Preschool Headache for City and Parents

After the city , parents submitted a petition Tuesday night with nearly 700 signatures asking the city council to bring it back.

But city officials said that keeping Animal Crackers (ages 3-4) and Kinder Kids (ages 4-5) open will likely mean outsourcing the program.

"We have some done some preliminary work on this," said City Manager Tom Williams, adding that he had a high level of confidence that the city could restructure the program.

A contract provider could run the recreational preschool program, he said, and the city would take a percentage of the revenue based on how many participants signed up.

That was how the preschool was structured, Williams said, before it became staffed by city employees.

Councilwoman Althea Polanski proposed that staff research alternatives and take them back to the council meeting on Aug. 2.

"My request is not to bring back the preschool program," she said, but rather an alternative. Instead of 65 days, maybe it would go to 60 or 50. "It may not be the same one that the community is looking at," she said.

The parents whose children have priority enrollment said August would be too late, because of the waiting lists for preschools.

"If you tell us to wait until August, that's the same as closing it," said Milpitas resident Grant Wong, who stressed that timing was really critical. "We've been looking [at other preschools], and it's very, very difficult," he said.

The council, in closing a $12 million structural deficit in the general fund, tried to cut non-essential services when passing the FY 2011-12 budget. Some of those services included preschool, D.A.R.E., Tidal Waves and Rainbow Theatre.

All the other programs were restructured to come close to being cost-neutral as possible, but the preschool was not.

Milpitas resident Diane Pham said she and the other parents would be willing to do fundraising or simply pay more to keep the nine-month program intact.

If the city contracts out the program, it's hard to say what the quality of the program would be like, she said, particularly because parents would like to see the teacher and the coordinators stay, she said.

There are 128 kids, about 94 percent Milpitas residents, enrolled this school year, according to Bonnie Greiner, director of the parks and recreation department.

Many of the parents didn't realize the city had proposed to eliminate the preschool until it was too late, said Milpitas resident My-Kim Ho. She has had two kids go through the program, but her baby boy might not have the chance.

"I'm seeing that most of these kids are from Milpitas, and it's serving our community," she said. "It hurts us middle-class families."