BREAKING NEWS! THEY'RE NOT GOING TO CLOSE THE CENTER!  HERE IS THE PRESS RELEASE SENT TO PARENTS ABOUT 3:30 PM on 2/3:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1m3865x_HY9Zfy2PCoGqWliKakiww8eyT/view?usp=sharing

THANK YOU FOR ALL YOUR HARD WORK AND SUPPORT!

February 2, 2021

Dear President Daniels, and Provost Akridge,
CC: Vice President Bill Bell, Treasurer Chris Ruhl

We are caregivers of children currently enrolled at the Patty Jischke Early Care and Education Center (PJC), alumni of PJC, current and former staff of these centers, and other members of the Purdue University community who care about quality child care and fostering a family-friendly university.

We write to voice our concerns regarding the impending demolition of PJC without moving forward with plans for a replacement facility. This loss of child care services undermines the University’s efforts to support a family-friendly environment and imposes an immediate burden on those employees who rely on Purdue child care. We urge university leadership to uphold their longstanding commitment guaranteeing continuity of care for PJC families. PJC should not be torn down until a new center has been completed.

In June 2019, the University announced plans to relocate PJC to a new, expanded facility east of 2550 Northwestern Avenue in West Lafayette. Since then, the Purdue employees and students who rely on PJC have been repeatedly assured by Human Resources that there would be no interruption of care for children. The Board of Trustees approved the center’s relocation plan, and construction was set to begin in June 2020. PJC families made plans based on these commitments, giving up places in line at other child care centers in the community or forgoing opportunities to join these sometimes multi-year waitlists.
 
On January 27, 2021, PJC families were informed that while Purdue has indefinitely delayed construction of the new child care facility, PJC demolition will again go ahead to make way for a Purdue Research Foundation (PRF) parking garage. Families would need to find alternative care starting in June. With this decision, Purdue University has broken the commitment it made to these employees’ families.

We are dismayed that PRF construction is taking precedence over the university community’s child care needs. Purdue touts the university’s family-friendly policies as a key benefit for employees, but in closing PJC it is systematically dismantling options for families. Similarly, while the university is increasing efforts to provide mental health benefits and support for its students and employees, here it has made a decision that creates severe mental health strains on PJC families.

Indiana is known as a child care “desert.”[1]  The Indiana Early Learning Advisory Committee reported in 2018 that only 36% of infants, toddlers, and preschoolers were enrolled in high quality care in Tippecanoe County. Almost 30% of children under 5 in Tippecanoe County live in an area with only a few child care options, including many in West Lafayette [3]. The 2019 PRF/Purdue market study found such a large unmet demand for child care in our community that Purdue decided to build an expanded facility to replace PJC. The pandemic has not changed the need for child care overall - it only temporarily appears that there is less need of care because so many parents, including Purdue employees, are keeping children at home.

Now, despite Purdue’s 2019 promises, PJC families must consider lower quality child care options elsewhere, increasing concern for the health and well-being of their children, not to mention those families who had hoped to one day get on-campus child care. While we are encouraged by the care.com partnership, this resource entails a far greater burden on caregivers than high quality campus child care, and simply cannot offset the massive reduction of child care options resulting from the loss of PJC.

In short, demolition of the PJC will remove over 27% of the University’s child care capacity, while available evidence strongly suggests the community’s child care needs are already woefully undermet. The current action seriously undermines Purdue’s and PRF’s efforts to create a family-friendly environment that can attract business partners and academic talent. It jeopardizes the careers of faculty, staff, and student caregivers currently at Purdue. It threatens the jobs of dozens of PJC employees. It does all of this in the midst of a global pandemic that has been particularly disruptive for caregivers and children. We urge you to uphold the promises made and pause plans to demolish the Patty Jischke Center until a new child care center can be built.

SIGNED,
[Currently over 960 signatures. You can view complete list at https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vSj-k8CZxGgrRN__0Kd9nGfJdsMj7iQdZk3u3xIxU-yKB6LcAL68qWDES68HN-HfJkEcu7Pzr3e0dzV/pub.]

References:
[1] http://datacenter.earlylearningin.org/deserts-hubs.html
[2] http://www.elacindiana.org/documents/2018-county-combined-profiles.pdf
[3] http://datacenter.earlylearningin.org/deserts-hubs.html