LBCC’s Upcoming Child Care Center

Through Christmas break, as the rest of the Linn-Benton Albany campus slowed to a quiet rest, Kendra Votava could be found in her temporary office in the Luckiamute Center. Votava is the new director of the Periwinkle Child Development Center, where her future office is under construction, along with the rest of the facility. 

The Periwinkle Child Development Center is a new childcare facility on the Albany campus. It is set to open Feb. 5 in the same space as LB’s original childcare facility, located in the Periwinkle building on the northwest side of campus. Periwinkle will serve children ages 3-5 years old and add 2-year-olds in September. Periwinkle will prioritize LBCC students and staff with applications open now for their 75 open spots. The center also will function as a lab for LBCC’s Early Childhood Education students.

Votava, who has 30 years of experience, knew after helping in her church’s daycare that working with 2-year-olds was what she wanted to do with her life. Votava’s resume includes a wide range of experience, including serving as a court-appointed special advocate for children in the foster system, Head Start, and working at a preschool specializing in special needs. Votava was hired for the role of director of Periwinkle in August and came on board in October 2023.

When Votava walked into the Periwinkle building for her first day, it was down to the studs on the inside, she recalled. The extensive remodel is being done by the Portland branch of Swinerton, a national construction company. Swinerton trucks and safety orange-clad workers in hard hats have become a regular fixture behind the pickleball courts at the back corner of LB’s campus. 

An official Linn-Benton sign clearly identifies the building as Periwinkle Child Development Center. However, the way to that sign, or the front door of the facility, has been blocked by a chain link fence and, recently, has been surrounded by building material. 

Most any time Votava walks out of Luckiamute, she is drawn across the parking lot to look at that day’s progress. An official walkthrough is conducted each Thursday. During this weekly visit, she and the director of operations discuss ongoing construction and progress toward the fast-approaching open date of Feb. 5. 

Renovations on this building are extensive. Historically, Periwinkle was operated by Linn-Benton for around 20 years, providing year-round on­-campus child care for LBCC students, staff, and other families from the community. During that time, the Periwinkle Child Development Center was utilized by the Child and Family Studies program. 

In February 2011, the college’s Board of Education announced a decision to close PCDC due to budget cuts. At this time, a contract was signed with Head Start, which then operated Kidco Head Start out of the facility for over 10 years. Childcare services were offered for families of LBCC and the community who met federal Head Start guidelines. LBCC’s Child and Family Studies Program was still able to partner with Head Start to continue being a lab for students.

After Head Start exited, the building remained empty until voters approved the college’s $16 million bond measure in 2022. Those funds were earmarked for the renovation of Periwinkle as well as a new agriculture education center, and upgrading facilities at both the Albany and Corvallis campuses. 

The college explained the impetus behind the resurrection of PCDC as part of the bond measure: “There is a lack of access to childcare for our students and staff. LBCC has identified a facility to resume operations, but the building needs important updates and upgrades to meet industry standards for operations and safety.”

Not only will the reopening of Periwinkle open up childcare to students at Linn-Benton and the surrounding community, but it will also revitalize opportunities for LBCC students studying early childhood education. 

At the center, students will be able to learn through observation. The three upgraded observation rooms will feature one-way windows. Votava also pointed out during a tour of the facility that the one-way windows will be helpful for parents in the early days of dropping off their children. The observation rooms will provide a space to check in on how the transition goes without being seen by their kids. Other technology going into those rooms will allow observers to be able to listen with audio in targeted areas of a classroom. 

Heading up a program that was literally gutted is no small undertaking. Hence the reason Votava can be found unpacking massive amounts of educational toys and printing program binders on the floor of her office. Voltava’s temporary office is filled with supplies and three-ring binders.

Voltava’s focus has moved from holes in the ceiling to the shifting storage of program supplies and recruiting staff. In between emails, conversations with the foreman, and taking a few bites of lunch, Votava sat down for an interview to discuss the program. 

What brought you here, what did you do before? 

When I first started working in early childhood education, that was nearly 30 years ago. I started working at a church-based preschool when I was in high school. I started working with 2-year-olds, which is my absolute favorite age group, and decided that that’s what I really wanted to do the rest of my life — teaching littles. 

I did home-based childcare with my best friend. We did that when our kiddos were young. Then I worked for a preschool that specialized in working with kiddos with special needs, and I did that for about 15 years where I was also a behavior specialist. I worked with the kids with really challenging behaviors, which was a lot of fun. That is also one of my favorite groups, just because they’re like a puzzle to try to figure out.

Then when we moved up here to Oregon, I worked for CASA, which is the court-appointed special advocate, and worked directly with the kiddos in the foster care system. That was really interesting and heart-wrenching.

For the last five years, I’ve worked for OCDC, which is the Oregon Child Development Coalition, and a large Head Start program here in Oregon. Then I came here. 

This is such a huge remodel, can you walk us through the building upgrades, and what is being added or changed?

The remodel has addressed and is resolving ADA compliance issues. Our observation rooms were multi-level before, so they put them down to ground level so that everyone can access them. We added a lactation space, which is really awesome. That’ll be available to students, staff, and parents of our preschoolers. Gosh, what else? All new lighting throughout the building. We’ve taken out all of the fluorescence, which is a really good thing. 

Lots of renovations are happening to the cabinetry and things like that in the classroom spaces. It’s been a massive undertaking. We have added access restrictions that make it so we are able to really restrict the people that are allowed to come in and out of the building, that wasn’t something that they had before. It was kind of a key entry before. Now it will be all electronic, and you can only pass through the people that you want to pass through the building, which is really neat.

Who will the program serve?

We are primarily going to serve student-parents of LBCC and then staff and faculty of LBCC. If we don’t manage to fill up all our slots with staff parents and student parents, then we will open it to the community as well. But we will be prioritizing students and staff of LBCC, and we have some really competitive rates.

What are the advantages to LBCC making this choice to bring back something that serves the students and staff? 

A huge advantage to that is just being able to help support our students with being able to maintain college, right? I was once a student parent, and it’s really hard to go to school, afford childcare for your kiddos, and have them someplace that you know is safe, licensed, and has qualified teachers. That’s a huge advantage right there just being able to have your kiddos on campus with you, real close to you, which would be really great, and also have it be a highly discounted rate from community rates so that you can afford it. 

Our community rates are going to be slightly higher, obviously, than for our staff and our students because we wanted to make it super affordable. Student rates, just for example, are $250 per month, for any age 3 to 5. We won’t get started with toddlers until September of 2024.

What kind of activities or programs or education will the kids be getting? 

We are going to be working really closely with the Early Education Program that’s here at LBCC, and they work on a constructivist approach. So that is more like kiddos driving the curriculum. We won’t have any boxed curriculum type thing, not a prepackaged curriculum of any kind. Kiddos learn through projects that they create, through exploration, identifying ideas that they want to learn about. Then the teachers kind of help support them in learning those things. It’s a lot of investigation and estimating and hypothesis and all that kind of fun stuff. 

You mentioned hiring bilingual teachers. What role does bilingualism play at Periwinkle?

LBCC wants to move towards being a Hispanic-inclusive society here. So, part of our mission is to be able to include families that are Latino or have Spanish as their primary language. 

This is the first time that you’re starting a program from the ground up. With your background, what have you gleaned that you’re hoping to do here?

It’s been really exciting just kind of being on the ground floor of everything. I would say that one of the things that I’ve gleaned from that experience is wanting to make sure that all kiddos are incorporated into our program. A lot of programs, especially private preschool programs, have the ability to expel kiddos, and that is something that we definitely don’t want to do. So making sure that we have a program that is adaptable for kiddos of all levels of ability is going to be really important to us. 

We’ve intentionally hired people who have backgrounds in working with kiddos with special education needs, and intentionally hired people who have worked specifically with kiddos with challenging behaviors because we want to make sure that every kiddo can attend with us. 

What excites you the most when you step back and look at the future of the program?

Everything is so exciting. Just seeing something built from the ground up and being part of it as it is just emerging has been so exciting. Yes, it’s absolutely a lot of work because we have to create all the policies and procedures and all of the forms and everything for it because there wasn’t anything, which is daunting and what I’ve been spending two months doing. But I think it’s also been really exciting just to be part of building something that’s going to be so incredible for families and for students. It’s just amazing. 

If I were taking a tour, what would you tell me about these classrooms?

So one of the classrooms will be toddlers, 2 and 3-year-olds, and then the other three classrooms will be preschool, 3- to 5-year-olds. And all developmental ranges are accepted. All levels of potty training are accepted. We’re open to everybody.

The very first kiddo that I had when I started working with kiddos with special needs was a kiddo with spina bifida, and he had not a cast, but a casing, and I remember trying to change his diaper for the first time. He was 2 years old, and I was scared that I was going to hurt him by accident. Just by having lots of experiences with kiddos of all different developmental stages, I’ve learned a lot about how we can make sure that we can support everybody.

What are some things that you would like to make sure that people know about? 

I think probably just that we even exist. That’s always good. Being a brand-new center that’s kind of getting up and running again. We really just need to get the word out to everybody about us being here. We have about 75 slots to fill. 

What about the timeline? What do you want to tell the parent out there who reads this article and wants to know more?

Currently, we are accepting enrollment applications. There is a QR code that goes directly to our application. Then, we’ll get you in the process of being enrolled. We are planning on opening on Feb. 5. That will be our opening day. Then we will also be hosting a grand opening event to the community so that everybody can come and see our center once it’s open. If they have any questions, they can email me. 

For application, create a free account on Brightwheel. Once an account is created you will be directed to the online application for Periwinkle.

Contact Director Kendra Voltava

Photos by Sarah Rose Larson