Parents, teachers rally to stop proposed cuts, layoff at OCC Children’s Center
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A beloved Orange Coast College children’s center — where the care and instruction of infants, toddlers and preschoolers is rooted in play and tykes can tend to a garden or pet live animals — has recently become the scene of a battleground.
That’s where parents and teachers are squaring off against proposed program cuts that would eliminate more than half of the Costa Mesa center’s offerings and force the relocation or layoff of staff members, many who’ve worked there for decades.
Officials who oversee the Harry and Grace Steele Children’s Center announced the impending reductions, tentatively slated to take effect on July 1, in a Feb. 21 email to staff. They maintain years of budgetary shortfalls requiring the annual outlay of more than $500,000 to the program led to need for the reorganization.
Madjid Nourimand, OCC’s vice president of student services, said the center was initially created as a childcare option for community college students with small children. But as trends changed and the number of student-parents dwindled, enrollment widened to include children of faculty members and the broader community.
But that model is no longer working as expenses outpace revenue, Niroumand said in an interview Thursday. While the projected expenses for the 2024-25 academic year are forecast at nearly $2 million, officials anticipate revenues of just $1.37 million.
The proposal to segue from five classes to just two — eliminating the center’s infant, toddler and young preschool cohorts and leaving just two preschool classrooms for kids aged 3 to 5 — could possibly involve layoffs within the 14-member staff and force community parents to find other providers.
“The college has looked at various sources to see how we could continue the program. But looking at our financial structure overall, we want to take it in the direction that is true to our mission of supporting students,” Niroumand said Thursday.
“Reducing some of these services would get us to that goal of being fiscally responsible and to ensuring our students can be supported.”
But a contingent of parents and teachers who’ve been protesting the changes take a different view. Appearing at collegiate meetings and events as part of a “Steele the School Back” campaign, they blame years of mismanagement for the budgetary shortfall.
Newport Beach mom Courtney Prouty, who authored a change.org petition that had as of Friday garnered 2,266 signatures, has a 3-year-old son enrolled at the children’s center and graduated two twins, now 6, from the program.
The school’s stellar reputation as a place where high-quality instructors stay for 20 years or more inspired the Prouty family to add the twins’ names to a long waitlist when they were just 4 months old. It took two years to get to the top.
“It’s a really well-known program. They’ve got tons of outdoor space, and a lot of their instruction takes place outside,” she said Thursday. “You walk into the place and you’re like, ‘I want to be a kid here.’”
Things were pretty much humming along until parents like Prouty got the Feb. 21 email describing the cuts. They started talking with teachers and digging into a history of what they describe as poor decisions made by school officials, including a former center director who was placed on administrative leave prior to leaving OCC in August 2021.
Prouty and others learned the Harry and Grace Steele Children’s Center had for years kept student-to-teacher ratios low enough to maintain Title V grant funding, a pool of federal money available for maternal and child-related programs.
Under former director Patricia Mendoza, the employee placed on leave, the center relinquished that federal designation, instead remaining compliant with California’s less strict Title 22. The move allowed for more children per classroom without the need for more instructors but also caused an annual loss of up to $500,000 in Title V funding, according to Prouty.
“Through that transition the ratio changed. By doing this, [Mendoza] was officially taking away the funds that had sustained the center,” she said. “Nobody in their right mind who runs a child educational center would have given away that Title V status. This is how we’ve gotten here.”
One children’s center instructor, who asked to be identified only as “Susie” out of fear of retaliation, said while staff knew about budgetary slump going back to the COVID-19 pandemic, she was shocked by last week’s announcement.
“We were blindsided,” she said. “Are they trying to get rid of us? Are they trying to phase us out? Eight of us are going to lose their positions with the possibility of reassignment, but if there’s no job they’re a good fit for, then at the end of June we’ll get a layoff notice.”
She and others speculate whether officials are angling to privatize the facility, a strategy undertaken at OCC’s Recycling Center and campus bookstore. The latter, along with the 323-unit campus housing complex the Harbour, also run by a private leasing company, fall within Niroumand’s purview.
Niroumand on Thursday acknowledged the center’s shift away from Title V to Title 22 resulted in some lost grant funding but allowed for more flexibility and fewer restrictions regarding student-teacher ratios. He also recognized the reduction could possibly lead to layoffs but said human resources staff would work to relocate excess employees to other positions on campus.
Niroumand maintained there was currently no active plan to privatize the center, simply a desire to pare down its offerings to its original intended recipients — students and faculty.
“There are no plans at this time. But in the future, we may explore what’s possible, what’s viable,” he said. “Again, the primary focus will be how any plans in the future will best serve the students.”
Costa Mesa mom Carly Bower, who has two daughters enrolled at the center and a 1-year-old son on the waitlist, said Wednesday parents are mobilizing to come up with ways they might help keep the site and its offerings intact, through fundraisers, special events and classes.
“To be honest, we’d be willing to pay more,” she said. “If the facility is at a deficit, I think most parents would agree to up the tuition. All the teachers there treat the children like their own family. You look forward to taking your children there.”
Parents and teachers attended a State of the District event Thursday hosted by Coast Community College District, the governing body that oversees Orange Coast College, to grow support for their campaign.
They will turn out for a CCCD Board meeting next Wednesday, although the matter is not officially on the agenda, and a March 10 special meeting announced Thursday, where the center and its future will be up for discussion.
“Susie” is hopeful someone higher up will hear their pleas and consider their ideas for how the Harry and Grace Steele Children’s Center, a treasured resource, may yet be saved.
“We’re not just babysitters,” she said. “We are potty training and teaching them to read and write. We’re teaching them self-held skills and how to take care of their belongings and to talk to one another and to listen. We’re growing humans here, good humans, and we are really feeling that we are not valued at all.”
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