming, and Colorado have implemented 21st Century School programs primarily through local initiatives and have received start-up financial assistance from community and corporate foundations. In Connecticut, legislation en- acted in 1988 to enable the implementation of three demonstration school-based Family Resource Centers was broadened in 1989 to include funding for program development in five additional sites. In Kentucky, the program is part of the School Reform Act of 1990, which provided funding for the development of the program in 125 school districts beginning in July, 1991. Once the programs have been implemented, operational costs are covered through parental fees for child care services on a sliding scale according to family income. In addition, federal and state subsidies are available for low income families.

One important aspect of the School of the 21st Century is that the programs are expected to respond to the individual needs of the communities in which they are implemented. Therefore, to a certain ex- tent, implementation varies by site depending on existing programs and resources. Individually, some of the services included in the School of the 21st Century program often already exist in some form in school districts. Many schools, for example, sponsor school-age child care programs. Also, child care programs for preschool children are available, albeit in inadequate supply, in most communities.

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Therefore, it is not necessary for all school districts to begin new programs. Rather, the School of the 21st Century program can be fash- ioned to implement needed services and serve as the hub to coordinate these new services with those which already exist. The goal for implementation is to maximize resources, ensure quality programming, and provide parents with the broadest possible selection of services to meet their individual needs. Nevertheless, all of the programs adhere to the Guiding Principles and share the common goal of providing good quality, developmentally appropriate care that is accessible to all families who need child care.

Concerns and Opportunities

Appropriateness of Care. Although the School of the 21st Century has been successfully implemented in several districts around the country, some concerns have been raised regarding the use of the public school for child care and family support services. These concerns, detailed below, are valid, and if not addressed, may pose obsta- cles to the implementation of good quality child care services in the schools. For this reason, the Yale Bush Center, in overseeing the implementation of the School of the 21st Century, has taken steps to ensure that schools implementing the program receive technical assistance and training about what is entailed in the provision of good quality child care.

Concern regarding the appropriateness of school-based care for pre: schoolers is voiced not necessarily with respect to the School of the 21st Century, but regarding school-based child care in general as well as school reform initiatives which involve early childhood programs in the public schools. For example, some child care professionals (Morgan, 1985) and national organizations (National Black Child De- velopment Institute [NBCDI], 1987) argue that public schools gener- ally cannot address the kind of developmentally appropriate care needed by preschool children, asserting that school-based preschool programs would tend to focus on academics rather than on play and social development. It is also argued that preschool programs in the school are likely to be staffed by teachers with no specific training in child development or early childhood education. The inappropriate- ness of using the school is also raised in relation to child care programs for school-age children. There is concern that these programs would be extensions of the academic program and thus would not provide children with appropriate "down time" after a full school day.

These concerns about academically oriented programs and the like- lihood for a program to be staffed by providers not trained in early


childhood development are valid. However, the potential for an academic orientation exists in any child care setting, regardless of the sponsor. This point was corroborated in a national study of programs serving young children in public schools. This study found that the physical se t t ing--communi ty based child care centers, school-based child care programs, or other child care programs--does not guaran- tee the level of quality of the care provided (Mitchell & Modigliani, 1989).

Resources. There is concern, too, that school-based child care programs could potentially drain resources from the regular educational program of the school district. Each School of the 21st Century program develops its own financial plan and the majority of the programs operate on a parental fee for services. All 21st Century School programs are required to have a sliding scale fee schedule to ensure their accessibility to low income children. Because many school districts that have implemented 21st Century Schools are facing difficult times financially, they have not used school resources to pay for the program, but rather, relied on corporate and state funds to cover start-up costs. The major contribution made by school districts is in- kind (for example, the use of space that already exists) and does not deplete the educational program budget. Federal and state subsidies also augment the budgets of these programs.

Competition. It has been suggested that school-based child care programs would complete unfairly with other child care providers in the community. However, any school implementing the program is required to do so on the basis of need; if sufficient child care exists in a community, no plans for implementation proceed. Additionally, given the emphasis on providing a comprehensive system of child care and family support to communities, the Family Day Care Provider Net- work component of the program serves to ease the potential for competition between the child care community and the 21st Century School child care components. The Network represents an oppor- tuni ty for child care providers to enter into a cooperative, mutual ly beneficial partnership with the schools. This partnership enhances the quality of the community's available child care by both providing Network members with training and encouraging members to support one another by sponsoring monthly meetings during which providers can exchange ideas such as business and curriculum strategies.

Quality of Care. Do Schools of the 21st Century programs provide good quality care? As a part of the evaluation of the School of the 21st


Century programs (discussed in the next section), we have assessed the quality of care provided to preschool children in two programs by using the Early Childhood Environment Rating Scale (Harms & Clif- ford, 1980). The overall average of the ratings for the two preschool programs evaluated was "good," a rating which is well above the min- imum. Using other quality criteria, we have found that over a two- year period, the staff-child ratio for the preschool programs averaged between 1:8 and 1:10; the average for the school-age programs was 1:18.

To ensure quality, all 21st Century School child-care programs are required to use developmentally appropriate curriculum (for example, High Scope) and the programs are encouraged to work toward meet- ing the criteria for quality programs established by the National As- sociation for the Education of Young Children. Additionally, the schools are expected to hire staff with training in child development and to provide on-going training to the staff. One 21st Century School site has entered into a cooperative agreement with a nearby community college to establish a Child Development Associate (CDA) certification program "in-house." By the nature of this program, all staff have an opportunity to receive college level training in child development. Although not all 21st Century School programs offer this type of certification program, all provide training several times a year and encourage staff to pursue college or graduate degrees, often by offering tuition subsidies.

With respect to the concern that schools should not become involved in child care, the experience of communities where 21st Cen- tury School programs have been implemented suggests the contrary. Children of working parents often spend a great deal of their out- of-school time in unsupervised environments because parents are unable to find suitable care arrangements. Programs in schools can provide structure and safety for these children, thus reducing their parents' worry. Given the increasing number of working parents, it is very much in the interest of schools to offer before- and after-school child care. By sponsoring child care services for preschool children, schools not only respond to parents' need for services, but have the opportunity to screen children for developmental problems at an early age and, if needed, provide necessary interventions thus reducing the need later on to spend money on special education services.

Evaluation. In an effort to understand how the 21st Century School operates in school districts and what effects the program has on children, families, and the school district, the Yale Bush Center, in an initiative funded by the Ford Foundation, has been evaluating the program in several sites since 1989. The results reported above are


from data collected for this evaluation. Although the Bush Center is not an unbiased party, efforts have been made to design an objective process to outcome evaluation which has been reviewed by several nationally prominent experts in child care and evaluation.

The process evaluation focuses primarily on how the program is implemented in each site, the characteristics of those being served, and how implementation is affecting the schools in which the programs are located. Once the programs have stabilized, the outcome evaluation looks more closely at the program's effect on parents and children, as well as the school districts and communities. Data collected during the process stage of the evaluation serve as a baseline for the outcome evaluation. To date, we have been collecting evaluation data from six school districts. -

In addition to data concerning quality reported above, initial evaluation results indicate that parents are satisfied with the convenience and location of the program. For example, in one school district's 21st Century School program, 67% (n = 221) of those using the school-age services and 72% (n = 141) of those using the preschool child care report using the program because of convenience. These parents note that the programs' hours are convenient and they like the programs' feature of remaining open for many school holidays and snow days. More than 19% (n = 221) of the school-age program parents and 41% (n -- 141) of the preschool program parents have en- rolled their children in the program because the program is operated by the school district. These parents note that this broader institu- tional affiliation bolsters their confidence in the safety of the program and their t rust in the teachers.

Beyond the fact that parents are satisfied with the school's provision of child care, there appear to be other benefits associated with the program. This point is i l lustrated in one of our sites where the program has been in operation since 1988. In this district, overseeing the program's operation is an advisory committee comprised of school principals, district officials, teachers, 21st Century School staff, and PTA members. Efforts are made to ensure that the 21st Century School services are not simply "added on" to the schools, but rather, fully integrated with overall district operations in order to become necessary and expected ingredients of the school system. Several mechanisms coordinate the five program components with each other and integrate them with existing district programs, such as Head Start and the special education preschool program. These mechanisms typically involve client referrals and resource sharing from one component to another, regular exchanges of information and resources between classroom teachers and program staff, and the pro- motion of parent involvement in the school.


These efforts have led to the early screening and t reatment of preschool children who are developmentally delayed or who have problems with vision, hearing, or speech. Once identified, these children can receive appropriate services as a part of their routine in the 21st Century School child care program. Other outcomes of the integration of the 21st Century School with other school activities and services have included combined programming and resource sharing between the Head Start program and the preschool child care program, main- streaming of children in the special needs preschool with children in the 21st Century preschool, and the opportunity for 21st Century preschool parents to become involved in the PTA before their children enroll in school.

Although the evaluation results reported above are as yet prelimi- nary, they suggest that it is possible for schools to successfully implement child care for preschool and school-age children and that parents favor the use of the school for these and other support services. The results also indicate that child care services can become an inte- gral part of the school and that the school can serve as the hub for the delivery and coordination of services to children. Whether the School of the 21st Century will become a reality in every school will not be known for a while, but those schools that have implemented the program provide documentation that schools can serve as the center of a coordinated network of children's services. There is a strong rationale for using the school as a base for providing a variety of social services. In our society, the school is the institution with the most sustained contact with children and families, and the school is familiar and accessible to all families.

References

Bredekamp, S. (Ed.). (1987). Developmentally appropriate practice in early childhood programs serving children from birth through age 8. Washington, DC: National Association for the Education of Young Children.

Berrueta-Clement, J., Barnett, W., Schweinhart, L., Epstein, A., & Weikart, D. (1984). Changed lives: The effects of the Perry Preschool Program on youths through age 19. Monographs of the High~Scope Educational Research Foundation (No. 8).

Committee for Economic Development. (1984). Children in need: Investment strategies for the educationally disadvantaged. Author

Etzioni, A. (1989, December 17). Fixing schools is not enough. New York Times, p. 2. Harms, T., & Clifford, D. (1980). Early Childhood Environment Rating Scale. New

York: Teachers College Press, Columbia University. Hayes, C. D., Palmer, J. L., & Zaslow, M. J. (Eds.). (1990). Who cares for America's

children. Washington, DC: National Academy Press. Lazar, I., Darlington, R., Murray, J., Royce, J., & Snipper, A. (1982). Lasting effects of

early education. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development, 47, (1-2, Serial No. 19).

Marx, F., and Seligson, M. (1988). The public school early childhood study. New York: Bank Street College of Education.


Mitchell, A. (1988). The district survey, the public school early childhood study. New York: Bank Street College of Education.

Mitchell, A., & Modigliani, K. (1989). Young children in public schools? The "only ifs" reconsidered. Young Children, 44 (6), 56-61.

Morgan, G. (1985). Programs for young children in public schools? Only i f . . . . Young Children, 40 (4), 54.

National Black Child Development Institute. (1987). Child care in the public schools: Incubator for inequality? Washington, DC: Author.

Weikart, D. P. (1989). Quality preschool programs: A long-term social investment. Occa- sional paper 5. New York: The Ford Foundation.

Zigler, E. F. (1987). A solution to the nation's child care problem: The School of the Twenty-First Century. Address presented at the anniversary of the Bush Center in Child Development and Social Policy, New Haven, CT.

Zigler, E. F., & Finn-Stevenson, M. (1989). Child care in America: From problem to solution. American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 59, 484-490.

The school of the 21st century: Creating opportunities for school-based child care

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