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THE DAILY ASTORIAN • FRIDAY, FEbRuARY 22, 2019
Study: Number of certified child care centers in county declining
Continued from Page A1
child care facilities in Clat-
sop County, though the list
only covers organizations
that want to be included.
The number of certi-
fied child care centers in
Clatsop County appears
to have declined in recent
years, according to Eva
Manderson, director of
Northwest Regional Child
Care Resource and Refer-
ral, which primarily works
with providers in Clatsop,
Columbia and Tillamook
counties on professional
development and licensing.
Many issues play into
this decline, she said.
Child care can be costly
to provide, with payroll at
the top of the list. Often
centers struggle to pay
staff more than the mini-
mum wage and still keep
costs low for parents. High
staff turnover is a com-
mon concern. State licens-
ing requirements are con-
stantly changing, but in
recent years, there has also
been an increase in new
requirements.
Then there are changes
to providers’ personal lives.
“People will often go
into child care because
they want to be home with
their kiddo, so they take on
other kids, and that works,”
Manderson said. But then
the provider’s child grows
up, and maybe they decide
it’s time to close.
Lil’ Sprouts, run by the
city in Astoria, is one of
the few facilities in the
region that offers programs
for children as young as 6
weeks old. In recent years,
it has become one of the
city’s primary child care
providers.
Erin Reding, preschool
recreation coordinator at
Lil’ Sprouts and Port of
Play, said the closure of a
large center in Warrenton
several years ago seemed
to hit the county especially
hard.
High cost
For parents, child care
easily costs hundreds of
dollars a month, even with
Colin Murphey/The Daily Astorian
Stephanie Seehawer, left, plays with a child under her care at Lil’ Sprouts.
state or Coast Guard sub-
sidies to help ease the bur-
den. People often turn to
family and friends for help
with babysitting.
Heidi Sather’s fam-
ily relocated to Astoria
last summer, following
her husband, who serves
in the Coast Guard. Sather
planned to go back to
work in social services and
started looking at child care
options months ahead of
the move.
As a state contrac-
tor working in the Ore-
gon Department of Human
Services’ self-sufficiency
office, Sather tells cli-
ents often, “If you know
you’re going back to work
or school, start looking for
child care now. Don’t just
put your name on a wait-
list and wait. Keep call-
ing. If there’s a full-time
care option available,
but you only need part
time, you might as well
secure full time while it’s
there.”
It was advice she found
herself following before the
move to Astoria. The fam-
ily arrived at the end of
June and her youngest son
started at Lil’ Sprouts in
early July.
“To me it is the best
place I could have gotten
him in,” Sather said.
For Sather and her fam-
ily, a Coast Guard subsidy
helps, but child care is still
a major cost. “It’s tight on
the budget, but I see the
long-term benefits,” she
said.
With her youngest cared
for and her oldest now in
second grade and enrolled
in after-school programs,
she is free to start her career
again and contribute finan-
cially to the household. But
it’s a juggling act that many
parents struggle with, espe-
cially those in tighter finan-
cial situations.
“You could be going to
work and pay half of what
you make to child care,”
she said.
At that point, some cou-
ples ask themselves if it
makes more sense for one
parent to remain at home.
“Availability of child
care plays a critical role in
the lives of Oregon’s fam-
ilies with young children,
including if, where and
when parents work,” Megan
Pratt, an associate professor
and the lead author of Ore-
gon State’s report, said in a
statement.
“There’s also a grow-
ing understanding of the
central role stable, quality
child care plays in support-
ing a child’s early develop-
ment, providing the foun-
dation for lifelong learning
and well-being.”
The study, commis-
sioned by the Oregon Early
Learning Division, did not
delve into questions of
affordability or quality of
care, two factors that play
a major role in how par-
ents are able to access child
care. Instead, it focused
on the number of slots
available.
Quality
For one local group,
in particular, quality and
affordability are chief
concerns.
Dan Gaffney, a retired
Seaside principal, has been
involved in looking at ways
to provide preschool and
early learning services in
Clatsop County for years.
He helped start Clat-
sop Kinder Ready after
his retirement, working as
the group’s coordinator.
He left that role in 2017 to
focus on a feasibility study
to look at providing sub-
sidized, high-quality pre-
school slots in Clatsop and
Tillamook counties.
The feasibility study fol-
lowed the Pay for Success
model, which posits that
services like quality pre-
school are an investment
that can lead to a cascade
of benefits and cost savings
elsewhere in a child’s life
and development.
Educators see the long-
term effects and differences
between children who
receive good early educa-
tion and care and those who
don’t, Gaffney said.
Quality preschool is
key to preparing children
for what comes next, help-
ing them develop important
social and emotional skills,
he said. Providers can also
intervene earlier on learn-
ing or behavioral issues
that may otherwise place a
child in special education
later.
Lack of access to early
care disproportionately hits
lower-income and minority
families hardest.
Gaffney’s
feasibility
study is now complete and
he is moving into a second
phase. His team’s work will
be taken on by the regional
Northwest Early Learning
Hub to further investigate
child care needs and bar-
riers in Clatsop, Columbia
and Tillamook counties.
Gaffney hopes the move
will put the three coun-
ties in a good position if
more state money for early
learning services becomes
available.
Gov.
Kate
Brown
pitched a budget plan in
November that added $38.3
million for child care as
part of an overall funding
package for schools and
education.
The money would go to
increasing the availability
of infant and toddler child
care and provide more sup-
port for early childhood
educators, among other
measures.
“Let’s get ourselves
in
position,”
Gaff-
ney reasoned. “If there
is more money, we’re
shovel-ready.”
School: Rogozinski has shown an ability to think outside the box
Continued from Page A1
“I’m very humbled to have the
vote of confidence in the work
we’ve done,” Rogozinski said.
He credited his staff with
much of the success the grade
school has experienced during
his tenure. He was brought in to
replace Jan Schock, principal for
15 years, and improve academic
rigor, while Porter was brought in
to improve behavior.
The grade school has since
experienced a rapid, sustained
growth in enrollment and aca-
demic performance.
School board members said
that track record played into his
selection.
“Out of the applications, his
stood out,” said Dan Jackson, a
board member. “But then in the
interview, we knew he was the
one.”
Rogozinski came into his
interview with a specific plan to
continue improving the school
district, said Darlene Warren,
Debbie Morrow
Newly chosen Superintendent Tom Rogozinski, left, with Warrenton-
Hammond School Board member Greg Morrill.
a board member. Neal Bond,
recently appointed to the school
board to replace Stacey Brown,
said Rogozinski’s vision for the
district aligned with the school
board’s.
Rogozinski has shown an abil-
ity to think outside the box on
education and empower teachers,
said Debbie Morrow, the board’s
chairwoman.
“Listening to him talk about
education, you can see him get
really excited about it, his pas-
sion for not only seeing students
succeed, but for taking challenges
and finding a way to engineer suc-
cess,” said Greg Morrill, a board
member.
Rogozinski, originally from
Pittsburgh, has 26 years in edu-
cation. Before Warrenton, he was
principal at several K-8 Catholic
schools, including Holy Trinity
Catholic School in Beaverton and
St. Mary Star of the Sea Catho-
lic School in Astoria until its clo-
sure in 2011. He first became
a principal at Gallup Catholic
School in New Mexico, where
he previously taught algebra and
precalculus.
While at Holy Trinity, Rogoz-
inski commuted on weekends to
Astoria, where he lives with his
partner, Peggy Boisvert, and two
stepsons.
Applying to Warrenton, Rogo-
zinski didn’t know if the Catholic
background would hurt his candi-
dacy, but he knew Heyen and Jef-
Taxes: ‘I have a feeling we’re going to take additional actions’
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Inn owes $125,837.40 in
unpaid lodging taxes, pen-
alties and accrued interest.
Representatives of the
Shilo Inn did not immedi-
ately respond to questions.
City Manager Linda
Engbretson said the city
received a call Thursday
from Shilo Inn represen-
tatives, who left a mes-
sage requesting a payment
plan, but Engbretson was
not able to reach anyone
when she called back.
“I’m willing to hear
what they propose,” she
said, “however, they have
consistently been late
and have not met pre-
vious arrangements as
agreed.”
Mayor Henry Balen-
sifer said that the hotel has
yet to take any steps to pay
Warrenton has sought lodging taxes from the Shilo Inn.
the taxes owed.
“I have a feeling we’re
going to take additional
actions,” he said. “This
isn’t a simple fact of …
say, your personal income
tax where you don’t pay it
one year and it compounds
over the years. We’re
talking about money that
was never theirs to begin
with.”
Balensifer could not
speak to any past issues
with collecting taxes from
the hotel, but said utility
billing has always been “a
cat-and-mouse game” for
the city.
During his time as a
city commissioner, he
often heard from staff that
the hotel was behind on
paying city utility bills, or
paid them only at the last
minute.
“It’s a strange business
model,” he said.
The Shilo Inn company,
founded by Mark S. Hem-
street in 1974, has faced
tax payment issues in
Clatsop County before. In
2016, Seaside filed a law-
suit against the company
for more than $100,000 in
unpaid lodging taxes at the
Shilo Inn Seaside Ocean-
front Resort.
fery and was convinced to apply,
he said. Warrenton at the time
was struggling with enrollment,
sparse funding during the Great
Recession and a lackluster aca-
demic reputation.
There were challenges in the
way the grade school was being
operated, Rogozinski said, but he
got a good sense of the team he
had in place.
“It wasn’t a job that was by
any means doable by one per-
son,” he said of the grade school’s
improvement. “But a lot of the
framework was in place.”
Rogozinski would have been
a great candidate for any number
of positions, and he was relieved
the school district hired him, Jef-
fery said.
“Working with him over the
past six years, I got to take his
measure and really see what he’s
capable of,” he said. “I honestly
believe that he is the one to help
this district get to the next level in
this push to be the best district in
the state.”
Seafood: ‘It’s kind of
hard to run a business on
a month-to-month lease’
Continued from Page A1
announced the businesses
were closing and convert-
ing to Hurricane Ron’s. He
had issues finding help at the
restaurant and tiki bar, and
reached out about leasing out
the spaces, Cordero said.
Holboke’s offer provided
a backup plan for Neva and
Cordero, who have been on
tenuous footing with the Port
of Astoria, owner of the Chi-
nook Building.
“We couldn’t get our
lease renewed with the Port
of Astoria,” Cordero said.
“They would only give us
a month-to-month lease.
It’s kind of hard to run a
business on a month-to-
month lease, so we figured
we had to diversify.”
The two parties have been
at loggerheads regarding
plumbing, bathrooms, trash
and other operational issues.
The two sides reached a
detente after developer Ches-
ter Trabucco — amid a bid
with partner William Orr to
take over the adjacent Astoria
Riverwalk Inn — agreed to
manage the Chinook Build-
ing. But after their bid failed,
Trabucco bowed out.
In the latest salvo, the Port
locked the bathrooms in the
Chinook Building because
of mechanical issues and has
been forcing customers into a
port-a-potty, Neva said.
“I think it’s just another
way of them jabbing at me,”
he said.