Tucked away on the southeast side of campus, there is a small-gated playground. In it, there is an array of children’s toys and two human sized concrete teddy bears. Across the parking lot from the playground sits the graduate apartment Hawk Hall. Enter the apartment take the short flight of stairs down and come to a bright blue mural and a door.
It’s the SMU Preschool and Child Care Center.
“No one really knows how long its been here,” said Julie Schilling, the director of the Preschool and Child Care Center. “It’s always been in this building.”
The center started sometime between 36 to 40 years ago. Before it was officially sanctioned as a child care center, it consisted of students with children offering to watch each other’s children during class.
“Watch my kid when you’re in class and I’ll watch yours type of thing,” Schilling said.
Someone decided to take it to the higher ups and from then on the year-round SMU Preschool and Child Care Center has been a fully licensed childcare center for infants to preschoolers of SMU students, faculty and staff. The center was under Residence Life and Student Housing until September 2013 when they were moved under the Dedman Center for Lifetime sports.
Past the door, swipe access is required for entry; Sixteen coats hang along the wall and 16 little paper frogs, labeled with the coat owner’s name, are stapled above each coat. Further down the hall, there is a ceiling to floor giraffe painted on the wall facing Schilling’s office. Two bookshelves with everything from Dr. Seuss to “The Little Red Hen” sit in the corner along with a maroon winged chair.
It’s past 3 p.m. and naptime is over. Preschoolers groggily march out of the multi-age children’s room to put up their blankets. They’re called the Mini-Mustangs on campus.
This is one of the three rooms in the child care center. The center has an infant room for five six week to 18-month infants, a toddler room for 12 18-months-to 3-year-olds and a multi-age room for 3 to 5 year olds. The center only took 33 children this semester.
“I get calls all time asking about enrolling their kids,” said Schilling, who is also the lead teacher in the multi-age room and the Hawk Hall manager.
The center has five other staff members. The wait-list to get into the center is two to three years long and there are 47 families currently on the wait-list. About four years ago, there were 87 people on the wait-list.
In 2008, Schilling created a user group that is trying to build a bigger center.
“The need is there,” she said. “We’ve got the need and the wait-list would probably be longer if we had a bigger center.”
One of the biggest needs of the center is a larger infant program. The center is staffed to take care of 10 infants but is currently only able to care for six. Thirty-four infants are on the waitlist. Siblings have priority, which means if one child is already part of the center, and their brother or sister would be higher up on list to get into
the center.
“In this area, there just isn’t a lot childcare centers that accepts infants,” Schilling said.
The room for 3 to 5 year olds could have 32 children in the room. For this school year, tuition for infants is $250 per week, toddlers $225 per week, and preschoolers $205 per week.
Schilling, who began working at the center in 2008, got her start in child education as a high school student in the ‘80s. She has been working in the field for almost
30 years.
Most of the employees at the center have been working there for more than 10 years. One of the teachers has worked there for 22 years.
The center, although fully licensed, is not NAYC accredited because they require that 50 percent of the staff is degreed.
“One thing, it’s very expensive to be accredited,” Schilling said, “All the teachers have to go back to school.”
Schilling is pushing toward hiring degreed employees in the future. She is currently trying to add three more people to her staff.
Angie Whitcom, who has worked at the center for 20 years, stared her career in work-study in high school.
“Just being a smart part of the milestones is pretty great,” Whitcom said.
Schilling tries to get education students to work at the center because she believes education begins at birth.
“I think that’s really important,” she said.
Senior Brianna Evans, an English and secondary education student from Dallas, didn’t know the center existed until she was informed about it through an email from one of her professors in the Annette Caldwell Simmons School of Education.
Evans, who had experience working at child care centers prior to working at the SMU center, decided to apply and got the job in April 2013.
“I thought it would be a great opportunity to get practice teaching even if it wouldn’t be with my specific, desired age group,” she said.
Evans works every day after 2:30 p.m. She is responsible for teaching the multi-age classroom from time to time, preparing and cleaning up snack time after naptime, monitoring the children outside on the playground, managing behavior and any other miscellaneous tasks that need to be completed around the center.
She is one of two student workers at the center.
“I enjoy conversing with the children the most,” she said. “It can be easy to forget how accelerated children’s growth is between infancy and 5 years old. They surprise me every day with their knowledge and sense of humor.”
