| It was probably the same scene as it was back in 1982 when Joyce Boggess took over the reins of the Early Childhood Learning Centers (ECLC) in Madison. It's graduation time for the pre-schoolers who will be going on to kindergarten. Boggess is still working with the six of 11 students who will attend the graduation ceremony. She is teaching them in a room covered with historical memorabilia a song that has been sung at most of the center's graduations. Boggess is a little hyper -- she always has an air of being hyper about her as if her mind is working faster than her body will allow -- as she moves from student to student to teach them the song. It is a bittersweet moment for Boggess. Earlier this year, she thought it would be her last graduation before she stepped down from this part of her life's mission to improve the prospects for children in the Madison area. But Boggess is such a stickler for the welfare of the children that she won't sell the Hughes Place center on Madison's south side to just anyone with cash in hand. The new owner is going to have to be about something and share the same spiritual educational mission that Boggess has. If need be, Boggess is prepared to continue her mission for another year until that special someone comes along. Boggess' mission has always been to provide quality day care to just about any child who walks through ECLC's door with an adult. Not every child has had his or her tuition paid 100 percent by their parent or guardian. This hasn't exactly made ECLC a lucrative proposition. But Boggess has been firm in her commitment to see that every child has a place./Boggess talked about one parent whose work schedule did not fit into the regulations for subsidized day care. Boggess took her child in on a contingency basis while everything was worked out. "Well when she got it straightened out, she had been there for a month and they were only paying 15 hours per week for her when I thought it was 30 hours. So now, she owes us thousands of dollars and no one is going to pay for it. She has two kids. She'll give me $20 sometimes and I'll ask her if she is going hungry because she is paying me. You can't take people to court and tell them not to pay their utility bills and pay their day care center and kick them out." It also hasn't been lucrative because Boggess' ideas on the staff to child ratio have been different than the minimum ratio that the state has decided on -- and has funded slots accordingly. "The ratio for infant care is 4:1," Boggess said. "2.5-3 years is 6:1. 3-4 year olds is 8:1 and then 4-5 is 13:1. And supposedly, the ratio for after schoolers is 17:1. We have to have at least 3 staff people for 17 children because of the need. If our doors are open to high needs children, the ratio can not be those ratios. For children 5 years old and over, we have to double whatever the ratio is in terms of teachers per students. It's almost 1:1 for some of our students. So that's the economic part of it." Boggess lives frugally, which has allowed her to run the center the way that she felt it ought to be run. The buck has always stopped with Boggess and that means she has had to sit on some of her paychecks -- sometimes permanently -- in order to keep the center financially viable. And Boggess isn't the only person with the commitment to the children who works at ECLC. The staff has also had that little something. "My staff and I were sitting around talking at a staff meeting," Boggess recalled. "It was the end of the year. From 6 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., day after day, we have 25 very, very active, very high-need children ages 5-12 at our facility. It is a hard job. I challenge anyone to try that for a week, let alone for 15 years. My average staff person has been here for 15 years, day in and day out. Being in that classroom day after day after day is really a hard job. So one of my staff people said "It's not the money. You can never get paid enough to do this kind of work. There isn't enough money to pay me if I didn't want to do the work." If you don't love the job, there isn't enough money." In Boggess' view, it isn't about the job and it isn't about the money. It's about the children. And if someone comes into day care purely as a means to make money, it will come out as a negative in the end. "It's about the love because it isn't about the money," Boggess emphasized. "Anyone who would get rich in day care is either illegal or immoral from my perspective. I have no clue in how you can get rich because the immoral part comes in when the parent says 'I'm sorry, but I can't afford it," and they are turned away. If there is any way on earth to keep that from happening, you should do it. I don't look upon it as a good business practice, but again, it is illegal or immoral to kick them out. I think the illegal part comes when they just pack kids in." Boggess began to realize that this phase of her mission was coming to an end when she pulled a hamstring muscle running after a child down Hughes Place. And she has been looking for that special someone to take the reins. "It's not interest in buying the center that I am interested in," Boggess reflected. "I'm not interested in people buying. I could sell it to the city. It's not just about the purchasing of the business or the building or anything. It's if someone can see this as a mission and see him or herself in this position and not do what I did, but do what their vision is. One of the things is to be able to retain the students who are enrolled at the school. Another is the component of enrolling children who have had problems in other facilities. If they have that kind of vision and they feel that it is their mission, I'm not going to tell them that it will be their life 24/7." Boggess is looking for the right person to fit Cinderella's glass slipper. For more information about the Early Childhood Learning Center, e-mail Joyce Boggess at salter@salter-saulter.com. |
| Joyce Boggess and the Early Childhood Learning Center A commitment to children By Jonathan Gramling Part 2 of 2 |
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| Joyce Boggess goes over photos depicting the history of the Early Childhood Learning Center with some of the recent graduates of the center. |