Restoration of State Child Care Program a Significant Victory for GPSS

The state Higher Education Coordinating Board's (HECB) Child Care Matching Grant program, which provides financial aid for students with children across the state and was suspended in an earlier legislative session, has been restored to previous funding levels with the Legislature's passage of the state budget Wednesday night.

The reconciliation budget bill included $75,000 a year in funding over two years for the program, which is awarded to four-year and community and technical colleges as grants to match existing campus childcare investments.

The reinstatement is an unlikely and significant development in a legislative session in which lawmakers were facing a $5.3 billion budget shortfall and cut funding to higher education by $535 million. The University of Washington's operating budget was cut 33 percent, or $209 million.

"It is an amazing advocacy accomplishment for a suspended program to have its funding reinstated, given this budget climate," said Ben Henry, Graduate & Professional Student Senate (GPSS) Vice President and Washington Student Association (WSA) legislative liaison. "As a result, hundreds of students with children across the state, including at UW, will see fewer barriers to completing their degrees."

WSA Executive Director Mike Bogatay says it's a "done deal," as Gov. Chris Gregoire will not be able to veto this particular budget line item. "The Governor can only line-item veto what is written in the budget," he said. "Since it was included in carry-forward funding and not written in as budget proviso, she doesn't have the authority to (veto) it."

GPSS and WSA spent much of this legislative session advocating for restoration of this program, proposing what became Senate Bill 5795, which would have created a funding mechanism for the program via unclaimed lottery prizes. The bill, sponsored by Senate Majority Leader Lisa Brown, would have funded the program at $250,000 a year.

"The Legislature did not fund Child Care Matching Grants at what we were asking for in the bill, but, given what we were up against this year, this was a huge victory for us," Henry said.

Said GPSS President Sarah Reyneveld: "The reinstatement of the program demonstrates that the state Legislature feels strongly that funding child care for student-parents is worth the investment, as it increases access and timeliness to degree completion."

Sam Shaddox, the student member of the HECB, says the program is "critical to maintaining educational opportunies for all Washington citizens, and this keeps the door open for more funding in the future. Each and every dollar this program receives goes toward maintaining accessibility to higher education for Washington's citizens. This is recognition by the Legislature that child-care funding is a barrier to higher education that has to be addressed."

While this program's reinstatement presents a win, it was a very rough session for graduate and professional student interests. Besides institutional funding cuts, funding for what had been the last remaining state financial aid program that benefits graduate students, State Work Study, was cut by $31 million, or 66 percent, to $16 million.

"While we are very saddened by this drastic reduction in funding and gutting of the program, GPSS considers the preservation of Work-Study as a victory, given the fact that the House originally proposed an outright suspension of the program," Henry said.

Other changes to the State Work Study program include increasing the required employer share of wages and discontinuing non-resident student eligibility for the program. Further, the HECB will adjust employer match rates and revise distribution methods to institutions by considering other factors such as off-campus job development, historical utilization trends, and student need.

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Past blog posts on childcare

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Past news coverage on this state program:

Daunting assignment: Students lobby against cuts to higher education

Seattle Times, March 15, 2011

Child Care funding bill stopped in state senate

The Daily, March 9, 2011

Child care bill would provide more aid for student-parents

The Daily, March 1, 2011

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Past news coverage on childcare on campus:

UW students bring kids to classes, seek child-care help
Seattle Times, May 9, 2011

Kids in the Quad
The Daily, May 5, 2011

New GPSS task force meets to discuss increase in resources on campus for student-parents
The Daily, January 31, 2011

The cost of care
The Daily, October 5, 2010

Student-parents concerned with campus resources
The Daily, September 29, 2010

Helping Students With Children Is About Opportunity and a Better Society

I wanted to share my response to a misinformed column that was published in The Daily last week, "Child care is not the UW’s responsibility" (May 19, 2011).

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By Ben Henry

Many years ago, an ambitious and talented college student was pursuing his dream of becoming a journalist. He had experience as a sports broadcaster and a knack for the gab, and many believed he had a bright future ahead of him.

But he would never get a shot at realizing his lifelong ambition. Alas, fatherhood beckoned, and he did what made the most sense to him at the time, dropping out of school to provide for his family.

That man, my father, went on to become a cab driver — an honorable profession, but not exactly the stuff dreams are made of. We led a difficult life, scrambling, on a seemingly month-to-month basis, to make rent.

For my father, his dream died with the birth of his son. But it didn’t have to be that way.

As a parent and public policy student at the University of Washington, I have had the opportunity to experience first-hand what UW does well and not so well for students with children. Like my father, I, too, have faced difficult choices. I am finishing a master’s degree while trying to raise my 2-year-old son, Jack, in a time when tuition and cost of living are exponentially greater than when parenthood unceremoniously claimed my father as a college dropout.

The Graduate & Professional Student Senate (GPSS), which has advocated for student-parents for many years, has been a leader in determining the unmet needs and telling the stories of this underserved population, through our Students With Children Awareness Day on May 9 and the Students With Children Census.

Through our efforts, we have found student-parents who are strung-out, desperate and barely surviving. We have encountered students who are walking an incredibly tight line between being able to pursue their dreams and having to drop out. These are students who are a baby’s sneeze away from having to miss an important exam, and must face the cold, hard reality that they aren’t spending the kind of time with their children that they so greatly desire.

It is for these parents that we are saddened by the shockingly uninformed rantings of columnist Peter Sessum ("Child care is not the UW’s responsibility," May 19). Mr. Sessum claims that “there is no secret part of being a student with a child that the rest of the campus needs to recognize.” Clearly, the despair that student-parents face are a secret to him, which is precisely why awareness needs to be generated.

Don’t just take my word for it.

"Most days when I am alone, I am crying from the stress,” says one undergraduate Business Administration student. “I consider quitting every few days. I have tons of guilt for not spending enough time with my kids, and for always being cranky and tired from studying all night. I feel like I am swimming upstream without an arm or leg."

One graduate Public Affairs student says she feels she is failing as a student and a mother.

“These feelings are cemented when advisors ask me how I feel about ‘underperforming in grad school,’” she said. “These feelings are cemented when I have to choose between going to class and nursing my sick infant. These feelings are cemented when I struggle to find the time to write my degree project when my son is buzzing around me in all his 2-year-old fury. The past two years have been a constant struggle, a constant feeling of failure, and the recurring relief of finding out I have just barely passed quantitative analysis or some other class.”

For most, parenthood significantly delays their graduation and impacts their academic performance. A preliminary analysis of the GPSS-sponsored census finds that 71 percent of all survey participants say parenthood will delay their graduation. Meanwhile, 63 percent say parenthood has a “moderate” or “significant” impact on their academic performance.

Readers who are not parents may ask, Why should I care? Why is it important for the greater University community to be aware of the challenges students with children face?

The fact is, parents on this campus have been marginalized and made to feel like they have committed some kind of crime just for having a child. This manifests when some professors are unsympathetic when a student must stay home because their child is sick. Or when students are called "bad parents" by people like Mr. Sessum for having the courage, for one simple day, to come to campus with their little ones in tow to proudly declare to the university community that, yes, I am a mother, I am a father, and I am not ashamed to say it.

A lack of affordable childcare is the third greatest barrier to degree completion, and mitigating those barriers increases the likelihood that parents — and their children — become productive members of society.

Is it not in taxpayers' interests to give low-income parents who aspire to earn a degree a path to their dreams, providing them with an option beyond social services? Give a parent a fish, and they will feed their child for a day. Teach a parent to fish, and they will not only eat for a lifetime, but they will teach their children, as well.

Student-parents are not asking for a hand-out. We are merely asking that it be just a little bit easier to acquire some fishing line.

Senate Budget Restores Work Study, Cuts 34% of UW Budget

Last Wednesday night, the Senate finally released its budget proposal. Now all three major parties — the Governor, the House, and the Senate — have offered their visions for how to deal with the $5.1 billion budget shortfall the state is facing this session.

SENATE PROPOSES 34% CUT TO UW OPERATING BUDGET

Cuts to UW’s operating budget results in higher tuition; decreased ability to solicit federal research dollars; fewer assistantship opportunities, larger class sizes, and increased assistantship workloads; expanding already-overwhelming debt burdens; and the prospect that world-class programs may be consolidated or even eliminated.

The Senate budget is nearly on par with House on bottom line numbers ... they're "equally bad," as UW Director of State Relations Margaret Shepherd puts it. However, the Senate assumes furloughs that pushes cuts higher than the House cut.

The Senate assumes a 16% increase in annual undergraduate tuition to make up for budget cuts. The House assumed 13% across all categories. However, the House assumes across-the-board tuition increases, including graduate and non-resident tuition, which UW would not be able to implement. So, in practice, the House overestimates tuition revenue, and we're more likely to see what would amount to a 16% tuition increase for undergrads in the House proposal.

Comparisons of the institutional cut, including compensation reductions and furloughs (which the institution must absorb), can be seen in the chart at right.

Note that the House budget doesn't mandate furloughs, which pretty much accounts for the difference between the House and Senate. The net cut (taking into account tuition increases) to UW is 5% for both budgets.

FINANCIAL AID: SENATE SAVES STATE WORK STUDY, BUT STILL CUTS IT IN HALF

Unlike the House, which proposed outright elimination of all funding, the Senate preserves the State Work Study (SWS) program, but assumes greater employer contribution and excludes non-residents. SWS funding is reduced by $23.72 million, about half of the budget (currently funded at $45 million for the biennium). GPSS dislikes all three proposals, but prefer the Governor's $21.3 million cut, which is $2.42 million, or about 11%, less than the Senate's.

So, we are relieved that the Senate is not proposing the END OF FINANCIAL AID FOR GRADUATE STUDENTS, but the program will very likely be taking a huge hit, one way or another.


FINANCIAL AID: CHILDCARE PROGRAM SUSPENDED

Finally, we are disappointed that our proposal to use unclaimed lottery winnings to help fund the CCMG program was not included in the budget. Because this program will be suspended, hundreds of parents at four-year institutions and CTCs will take longer to graduate and join the workforce. We urge the Legislature in budget negotiations going forward to mitigate what is the third greatest barrier to degree completion, childcare.


TESTIMONY AT SENATE WAYS & MEANS

GPSS and several other students testified at Wednesday's Ways & Means hearing. Here is GPSS Policy Analyst Lauren Hipp, representing GPSS:



ASUW students:



Margaret Shepherd, UW Director of State Relations: “You get something from the University of Washington whether you go there or not.”



David Parsons, UAW Local 4121 President: "Impacting competitiveness to attract the best and the brightest for TAs and RAs"



Mike Bogatay, Washington Student Association Executive Director:




The Daily: ‘Senate takes slightly deeper cuts’ with released budget

The Bill Is Dead. But the Idea Is Still Very Much Alive.

So SB 5795, which enables student-parents to earn their degrees through reinstating the Childcare Matching Grant program, died today when it failed to get a floor vote by the 5 p.m. deadline.

Senator Brown, the bill's prime sponsor and a champion of students and childcare issues, has vowed to pursue making this a part of the big omnibus budget bill. The bill may be dead, but the idea lives on.

The bill had made it out of the Senate Ways & Means and Rules committees. It was eligible for a floor vote as of yesterday morning. But because the cut-off for bills to leave their chamber of origin was at 5, and because it didn't get a vote until then, the bill in effect died at 5 p.m.

It was quite the interesting day. We learned that the bill had opposition, so there wasn't going to be a floor vote. There was one especially influential member of the opposition, so we mobilized to influence him. And it actually worked.

At first he very much opposed it, making arguments against it. He was saying we should fully fund State Need Grant before funding a "new program." We eventually explained that is wasn't a "new program" but this bill restores funding to a suspended program. We also explained that this is financial aid and a way to help students during a session that is very unfriendly to students.

By the time we spoke to him the third time, he finally said, "I'm not against it, talk to Democratic leadership. Look how I voted in committee!" (He voted for it in Senate Ways & Means.)

So we finally got him and I ran to write Senator Brown a note. However, by then it was too late. It was 4 p.m., and the deadline to hear bills was 5 p.m., and there were still a million bills ahead of this one. I think if we had another day we could have gotten it.

But I will say I am proud that we can say we got this bill out of TWO committees and a breath away from a floor vote. We got this bill moving pretty late in the process. And thanks to Senator Brown's support, we at least got the conversation moving on this issue.

There is still a lot more work to be done, and I will be calling upon students to make your voices heard when the timing is right.


UPDATE: The Daily's coverage: http://dailyuw.com/2011/3/9/child-care-funding-bill-stopped-state-senate/

Childcare Bill Passes Senate Ways & Means

We got the votes! 19-2! SB 5795 is now in Rules, and we'll be working to get it pulled for a floor vote.

Here's a good account of the bill and where it's at:
http://dailyuw.com/2011/3/1/child-care-bill-would-provide-more-aid-student-par/

Do We Have the Votes?

Looks like I just might have the votes to get this bill (SB 5795) out of committee. Gonna stay late and try to get a couple more, just in case. In the meantime, a beautiful look at the snowy dome.

GPSS to Senate: Childcare Bill Is Sound Fiscal Policy

So we made our case to Senate Ways & Means yesterday afternoon. I testified, along with Shiboney Dumo, UW's Student Parent Organization President.

The last day this bill can be voted out of committee is tomorrow (Friday, Feb. 25). I will be working hard to get the votes. I'll provide an update on whether this bill gets exec'd out.

Also, we need students to help, and time is of the essence! Here's how to help:
http://www.gpss.washington.edu/content/child-care-bill-needs-your-help

And here's what happened at the hearing:

GPSS testimony:


Testimony of Shiboney Dumo, UW's Student Parent Organization President:


Entire hearing on SB 5795:

These are our arguments:

No Impact to General Fund: Senate Bill 5795 creates a funding mechanism for an existing program that will enable student-parents to get their degrees. The funding source is the portion of unclaimed lottery winnings that goes to funding more lottery prizes. This bill does not impact the general fund, and Washington State Lottery has said the impact to them is “minimal.”

The question is simple: Would you rather pay for more lottery prizes, or enhancing educational outcomes for non-traditional students?

Produces Degrees: With much talk this session about funding on outcomes and not inputs (focusing on degree production rather than enrollment), SB 5795 will address Washington’s shortage in degree production and mitigate the third greatest barrier to degree completion, childcare.

Here is the perspective of UW graduate student Jessica Burg:

“I often feel as if I am failing in both my role as a student as more importantly failing in my role as a mother. These feelings are cemented when advisors ask me how I feel about ‘underperforming in grad school.’ These feelings are cemented when I have to choose between going to class and nursing my sick infant. These feelings are cemented when I struggle to find the time to write my degree project when my son is buzzing around me in all his two-year-old fury. The past two years have been a constant struggle, a constant feeling of failure, and the recurring relief of finding out I have just barely passed quantitative analysis or some other class.”

Moves Focus Away From Social Services: If you are a low-income parent with no degree, you have some choices. You can turn to social services. Or, you can pursue a degree, start a career, and enter the workforce. Give someone a fish, they eat for a day; teach them to fish, and they eat for a lifetime. SB 5795 incentivizes the path to self sufficiency.

Eligibility to All Public Schools: Everyone on this committee has at least one community college in your district. Some of you have four or five. We are proposing an amendment that would open up eligibility for these grants to community and technical colleges. This would make all public colleges and universities in this state eligible.

A Way to Support Students in Tough Fiscal Times: In a session where students are taking on a disproportionally greater burden in budget cuts that degrade quality and increase tuition, this would be a small way to give something to students, who are even seeing financial aid get cut. This is something that students are asking for, and that students have prioritized. Do not allow yet another financial aid program to be suspended.

5795 is sound policy that is basically cost-neutral, with a dedicated funding source, that will have a significant impact on student-parents. The Washington Student Association requests moving 5795 out of committee with a due-pass recommendation.

Childcare Bill Hearing Takes Place Wednesday, 2/23

So the good news is SB 5795 has been scheduled for a hearing at Senate Ways & Means. The bad news is this agenda is JAMMED PACKED with hearings on 25 bills. Yikes.

Because of the time constraints, we won't be able to give it as much of a treatment as we could have. But we will still do everything we can to make our best case.

The hearing is coming up very quickly. It'll be Wednesday at 1:30. We're 12th on the agenda, so we'll probably end up somewhere in the second half of the hearing.

I will be working hard to lobby members and get the votes. I will need everyone's help in spreading the word. Below is an email we've been sending out to campus student-parent stakeholders.

Let's do this!!!

Ben

Dear Student-Parent,

Sen. Lisa Brown will be sponsoring a GPSS-requested bill SB 5795 Higher Education Child Care Grants, that proposes to reinstate and increase funding for the Child Care Matching Grant Program.

The bill has been giving a public hearing in the Senate on Wednesday, Feb. 23. We need you to show up to Olympia and show that student-parents are DEMANDING this. If you cannot make it, please write a letter supporting this bill.

We are looking for student-parents to volunteer to:

• Share their stories and experience as a student-parent, and how being a parents makes it difficult for you to attain your degrees
• Testify in support of this bill
• Recruit other student-parents to participate
• If you are interested, please contact Lauren Hipp at gpsspol@uw.edu by Tuesday, Feb. 22. If you are writing a letter, please email it to that address.

Thank you so much for all of your support during this process!  With your help, we can restore the essential state support for student-parents.

More details about the bill: http://gpss2011.blogspot.com/2011/02/gpss-backed-bill-helps-student-parents.html

Sincerely,

Ben Henry
Vice President
UW Graduate & Professional Student Senate

GPSS-Backed Bill Helps Student-Parents

For some students, simply surviving on your own with meager resources can be a challenge. Now imagine trying to raise a child, while going to school and, in many cases, holding down a job.

The state's Childcare Matching Grant incentivizes low-income, nontraditional students to pursue higher education, offering a means to get out of their low-income situation and positively impact the state economy. However, current budget proposals would continue the suspension of one of the few programs that exists that benefit graduate and professional students.

GPSS has advocated for the restoration of this program. And so, GPSS proudly presents Senate Bill 5795, "Regarding funding higher education child care grants." (Pic of me dropping bill off in the hopper at right.)

This bill, whose prime sponsor is Senate Majority Leader Sen. Lisa Brown, re-directs money from unclaimed prize funds at the Lottery to match some of the dollars spent from student Services & Activities fees, enhancing existing child care programs for student-parents at four-year universities and community and technical colleges. SB 5795 is a way to specifically address the third highest barrier to timely completion of degree work at our campuses, childcare.

This bill would be a small partial match to the approximately $2 million already being spent on campuses using student fees to fund educational attainment for student-parents. Students have prioritized investing in student-parents. It’s time for the state to do the same.

The bill has 10 co-sponsors, including Sen. Brown, Ways & Means Chair Sen. Ed Murray, and Vice Chair Sen. Derek Kilmer. Also co-sponsoring is Sen. Jeanne Kohl-Welles, whose bill originally created the Childcare Matching Grants Program.

If you would like to know more about the bill, what it does, and the program it impacts, click here for a one-sheeter.

MOVING FORWARD: The bill will be given a hearing in the coming weeks. We will need to present an airtight case on the need for and importance of this program.

In support of this bill, we need to pack our testimony full of student-parents who are willing to share their stories and support this bill. Will YOU get involved?

We are looking for student-parents to volunteer to:

• Share their stories and experience as a student-parent
• Testify in support of this bill
• Recruit other student-parents to participate

If you are interested, please contact Lauren Hipp at gpsspol@uw.edu by Friday, Feb. 18.

With your help, we can restore the essential state support for student-parents.