ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, May 5, 1996 TAG: 9605060065
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: LESLIE TAYLOR STAFF WRITER
THE PROPORTION OF CHILDREN YOUNGER THAN 5 in organized child care facilities has jumped from 23 percent to reach an all-time high of 30 percent, the U.S. Census Bureau reports. And this is something to which the Country Bear Day School can attest.
Country Bear Day School opened the doors of its rustic red building in 1988.
In eight years, enrollment at the preschool in Southwest Roanoke County has quadrupled. Its quarters have been expanded - twice.
Growth could be the result of parents responding to an increased emphasis on preschool education, Executive Director Sandy Freeman said. Or more mothers recognizing they can balance career and family. Or simply one business succeeding in finding its niche.
But the preschool's growth exemplifies a national study that found a dramatic increase in the use of day care centers, nursery schools and preschools.
A new U.S. Census Bureau report - "Who's Minding Our Preschoolers?" - showed that the proportion of children younger than 5 who were cared for in organized child care facilities jumped from 23 percent in 1991 to an all-time high of 30 percent in 1993.
"This was the highest proportion of kids taken to organized child care facilities that we have ever seen for the years we have data," said Lynne Casper, the report's author and a demographer/statistician for the Census Bureau.
The reports have been compiled since 1977. The most current focused on the child care arrangements of working mothers.
Casper contends that the increase was a matter of economics.
"In 1993, people were more able to afford child care," she said. "More people were back working and working full time. Income went up, making it easier for people to afford day care."
Tony Williams, co-owner of Home Style Day Care Center in Salem, said the center's business does tend to follow the highs and lows of the area's job market.
"It seems that, as the job market improves, we get more kids," he said. "Mothers go out and start working. Or fathers upgrade their employment. As the economy starts to improve, then our business starts to improve a little bit."
Another contributor to the increased use of organized child care facilities may be the decline in the number of children cared for by family day care providers - defined in the Census Bureau report as a "nonrelative who cares for one or more unrelated children in his or her home."
People wanted a more structured environment with planned activities for their children, Casper said.
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, there appeared to be an increased desire for parents to get their children into educational settings at an earlier age, Williams said. The notion of keeping the child at home until he or she goes to kindergarten started to change during those years, he said. Day care centers are supplying that kind of educational setting, he said.
Ann Francis, director of Resources and Referral Services at Virginia Tech, which provides family support services in the New River area, said the agency has found that most families with infants tend to ask for family day care providers. As their children approach preschool age, parents tend to ask for more organized care, she said.
"Parents are recognizing that [child care] is not just a place to leave children during the day," Freeman, of Country Bear Day School, said. "A lot of parents are looking for good preschools to prepare their children."
Michael and Linda Harman's 4-year-old son has been at Country Bear since he was 11/2 years old.
"Probably initially the thought was to get him to separate from me, then to get him in a social situation where he would have friends," Linda Harman said. "He loves the interaction with other children."
Pam Kestner-Chappelear, associate executive director of Council of Community Services in Roanoke, found it difficult to draw any definitive conclusions from the Census Bureau report.
"I would want to see what other extenuating circumstances come into play that would impact that kind of response to [child care] centers," she said. "It needs to be compared with the number of people entering the work force. If there's an increase, then it might be just a matter of more people in the work force. And it would indicate a decrease in other arrangements."
The number of working women with children younger than 6 did increase from 1991 to 1993 - from 8,758,000 to 8,764,000, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. But that was not enough of an increase to account, in numbers alone, for the 7 percent rise in proportion of preschoolers in organized child care facilities whose mothers work.
Though the Census Bureau found that percentage increase the most significant of the report's findings, nearly half of children under 5 - 48 percent - were cared for by mothers, fathers, grandparents or other relatives.
An increase in births apparently was not a factor in the increased use of organized child care facilities. Fertility rates have remained fairly constant since the late 1980s, Casper said.
Other report highlights:
In 1993, there were 9.9 million children under age 5 who needed child care while their mothers were working.
Children in families receiving some kind of public assistance were more likely to be cared for by relatives than were children in families not receiving benefits.
In 1993, families in the South - including Virginia - were more likely to choose organized child care facilities and less likely to choose relatives as primary care providers for their preschoolers than in any other region in the country.
In Virginia, that finding may be a reflection of an increase in the number of child care centers. More children may be in organized child care facilities because there are more of them.
The number rose from 1,354 in 1991 to 1,604 in 1993. At the end of March this year, there were 2,788.
The Census Bureau study was conducted to help government agencies and policymakers determine how children are being cared for while their parents - particularly mothers - are at work.
"Before mothers entered the work force, there was no need for day care at all," Casper said. "Now, we need information to plan for how these kids are going to be taken care of. The huge increase meant that more kids were going to need day care. That trend shows no sign of abating."
LENGTH: Long : 123 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: ROGER HART/Staff. 1. Day-care toddlers sing a songby CNBbefore lunch at Country Bear Day School in Southwest Roanoke County,
where enrollment has been growing steadily since 1988. color. 2.
Preschoolers watch construction workers build new playground
equipment for the day care.