District Saves Kid Program- Marin IJ - About PreSchool Programs

District saves kid programs
Friday 04/07/2006
Marin Independent Journal
Marin Secction C

By Don Speich

Responding to growing concerns from parents and a key social service agency in Marin, trustees of the Sausalito-Marin City School District say they will find classroom space for about 75 pre- and after-school children whose programs are housed in a district building scheduled for demolition.
The board in a unanimous vote Wednesday directed staffers to find classroom space for students who reside in the district. In the past, trustees have said the district could not afford to "subsidize" programs for preschoolers who live outside the district.
There are 125 pre- and after-school children attending programs run by Community Action Marin, which leases space from the district at the Manzanita Learning Center in Marin City. Seventy-five of the children live in the district; the board's action means families of the remaining 50 will have to find programs elsewhere in Marin.
The learning center is being razed this fall to make way for construction of a new Martin Luther King Jr. Academy middle school. Prior to the board's action Wednesday, district officials had said they had virtually no space in which to house the programs, which include Head Start.
Gail Theller, executive director of Community Action Marin, a San Rafael-based social service agency, said Thursday the district is offering space in the existing MLK building, but the agency would have to spend $75,000 to bring the building's restrooms up to code - money, she said, the organization does not have.
Also being considered, she said, is classroom space at the Manzanita Recreation Center, across the street from the learning center. But, she said, that too would require a large sum of money for renovations.
"Everything involves money that we don't have," she said. "So we will have to look to outside sources."
Trustee President George Stratigos said Thursday construction of the new middle school will take two years, and it is during that time that housing the preschool programs is a problem.
Marin City parents have said that, because they work, they depend on the programs for child care and, without them, their children would have no place
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Community Action Marin officials have said that no one in the district would talk to them about finding a solution and, at a meeting last month, Theller chastised the board for not working with her agency.
Since then, however, both CAM and district officials have held several discussions that ended in the successful motion by Trustee Robert Fisher on Wednesday to find space for the children who reside in the district.
Left undecided is who will provide the programs.
Some trustees have said Community Action Marin has failed to adequately prepare students for the district's primary grades; agency officials have responded by pointing to favorable evaluations of the program by the state Department of Education.
Stratigos said the district is committed to preschool programs as an important piece of the trustees' plan to take Sausalito Marin City from the worst to the best in the county.
He said the district is spending $25,000 for "a study or audit by a third party unassociated with anyone in the county" of all preschool programs in Marin to help the board determine who should be handling the job for Sausalito-Marin City after completion of the new middle school.
"We want to educate ourselves to the preschool process," he said, adding that trustees were not ruling out the possibility the district itself would run a preschool program.
When MLK is finished, he said, the building now occupied by the middle school, as well as space in a new district office to be relocated from Sausalito to Marin City, will be "dedicated" to preschool programs.
Contact Don Speich via e-mail at dspeich@marinij.com