Rainbow’s End Child Development Center staff members want to make it easier for parents to pay for day care.

Rainbow’s End provides care for children 6- to 12-years old on a first-come-first-served basis to university students, faculty and staff.

Peter Gitau, dean of Student Affairs, said the center is in the process of implementing an easier method of payment through financial aid and payroll deduction, which should be in place by the fall semester.

‘We’d like to make it easier for them to (pay),’ Gitau said. ‘We have a lot of students, I think, who pay for everything through financial aid.’

Janice Grove, accountant for Rainbow’s End, said the process would probably require parents to sign a form giving the center consent to take money out of paychecks or financial aid to cover day care costs.

Gitau said the center has not been able to implement the program in the past because there was no accountant for at least a year. Now that the office is filled, the payment program has become possible, he said.

‘I don’t think we’ve had a system that has allowed us to do that,’ Gitau said.

Grove, who has been with the center for four months and has worked at the university for 28 years, said the center is funded primarily through tuition from parents. Student fees, fundraisers and grants also contribute, she said.

Gitau said because student fees help fund the center, students receive a lower rate than faculty and staff members.

The center will also receive a new director soon, Gitau said, to fill a position that has been open since December.

Gitau said interviews for potential director candidates would begin next week and the center should have a director in place by the end of next month.

The new director would likely have to find a way to keep programs from being cut because of the poor economy, Grove said, though the center has enough money for now.

Jennifer Hanley, an assistant teacher at Rainbow’s End, said the center is more than a day care because it institutes a curriculum for the children. The center has 90 children enrolled with 14 teachers, which does not include student workers.

‘There’s a really long waiting list here,’ Hanley said.

Hanley said the center could enroll more children, but staff members try to keep ratios of children to teachers as small as possible. Though there is a waiting period for infant ages, she said, space is available for older children.

Madeleine Leroux can be reached at 536-3311 ext. 259 or [email protected]