‘Emotionally devastated.’ People mourn cuts to subsidized childcare in Tacoma
Since 2019, thousands of students at Tacoma Public Schools have participated in after-school programming for free or at a highly subsidized rate.
Students could learn skills like glassblowing, cooking and golf. They participated in book clubs, science projects and robotics – activities that some parents say their kids would normally never have access to. Families could choose what they paid: either $0, $48 or $96 per activity for each two- or three-month session.
The program made after-school childcare accessible in a city with 12.4% of residents living in poverty, in a state that’s also among the most expensive in the nation for childcare. After a string of youth homicides last year that rocked the city, local leaders said that accessible childcare has likely saved lives and prevented the problem from worsening by keeping kids off the streets and in the company of trusted, responsible adults while allowing their parents to work full-time to provide for their families.
Starting this fall, those offerings could cease to exist.
The potential elimination of the elementary and middle school programs called Beyond the Bell and Club B is the result of a $9 million budget deficit at Parks Tacoma – which covers the lion’s share of the programs’ costs. The deficit is at least partially the result of a lack of budgetary oversight from Parks Tacoma leaders, they’ve said publicly. The deficit shone a light on agency leadership so unsatisfactory that the Parks Tacoma board asked its longtime executive director to resign last month. Now-former executive director Shon Sylvia received over half a million dollar payout to resign. He was the sole employee of the agency’s board, which conducted three of the annual performance reviews it was required to conduct for Sylvia in the nearly 10 years he held the job.
Beyond the Bell and Club B are just two of several programs that are on the chopping block, but they’ve gotten the most attention in recent weeks given just how many people rely on the programming. Parks Tacoma is set to finalize a budget amendment outlining the cuts in late June, but news of the reductions has left many Tacoma families and employees of Beyond the Bell and Club B in limbo, scrambling to find alternatives but also unsure if another local agency might step in to pick up the program.
Parents say they don’t know what they’re going to do without that resource, especially as costs continue to rise. Parks Tacoma employees who staffed the program are bracing for the loss of an income — and for the employees whose children are also enrolled in Beyond the Bell or Club B, bracing for the loss of free and subsidized childcare.
Employees to be impacted by pending cuts
Josh Gannis, who oversees Beyond the Bell for Parks Tacoma, said he hears from many parents who say the program has allowed them to accept jobs in the afternoon when their kids are usually out of school.
“‘I would not have been able to sign this lease and put this roof over our head if not for this program that could allow me to pick my kid up at 6 o’clock.’ – I’ve heard that countless times across the district,” he told The News Tribune.
Gannis said program staff are as diverse as the students they teach, meaning students get to spend time every day with positive adult role models who look like them and speak the same languages they do.
“Some of the men in our programs are the only positive male role models these kids will interact with throughout their day,” he said. “Those little things, those little supports throughout the day, they add up and they multiply, they really impact in a positive way, kids’ life. And I think that’s the grief, that’s what we’re sad for.”
Beyond the Bell provides after-school childcare for elementary school students, and Club B provides the same care for middle schoolers. Those programs fit into the larger ecosystem of youth programming in Tacoma, as kids aged out of Beyond the Bell, then headed to Club B, then got internships in high school through Jobs 253 – a Tacoma Public Schools program that provides high schoolers with paid work experience with local employers.
“The younger you get a student into that ecosystem, the younger you show a student that there’s a whole system that cares about you, that wants to see you succeed, that has your back, [the better],” Gannis said.
Parks Tacoma spokesperson Stacia Glenn said in a statement that the elimination of Beyond the Bell and Club B would result in nine full-time employees and 179 part-time employees losing their jobs. Eliminating Parks Tacoma’s funding for Beyond the Bell saves the agency $1,709,500. For Club B the savings is $468,400.
Gannis said many Beyond the Bell employees are education-support professionals, also known as paraeducators, who work for Tacoma Public Schools. That same employee group bore the brunt of a reduction in hours, positions and pay that the school district made last year when it was contending with a $30 million deficit.
“That is a staff that has been job-traumatized a number of times, and they’re about to go through it again,” he said.
Rachel Heimbigner, an art teacher with Beyond the Bell, said she has seen how her students leave her classes with a sense of pride and accomplishment at having completed new art projects. Heimbigner said she was heartbroken to hear that parents and families will suffer as a result of the Parks Tacoma cuts.
“I feel like children, families and frontline programs shouldn’t be the ones asked to absorb the pain for a budget crisis they didn’t create,” she told The News Tribune.
Families and students affected by cuts
For single parent Ikeyshia Weatherspoon, losing Beyond the Bell means losing a safe space for her son to be after school – but also losing one of her two jobs. Weatherspoon has worked for the program since 2022, she said.
“Beyond the Bell was more than a job, it was a place for me and my child to just grow and touch base with the kids,” she told The News Tribune. “I don’t know, so now that means I have to find another job, or just not work, but I’m praying that it doesn’t go away.”
Weatherspoon said without Beyond the Bell, she knows she could make things work for her family financially, but “we would lack somewhere else.”
Jennifer Lacy, the parent of a middle-schooler at Tacoma Public Schools, said Beyond the Bell helped her son socialize with his peers after the pandemic. Lacy said when she moved with him from Kent to Tacoma, the program helped him settle in new surroundings and meet new people.
Without Beyond the Bell, Lacy said, it would have been a challenge to find childcare for her son when she moved to Tacoma.
“I didn’t grow up here, and I was still building community during the times that we were using those resources,” she told The News Tribune.
Tacoma’s youth-violence problem, she said, has been exacerbated by the lingering impact of the pandemic. Prior to the news of the cuts coming to Beyond the Bell and Club B, Lacy felt like there was more local agencies could have done to reach out to at-risk youth and keep them safe.
“Not only is that not going to happen, but the kids that were being kept safe by Beyond the Bell, by Club B, they’re now going to be at a greater risk of harm,” she said.
Parks Tacoma board president Matt Mauer said he’ll also be affected by the elimination. He said his family was counting on Beyond the Bell for childcare when his son starts school this fall.
“It’s either my husband staying home and not going to work, working from home more, and just trying to figure out the schedule,” he told The News Tribune. “It’s a little harder, but that’s what we’re going to have to do.”
“But I know a lot of other families, especially families with more than one child, and those that work, it’s just going to be pretty rough for quite a few people,” he said.
