‘A really vital bridge’: Clark College’s child care center and lab school provides crucial support to kids, their parents

Two Clark County preschoolers tapped mallets on metal flowers, creating a soft melody in the Clark College child care center and lab school’s sound garden during outside playtime Thursday morning.

The college’s child care center offers early learning education, while also being a crucial resource for student and employee parents and community members. Clark’s Child and Family Studies offers full- and half-day programs for children ages 1-5 years old year-round. In the summer, it offers care for children ages 6 to 10 years old, according to the department’s website.

“The birth to 6 (years) window is so important,” said Rose Witteveen, the Child and Family Studies director of educational services. “It’s the foundation for the rest of our lives.”

Witteveen said the curriculum is child-led and project-based because “children work and learn best by playing with their hands.”

Several preschoolers got their hands dirty and made mud pies in the outdoor play space Thursday morning. Two girls washed the dirt off their fingers at a small red water pump.

They’re learning independence, social skills, how to operate in the world, healthy eating habits and how to enjoy playing and making art, she said.

The center serves between 85 and 100 students and offers child care for low-income, Pell Grant-eligible students through the federal Child Care Access Means Parents in School grant.

The student parents’ degrees are covered “by subsidizing on-campus child care service. The grant allows us to cover 95 percent of student parents’ tuition while enrolled in six credits at Clark,” Witteveen said.

In the 2025-26 school year, over half of the students had their tuition covered by the grant, she said.

“I reached out and touched base with a couple of the parents that have their children enrolled here, and they said that we have been a really vital bridge in helping them achieve their academic goals,” Witteveen said.

Lifeline

For Clarinda Olenslager, 45, Clark’s child care center opened the door for her to continue her schooling and reach her professional goals.

She was on the verge of a divorce before deciding to study at Clark and needed to find child care for her two youngest sons. She began a business administration degree in the summer of 2024. Now, she’s graduating this year with a general studies degree — all while running her own natural health business, Olenslager said.

The child care center offered her a way to focus on her studies and have a safe place for her children to be and learn. Olenslager said she has six kids and keeping her two youngest, who aren’t in K-12 yet, at home “would be difficult. I would probably fail classes.”

Her kids were on the waitlist for the center in the summer that she started school. Olenslager said it would’ve been easier for her to have her youngest son, Gabe, on campus so she could breastfeed in between classes, because he wouldn’t take bottles.

When they finally got in a few months later, she said the staff members were great with her sons and communicated well with her. She enjoys being able to pop in and see them when she has a break from classes.

“My kids have celiac, gluten intolerance, and they need the accommodations for that,” Olenslager said. “(The staff) have been so supportive, cleaning the classrooms and making sure they have the food that they need.”

Gabe, 3, had trouble with speech, but the teachers noticed that Olenslager’s other son, Cole, 5, was very extroverted and needed additional help. Olenslager said she then had testing done for Cole, and it turned out he needed special accommodations.

Olenslager is planning to continue in Clark’s music program and receive a degree in business administration before transferring to Washington State University Vancouver in order to pursue new professional endeavors.

Parents who enroll their kids at the center also attend a parent education class, where they learn positive discipline, get support, and can ask questions about child development and parenting strategies, Witteveen said.

She said parents spend some time in the classrooms, which “is a good opportunity for them to see how capable their children are.”

A long history

The Family Life Program at Clark began at the end of World War II, according to the Clark College website. Clark hired the director of child care centers for children of wartime industries employees at the time to teach home economics and a parent preschool course. Then, in 1967, the child care center and lab school became part of the state’s community college system, according to information Witteveen provided in an email.

In the early 1990s, the center’s outdoor play space was designed into a sensory investigative space, allowing for safe, exploratory risk in play. In 1999, Clark’s Early Childhood Education program and child care center became a single department called Child and Family Studies. The teachers at the center are adjunct faculty in the program.

“They use a variety of industry standards while modeling and observing student skills and assessment for both first- and second-year (Early Childhood Education) students enrolled in the college,” Witteveen said.

From there, the department has continued to expand, adding new buildings and classrooms.

The Child and Family Studies department currently has 25 full-time employees and 25 student employees. The students are paid minimum wage and take on responsibilities including assisting teachers, cleaning classrooms, keeping an eye on the children, changing diapers, serving lunch and more.

The children also have opportunities to expand their horizons beyond the center.

Child and Family Studies has a residency with Oregon Children’s Theater, and they’re co-creating an interactive performance with the children. On May 7, both organizations are hosting a Puppet Parade at Clark. The kids will also present their artwork based on the campus’s cherry blossom trees at the school’s Sakura Festival on Thursday and wear traditional outfits, Witteveen said.

She said an edible schoolyard is in the works as a way for students to plant seeds, learn about plants, fruits and vegetables, and harvest the garden for classroom use. The center is also opening a new preschool classroom next year and hopefully an infant classroom soon.

“(Clark County) is a child care desert. Parents don’t have a lot of options, especially for infants and toddlers, and that’s part of the reason we really hope to open an infant classroom in the next year or two,” Witteveen said. “Our waitlists are very long with families who don’t have options for child care, and so we try to be there for them and meet our community’s needs.”