A Big Day at Harbor College

New Child Development Center completes a welcome change

December 17 was an emotional day for Karen Crummer, a day she had long dreamed of, but had doubts she'd ever see.

It was dedication day for the new Child Development Center at Los Angeles Harbor College.

As director of that center, Crummer knew all too well the desperate need for the project, the hardships it would alleviate and the rewards it could generate.

She has been at the campus for 33 years, and lived through the bungalow and trailer days when children were crowded into shabby surroundings. But she also has reaped the joy of seeing some of those children grow up and return to the center with youngsters of their own.

“So that makes us grandmas here as well,” Crummer said. “Nothing gives us more pleasure than to have our students return years later and tell us of their success and the successes of their children.”

“Seeing this center open makes this one of the biggest days of my life.”

The new facility, built in 18 months at a cost of $8 million, encompasses 17,000 square feet and is part of the Los Angeles Community College District's Sustainable Building Program. It has a child-care side and an academic side for Harbor's child development students. The two areas will be linked via observation rooms.

“Those rooms will have one-way, see-through windows,” Crummer said, “so that students can observe what they are being taught in class. When they are told about the terrible twos, the students can look through the window and see it in action.”

The new center also has a play area with a bike path for the children and a kitchen to prepare hot meals.

It is a radical, but welcome, change from those old facilities.

“We thought the shelf life of that first bungalow was about 10 years,” Crummer said, “but it was with us for 33 years, even though we had to keep it together with band-aids. It leaked, the walls were peeling and there were horrendous plumbing problems. So I think I’m more excited than anyone to see the new building.”

She had her doubts that she ever would.

Crummer would chide the developers, who promised construction would be completed, with remarks like, “What year? In my lifetime?”

Crummer is not alone in being thrilled to see the center open.

Leticia Escarrega, a criminal justice major, has been at the college for two years because it has provided a haven for her four-year-old son, Israel.

“Without this center, I would probably not be here,” Escarrega said. “I would be home or I would be working. Without day care, who is going to watch my son while I’m in school?”

“This center has motivated me to come here and learn because I know my son is safe, with good teachers who are working with him on reading and speaking English. And it helps me mentally that I can go see him between classes.”

Yolanda Aguirre is another Harbor College student taking advantage of the child development center. A nursing major, she has had her son Joseph, 4, and daughter Daniela, 3, in the program for the last year and a half.

“Now I really don't have an excuse for not coming to school and achieving my goal,” she said. “With the hours the child center is open, I can even do my homework here.”

Up to now, the child-care program could accommodate 40 to 60 children, ages 2 1/2 to 5, according to Abbie Patterson, vice president, student services at the college. That number, she said, could now jump to 100.

“We are also hoping,” she said, “to have a program to serve evening students. And we are talking about doing a program for elementary-school students, latch-key kids.”

“The availability of affordable, quality child care all over the country is really, really a challenge,” Georgia Mercer, vice president of the LACCD Board of Trustees, told the crowd gathered for the dedication. “I imagine you are going to have waiting lists a mile long here.”

“It's not rocket science. The first years of a child's life are very important,” Mercer said. “The investment we make as a society in our young children is so much better than [to use the money] to build prisons. We don’t need any more data, any more evidence to know this is the place to invest.”