Parental Aid

Lines were long for books and admissions on the first day of classes Monday at Ventura County’s emerging state university, but one line in particular drew a handful of students willing to wait for hours.

A lucky few were granted child-care vouchers worth up to $220 a month at the Cal State Northridge satellite campus, located on the grounds of the former Camarillo State Hospital. The campus is expected to eventually become Cal State University Channel Islands.

The vouchers were in great demand. A 1999 survey showed child care was a major concern of the campus’ students. About 70% are female, with the average age 33, and a majority with children.

At noon Monday the vouchers were ready to be distributed, on a first-come, first-served basis. But with only about 20 vouchers available, some students weren’t taking chances, and staked a place in line hours early.

“If that’s what it takes to help, I’m going to take advantage of it,” said James Jenkins, 24, of Port Hueneme, who has two young children and a wife who also works full time and goes to school.

He arrived shortly after 9 a.m. to nab the first place in line outside the Associated Students’ office, the student government organization which administers the voucher program. Beside him sat Laura Carlson, 42, and Lucy Deukmejian, 38, both of Thousand Oaks, nighttime graduate students who came early for the vouchers.

Jenkins pays $600 a month for day care and could be eligible for reimbursement on a sliding scale up to $220, depending on how many classes he takes. With at least a year and a half to go to earn his bachelor’s degree and another year to get his teaching credential, he says the money would be “a whole lot of help.”

With only 1,800 students--and many of those only taking classes part time--the campus’ population has yet to reach the critical mass needed to support its own day-care center. Many students who attend night classes said they would like to see on-campus child care if it was open late to accommodate their needs.

The campus’ demographics--and its child-care needs--are expected to change once the school has evolved into an independent, degree-granting Cal State University campus, which is expected to occur by fall of 2002, said Stephen Lefevre, director of the satellite campus.

It is anticipated that Cal State Channel Islands eventually will serve about 15,000 students. When it is fully operational, the student body is expected to reflect other CSU campuses, which include a larger percentage of full-time students--with about equal numbers of male and female students--and where the average age is much younger.

In the meantime, the lack of child care is a major complaint, said Larry Johnson, president of Associated Students, who was the force behind getting $27,000 from the main campus’ student government for the voucher program.

Because the campus is still a satellite of the larger school, the grant from the main campus was the only way to get any sort of funds for child care, said Johnson, 44.

He helped establish the voucher program because it was the best solution on such a small budget, he said.

“It’s a partial reimbursement,” he said. “A small fix on a large problem that we have here.”

With vouchers in short supply, he and other students arriving this week were surprised to learn that the Carden School of Camarillo plans to move its day-care facility onto the campus grounds Sept. 7. But CSUCI officials said that the Carden School approached the university, not vice-versa, because it needed a new space.

The move was allowed as part of a money-making venture by the fledgling CSUCI to draw university-friendly private business to the campus and to generate income to help expand the campus.

That plan also calls for creating a child-care center, a kindergarten through eighth-grade school and a research-and-development center around the campus core.

For now, the Carden School just needed to relocate, said George Dutra, associate vice president for facilities for CSUCI, and its 35 day-care slots are already filled.

Meanwhile, Johnson hopes demand for the vouchers far outpaces supply, so he can lobby Northridge’s student government for more money to expand the voucher program.