By Sam Farfan
Initially announcing a January 2025 reopening in early 2023, unexpected construction delays in the Child and Family Center’s $12 million renovation project postponed the center’s reopening date to the following academic school year.
It has been almost two years since the CFC closed its doors in late June of 2023. Losing the center meant losing the convenience of an on-campus childcare facility for many Long Beach State students and employees.
Vice Chair of the Beach Employee Alliance of Parents and Caregivers affinity group, Banafsheh Behzad, is a professor of information systems at the College of Business and a parent who heavily relied on the services of the CFC before its closure.
Before her son started transitional kindergarten last August, Behzad switched her son from three different preschool programs. The quality of care at these centers was not nearly as comparable as the quality the CFC program provided.
She, along with many of her faculty colleagues, struggled to find local childcare facilities following the closure.
“When we talk about it, we all agree that what we received at the CFC was extraordinary and beyond like what we could have imagined,” Behzad said. “The commute every day to drop off my kid to that school and then driving to campus is extremely time-consuming.”
According to an update by the College of Health and Human Services on the CFC’s site, the rescheduled opening date was a result of a complete foundational redesign of the facility. The decision to redesign the project came after “previously unknown storm drains, communications and power lines were discovered below the footprint of the new addition.”
Considering these lines are essential for the university and the VA Medical Center’s operations located on the west side of campus, they cannot be taken out or redirected.
As a result of the closure, faculty members across different departments formed the Beach Employee Alliance of Parents and Caregivers affinity group, a space for CSULB employees who are parents or caregivers to find childcare resources, ask questions and share input and ideas that could be helpful to others, in late spring of 2024.
Professor and Department Chair of the Women’s, Gender & Sexuality Studies Lori Baralt expressed the difficulty of finding on-campus resources for faculty-parents and caregivers as these resources tend to be spread through word of mouth.
“I’m hoping that this is a way that parents— all caregiving faculty— can connect and have a network, and have just resources in one place. Because all of us were saying that’s something we would have liked to have,” Baralt, who also serves as the BEAPAC secretary, said.
The CFC renovation project will bring an array of new program features beyond the new building addition, including a covered play area, toddler classrooms, a staff room with supporting functions and an overall larger accommodation capacity.
Additionally, the renovated facility would help increase the number of graduates whose training will allow them to improve the quality and availability of childcare programs post-graduation.
“We will be welcoming student-parent families for the first time upon completion of this $12 million renovation. We plan to open doors of the re-imagined Center in the 2025/2026 academic year,” Department Chair of Family and Consumer Sciences Virginia Gray said in an online statement.
Before its closure, the CFC program had a limited child capacity, and many parents found themselves on a waitlist before enrollment as the on-campus convenience, below-market price cost and unique program features made the program competitive.
“I understand we all need childcare so that they can be students and so we can be professors, faculty and staff,” Baralt said. “I am curious how they’re going to balance that.
According to Beach Building Services, this renovation will expand the childcare and teaching facilities to “yield a significant increase in the quantity and range of childcare services available for children of students attending college.”
Despite the new program changes, many hope the culture of the program remains once the facility reopens. Many of the program’s lead teachers graduated from the department of Family and Consumer Sciences’ own early childhood education master’s program, showcasing the strength of the department.
“If we can have the same culture that we had before, with caring and experienced teachers— educated teachers, and obviously, if it’s in a nice building, that’s great,” Behzad said. “But really, the priority is the level of care.”
