Schools may partner on campus child care

College proposes paying for facility on PAUSD property

STANFORD — Stanford University officials are hoping a potential partnership with the Palo Alto school district and its nonprofit child care provider will help expand child care options on campus.

But some parents suggest Stanford is sacrificing small, quality children’s programs for quantity and should come up with a better plan.

The university announced last year it intends to close its Rainbow School for preschoolers and the Pepper Tree After School Program at Escondido Village at the end of the 201617 school year. The two programs serve about 20 students each.

Stanford plans to redevelop the Rainbow School and Pepper Tree site into a bigger facility for the Children’s Center of the Stanford Community, a nonprofit program for infant and preschool kids on Pampas Lane. Expansion of the Children’s Center will increase the number of families it serves from 144 to 225, officials say.

JeanMcCown,Stanford’s director of community relations, lauded the change, which she said will “significantly expand” capacity of the site. That’s ideal for the Children’s Center because of its proximity to Escondido Village, where many graduate student families live, she added.

Lisa Hummel, who taught at Rainbow School and Pepper Tree from 2011 to 2014, said the two programs are the closest equivalent to Stanford’s prestigious, innovative Bing Nursery School, attended by children of Silicon Valley’s elite.

“They’re closing the two centers that serve primarily undergraduate and graduate student families and that offer the services at a reduced cost,” said Hummel, a current graduate student.

Other programs are geared toward families of Stanford faculty or employees and do not have the same focus on the needs of graduate students, who often have to balance long work and research hours with time spent with their kids, and all on a limited budget, Hummel said.

Ernest Miranda, a Stanford spokesman, said the university is committed to making room for currently enrolled Rainbow School students at the Children’s Center.

“We greatly appreciate the love that exists for the Rainbow and Pepper Tree programs, and the decision to close them was not undertaken lightly,” Miranda said by email.

“We believe that expanding the CCSC is a strong statement of Stanford’s appreciation for high-quality child care,” Miranda continued. “CCSC and Rainbow School actually share fundamental characteristics as parent cooperatives with a strong focus on community and diversity.”

Miranda said Stanford’s child care system serves more than 700 families across seven centers and the university is “working on several fronts” to answer the critical demand.

A partnership with Palo Alto’s public school system could be the answer to finding replacement afterschool care for Pepper Tree families, Miranda said.

Stanford has offered a donation to the school district to fully pay for the purchase and installation of a 1,440-square-foot modular child care classroom, estimated to cost $412,500, at Escondido Elementary School.

Escondido, located across the street from Rainbow School and Pepper Tree, already has one modular classroom for a beforeand after-school program run by Palo Alto Community Child Care.

The nonprofit Palo Alto Community Child Care provides services for grade school-aged children at all school district campuses except for Nixon Elementary School, according to Bob Golton, bond program manager for the district.