Santa Clarita / Antelope Valley : New Day-Care Center to Be Learning Tool for Students : Learning: Site at Antelope Valley College will benefit early childhood education program, officials say.

It may be the smallest of the new buildings popping up at Antelope Valley College, but in terms of impact, the college president believes the Child Development Center may be the largest.

“It opens up a whole new program on campus we never had,” Allan Kurki said. “It’s something the college has been talking about more than 20 years.”

The 8,822-square-foot center will serve a dual purpose: provide another day-care opportunity in the community and offer early childhood education students a chance for hands-on experience.

“The early childhood (program) has really worked in a vacuum for many years because we haven’t been able to put into practice the learning in the classroom,” said Selma Minet, an Antelope Valley College instructor who oversees the early childhood education program. “This will provide an opportunity to model the best in early childhood education, to have students work under master teachers.”

Once construction on the $1.6-million center is complete, expected in about one year, Minet said all early childhood education students will likely be required to spend at least one semester gaining practical experience by spending time at it.

Richard Walton, a state community colleges facilities planning and utilization specialist, said it is because child development centers provide an educational opportunity for students that the state has recently been willing to fund them.

The centers are still, however, found at only a small number of the more than 100 community colleges in the state, he said. That is changing.

“There are a lot of them in the mill,” Walton said, noting that in the past two years the state has funded about a dozen centers.

Antelope Valley College will receive nearly $1.4 million from the state to pay for construction of the center, said Bill Fellers, assistant superintendent of facilities planning and campus development. The college will kick in another $220,000.

Minet said the college has only recently started determining whether children of students or staff will be given priority admission, and how much it will cost.

The center will have room for 60 children, ages 6 weeks to 5 years.

“We’re certainly going to get it going as fast as we can,” she said. “At the center of all our thinking is the development of the child.”