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Chancellor Malatras, JCC officials unveil child care initiative

Breaking barriers

Photo by Katrina Fuller SUNY Chancellor Jim Malatras, Jamestown Community College President DeMarte and North County Center and Career Advantage Director Beth Starks on Monday announced a new child care initiative.

JAMESTOWN — The State University of New York is once again taking on an important issue — child care.

During a visit Monday to Jamestown Community College, SUNY Chancellor Jim Malatras joined with JCC President Daniel DeMarte and North County Center and Career Advantage Director Beth Starks to announce a new child care initiative.

“As we are getting back to normal — a new normal — we understand that our students are facing significant challenges and many barriers,” Malatras said. “That’s part of our ‘SUNY for All’ campaign, which is to eliminate as many barriers to access to higher education as possible.”

At this time, child care is a persistent barrier to higher education, which SUNY is looking to change.

“We are announcing today a comprehensive package to eliminate some of those barriers within the State University of New York System,” Malatras said.

During a meeting open to the press, Malatras discussed the child care system currently in place at SUNY. The system has 46 child care centers across the state, serving 4,000 parents and families, he said. These facilities not only serve children of the students, but also faculty and staff members, as well as the general public.

“But, we need to do more — it’s not enough,” Malatras said.

He said the initiative will focus on a few different areas: child care staffing for their centers, opening new SUNY-affiliated child care centers in “child care deserts,” providing benefit and resource awareness campaigns for current child care staff members.

“This has to be high-quality child care,” Malatras said. “Just presenting child care opportunities is not enough. Parents want to make sure where they’re sending their children is safe, the environment is healthy, they’re learning and they’re doing all the things that are really important.”

Ensuring quality means accreditation. While 70% of the SUNY child care facilities are accredited, he said the system must get the other 30% accredited as well.

“There are billions of dollars in federal aid, and we are going to be reaching out to try to get everyone of those dollars for our child care facilities,” he said. “I think an investment of $625,000 — $500,000 for scholarships and paid internships for our students — as well as $125,000 to make sure we have the highest quality child care across our system can leverage billions of dollars in federal aid to make sure we’re expanding that.”

Starks said child care was a problem before the pandemic, and expressed that it has only become worse as COVID-19 has gone on. She told a story from personal experience, explaining that a staff member and their family had recently moved to the area to work, but were faced with a choice: which parent would stay home with their child, as there were no open spaces for child care available.

“Why? because I personally called all over trying to get them child care, and with all of my connections, they were told that their infant could have a slot in March or May of 2022.” Starks said. “I can tell you that the child care center that I founded in Mayville has 40 children on the waiting list right now.”

She said the issue is “heart-wrenching” for families as well as for those trying to help.

Demarte said the college will be looking into an onsite facility for the possible SUNY child care facility at JCC, but might first partner without outside child care entities they already have relationships with.

Malatras also discussed the pending reopening of SUNY schools across the state, as well as contending with the delta variant of the COVID-19 virus.

“There continues to be challenges with the delta variant and other things, but I feel supremely confident in the system’s ability to reopen,” Malatras said. “We’re excited about it, we’re enthusiastic about it, the only goal is the vaccine — we need to get everyone vaccinated: our faculty, our students and staff. That will ultimately turn the page, even with the delta variant, which is highly contagious, you’re finding tat it is those who are unvaccinated which are really suffering with higher hospitalization rates and getting sick.”

He said he will be traveling the state as SUNY colleges are reopening to encourage vaccination across the board.

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