New SMC program helps guide students toward teaching career
SMC For high school students looking to work with young children, the career path just got a lot easier to navigate.
Santa Monica College received a $1.2 million bump in its efforts to attract students into the early childhood education (ECE) field, an industry that experts say has dealt with issues of recruitment and retention due to low pay and the ambiguity in going about pursuing such a career.
The grant — awarded by the Los Angeles Universal Preschool (LAUP) last month — helps SMC jumpstart its new Early Start Pathway program, which allows high school students interested in an ECE job to start their college education a couple of years early.
A collaborative effort with the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District and California State University Dominguez Hills, the Early Start Pathway program puts high school juniors and seniors on a track toward a career in early childhood education, keeping the students’ eye on the prize from the beginning of the program to when they graduate with a bachelor’s degree — called the “two-plus-two-plus-two” formula.
Starting in February, about 25 juniors and seniors from Santa Monica High School will take a preparatory course in early childhood education at SMC after school, taking one or two college classes every semester until they graduate from high school, after which point they will enroll at SMC as a college student. After spending two years at SMC, the students in the program will then move on to California State University Dominguez Hills where they will eventually graduate with a bachelor’s degree in early childhood education.
The intent is to boost recruitment in an area struggling to keep its existing players interested, a field plagued by a disrespected reputation and low salaries.
“Unfortunately, people view this very important field as baby-sitting and it’s not — it’s far from it,” said Laura Manson, the chair of the college’s Early Childhood Education Department.
A 2004 study by the University of California’s Institute of Industrial Relations found that early care and education teachers in California made anywhere from approximately $9 to $19 an hour, depending on whether the provider is privately or publicly operated. The data is based on reports by the Bureau of Labor Statistics in 2000.
The inability to offer a competitive salary has long been an issue for many childcare providers and that extends to Santa Monica. St. Joseph’s Early Learning Center on Ashland Avenue has specifically had problems attracting and retaining male employees.
“The main reason we don’t have that many male teachers is because the pay is so low,” said Dina Brevdo, program director for St. Joseph’s. “Usually, male figures are the provider in the home and can’t provide for families so they have to find another job or work two jobs.”
The fatigue from battling two jobs can impact their work on the job site because they could get frustrated by the kids, Brevdo added.
But part of the problem can be attributed to the lack of a clear-cut defined path to attaining a career in childcare, according to Dr. Randi Wolfe, the director of workforce development at LAUP.
“If you want to be a second-grade teacher, you go to school, get a B.A. and go and get a job,” Wolfe said. “If you want to work with young children... there’s not a set system.
“Part of the difficulty with people navigating the complex and confusing system is to figure out what qualifications you need and how to best get those qualifications,” she added.
SMC was among six colleges that received a combined $2.4 million in grants to promote access and retention in early childhood education programs, the other institutions being Long Beach City College, Cal Poly Pomona, East Los Angeles College, Pierce College and Los Angeles Valley College.
LAUP mandates that each grantee is required to work with a feeder high school and a four-year university. The three-year grant will be issued in three installments of $400,000 a year.
SMC was chosen because of its track record of maintaining strong relationships with the local high school and four-year colleges, as well as for its established early childhood education program, Wolfe said.
For SMC, the grant signals a hope for great things to come for early childhood education.
“We’re hoping to tap into the students’ natural desire to teach,” Manson said.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on January 3, 2008. Read the original PDF.