S.D. Schools Don’t Meet Grave Child-Care Needs, Board Admits : Families: School trustees agree that no quick fixes are available. Still, it’s apparent that parents across all ethnic and income lines need help securing before- and after-school care for their children.

The commitment to child-care programs by the San Diego city schools fails to meet the needs of parents across all ethnic and income lines, trustees of the nation’s eighth-largest school district acknowledged Tuesday.

But, although all five board members agreed that they must do more, trustees took only a few initial steps to identify specific problems after their second major discussion on child care this fall, saying that limited money and space restrict any quick fixes.

Board President Susan Davis said the district’s existing efforts are “embarrassing” contrasted with those of other county area school systems and said that many people in the San Diego community “have the perception that the schools aren’t doing all that they should . . . and that, if we had the interest, we’d find a way.”

The board did receive some good news when Supt. Tom Payzant said that a private donor, as yet unidentified, will give $100,000 for child care at Washington Elementary School near downtown after reconstruction and expansion of the school is completed in early 1992.

Yet the situation at Washington, with one of the economically poorest student populations, illustrated Davis’ point that many parents of students in the San Diego system cannot afford to pay for child care, unlike their more affluent counterparts in many suburban districts.

A child-care program run by private providers across the street from Washington has almost half of its 70 spaces unfilled because so many residents in the heavily Latino area cannot afford the monthly fees. And the private, nonprofit agencies such as the YMCA that do operate the few programs now in San Diego city schools--almost all in middle- to upper-middle-class neighborhoods--can subsidize only a small percentage of participating children if they are to remain open.

“So the problem gets difficult when you (need a) child-care program in an area where few parents can afford to pay,” Payzant said.

Even the district’s state-subsidized Child Development Centers for 2,128 low-income students at 27 elementary schools have a waiting list of more than 2,000 students.

Beyond the question of subsidies for poor parents, the board wrestled with how to open space at schools for agencies to run fee-for-service programs, which include physical education, homework tutoring and arts activities.

Board member Kay Davis has criticized district administrators for not encouraging more principals to allow child-care agencies on campus before and after school and cited extensive red tape that has delayed placement of portable classrooms, which would be donated by private businesses, at several schools.

“Don’t we now leave too much up to an individual principal?” Davis asked, pushing her view that officials need to be “more pro-active.” An estimated 80,000 students up to age 14 across the county have unmet child-care needs, a study by a consortium of child-care agencies concluded this year.

Payzant said the district could be more supportive in allowing agencies to use all-purpose rooms or put trailers on playgrounds. But, in many schools where the only available space would be a classroom, Payzant warned of tensions because many teachers resent their room being used before or after school.

The board directed Payzant to identify schools with space for new programs and to report back with more details about how nonsubsidized programs now run.