Day care spaces are in high demand in the city of Toronto. In fact, it seems there are never enough spaces. So it is not surprising there are already 250 families on the waiting list at the newly opened Early Learning Centre on Glen Morris Street.
That might explain why parent and U of T employee, Laurel Williams, called five or six daycares, including the ELC, immediately after she found out she was pregnant.
“I called the daycares before I told my parents I was pregnant!” said Williams.
Eventually she was offered space at two other centres, but she held out for the ELC.
“When I couldn’t get through on the phone I went in,” she says. “The day it opened I camped out in the lobby and asked when we’d get in and where we were on the waiting list,” she recalled.
That extremely early call paid off. They were close to the top of the list. She only waited for two weeks before her 12-month-old son, Ronin, was enrolled.
Williams, a computer programmer at Robart’s Library, says she was “really, really lucky” to get a space there. She pays $1,200 a month for Ronin’s space without subsidy.
Director Fran Dobbin says 60 per cent of parents who use the centre are students and 40 per cent work at the university. Most of the student parents are graduate students.
Graduate student Jane Edward didn’t need luck to get her four-year-old daughter, Bawila Idris, in to the ELC. She was one of the many student parents using Nancy’s Part-time Childcare-one of the two daycares that merged into the new centre. (The other is the Margaret Fletcher Day Care Centre.)
The ELC offers about one quarter of its space to parents who only need part-time care.
Edward echoes what every parent and, for that matter, those who work in the building say: “It’s just beautiful!”
The interior is flooded with natural light. The design is somewhat reminiscent of an Escher painting. The building’s layered and transparent design makes it feel as if every space is utilized and connected. Even the basement will be utilized. Susan Addario, director of Student Affairs, says they hope to open an after-hours family resource centre in the basement by Thanksgiving.
It will be supervised by a half-time coordinator and used by families in the university community that may not have access to licensed daycare-those who are on a wait list or students taking night courses for example. “It will be a place for parents to network,” says Addario. They will offer parenting workshops, kitchen facilities, a library and possibly even babysitting referrals.
Dobbin says even though they have physical space for 102 children they will cap enrollment at 96 to allow for flexibility and movement-the kind of flexibility student parents might need.
The university-owned ELC currently employs 17 full-time Early Childhood educators (many of whom hold degrees as well as their required ECE diplomas) and five part-time ECE assistants. There are also three managers, a full-time cook and one housekeeper. “We’re still staffing,” Dobbin says.
There are already 58 preschool and junior kindergarten aged children enrolled along with 19 infants and toddlers. Toddlers and infants will fill the remaining spaces.
The main floor is for younger children. Just beyond the entrance and security guard is a sunken “multi-purpose area” which, Dobbin says, “is perfect for saying goodbye.” A long ramp invites older children to run upstairs, where a big black walnut tree is close enough that the central multi-purpose area upstairs feels a like a tree fort.
“Play pits” and lofts create the feeling of rooms within rooms. Long and short rectangular windows are littered throughout the interior, allowing children to see other children upstairs and down. These windows will also be useful for researchers.
The centre also has integrated indoor-outdoor classrooms and even an indoor-outdoor toilet. Dobbin explains how useful it will be. When a staff member needs to go, or need to escort a child, the required teacher-to-child ratio can become skewed, she says. This toilet-with a sliding door leading into a toddler room on one side and a door covered in milky glass opening onto an outdoor deck-makes it possible for staff to stay within the eye and earshot of the children.
It is also going to be very useful in winter, Dobbin says and smiles. “You know, when you get them all bundled up in snow pants and boots and the rest and take them outside and then they say ‘I have to go pee.'”
