Yoon Urges Council to Save Child Care Positions
Offers Resolution to Restore Funding for Community Center Jobs

April 29, 2009

BOSTON – City Councilor at Large and mayoral candidate Sam Yoon will submit a resolution today with Councilor John Tobin that calls on the City to restore full funding for child care positions at nine community centers across Boston.

“If we are going to tackle the challenges facing our young people – at school and in the neighborhoods -then we must remain committed to preschool and afterschool programs in Boston’s community centers,” said Yoon. “The link between after school program participation and achievement becomes clearer every day. We cannot walk away from our responsibility to these programs now.

The positions were jeopardized because the City refused to apply for state funding for the child care workers this year. Instead, the community centers were told to rely on increased fees and private donations to keep the workers, who would no longer be city employees and would lose their union membership and benefits.

Some sites have applied for state funding on their own; others have not. The deadline to apply for funding is Thursday, April 30.

Yoon and Tobin also initiated a hearing of the City Council’s Committee on Education last week that addressed the City’s options for funding the positions.

Yoon said the community centers should not be left on their own to provide funding to keep the child care workers.

“The City is moving to privatize an integral part of our community centers,” said Yoon. “In this tough economy, we cannot use a sink-or-swim strategy for programs that – for many families -are the only affordable option for their children.”

The centers affected include the Ohrenberger Center (West Roxbury); the Roslindale Community Center; Curtis Hall and the Hennigan (Jamaica Plain); the Jackson Mann (Allston); the Kent (Charlestown); and the Marshall, the Murphy, and the Perkins (Dorchester).