Child care providers face hiring, busing issues

Finding qualified employees for service industry jobs can be difficult in the Sahuarita/Green Valley area, where housing prices are high, but a company planning a large child care operation says it is confident it can do so. Others in the field agree it is not easy, but they feel comfortable with the staff they have attracted.

Transportation can be an issue for working parents who must stay at work when they need to have their children go from school to child care sites.

“Due to the quality of our programs and reputation hiring has not been a problem for us” in other locations, Tutor Time official Rick Sodja said.

“Tutor Time has an extensive training program that requires 70 hours of training prior to staff entering one of our facility. We then have staff mentor with other teachers in lab school prior to working in our facilities. It is unique to the industry,” said Sodja, who is chief executive officer with PDG America Shopping Centers /National Retail Development Partners.

Tutor Time hopes to break ground in the next 120 days on a site in the Madera Marketplace at Nogales Highway and Calle Arroyo Sur with room for 400 child care and preschool program slots for children from six weeks of age to 12 years.

Sodja said, “We have an exclusive partnership with Arizona’s Children Association, with New Directions Institute, their affiliate, to provide early brain development training to every staff member.”

Carol Webb, director of the Early Childhood Center operated by the Sahuarita Unified School District, said finding qualified staff locally can be difficult for service industry employers, adding “I’m very lucky here. They are well-paid and have [school] district amenities, such as health insurance and retirement benefits.

Webb said, “As far as losing my staff [to Tutor Time] I’m not concerned, but it is hard to find staff here.”

By 2009, Webb said, the state will require ECC staff to have more education because the program is part of a school district, noting “the catch is the state provides no funding for pre-school.”

That requirement will not apply to others in the area.

Webb said Shepherd’s Fold, Los Ninos del Valle and other local child care providers all meet monthly to improve services and she said she was eager to meet the Tutor Time staff.

“They’re going to take infants and after-schoolers, which is a great need here. It will be a great thing; parents will have that choice. I’m happier to see a place under license than a lot of the wildcat home providers, people taking in kids without any licensing or regulation,” Webb said.

Meanwhile, the need for more child care programs in the area was demonstrated last week when 42 of 45 fall after-school slots in Anamax Park were snapped up in about half a day, Town Recreation Center Coordinator Mario Orosco said. Complicating the child care issue at Anamax Park is the fact that buses run from the main Sahuarita campus, but not from Anza Trail School. Anza Trail School students may be better off signing up for programs at Sahuarita Park’s Joan Swetland Community Center east of town, which is on the bus route from that school.

Tutor Time services will include transportation, the company said in a press release.

Tutor Time rates will not be set until the grand opening. However, Tutor Time will be offering parents $100 discounts at the opening, Sodja said.

pfranchine@gvnews.com|547-9738