Madison Area Technical College is partnering with the city of Madison to provide much-needed child care services at its Goodman South campus on the city’s South Side.
MATC, also known as Madison College, built the Goodman South campus four years ago and anticipated needing child care for students, staff and the public, but administrators needed to find space for it. As of last year, they hoped that could happen within two years.
As part of its partnership with the city, MATC will purchase Fire Station No. 6 at Perry Street and Badger Road for $1, the college announced Thursday. The fire station would be torn down and replaced with a child care facility that also would include classrooms for students in the college’s early childhood education programs.
Establishing child care at Goodman South was a “first, albeit large, step” in increasing the availability of quality child care on Madison’s South Side, MATC President Jack Daniels said.
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“There is widespread recognition that the lack of quality child care is a barrier to students wanting to attend Madison College and obtain the skills that propel them into employment with family-sustaining wages, and are continuing their education at four-year institutions,” Daniels said.
“Not having accessible and available quality child care is also a barrier for recruitment and retention of employees at our local businesses, both large and small. Addressing both barriers is tremendously crucial to establishing and maintaining strong economic and community development.”
MATC’s new facility would have space for at least 50 children, but that number could grow based on fundraising. At minimum, MATC looks to build a single-story, 13,372-square-foot facility with four child care classrooms, with two reserved for infant and toddler care, defined as 6 weeks to 2 years old.
With more money, the college could expand to a two-story, 26,744-square-foot facility with eight child care classrooms serving closer to 100 students. An intermediate-size facility, a single story with six child care classrooms, would still fit on the property, at 17,291 square feet.
Students who are parents have some of the highest dropout rates. Reports show nearly half of all students with children drop out before receiving their degree, with higher rates of leaving if they’re enrolled in a community college.
MATC already operates child care at its Truax campus on Madison’s North Side, where the waiting list last year was nearly double the number of children enrolled.
To staff the new Goodman South facility, MATC will be able to rely on students enrolled in its early childhood care program. MATC plans to either hire those students or employ them through work-study programs.
“It’s a great opportunity for those students, particularly who are in early childhood programs, to have a pathway to paid employment,” said Jessica Cioci, dean of the School of Human and Protective Services.
Previous estimates put a Goodman South child care facility at $20 million, which MATC hoped to pay for with fundraising instead of a tax referendum.
The new facility will be partially supported with $1.25 million from a $2.9 million grant from the Wisconsin Economic Development Corp. MATC also is using part of that larger grant to support free manufacturing training classes.
MATC expects to break ground on the facility in mid- to late 2024, with a projected opening for the 2025-26 academic year.
The fire station would temporarily relocate to the Town of Madison Hall, 2120 Fish Hatchery Road, as the city undertakes a $200 million redevelopment of the area around the Metro Transit South Transfer Point at Badger Road and Park Street. It would include a replacement fire station, office space and housing. The fire station would move into that development by late 2027.
A care desert
“We know that (the new child care facility is) going to both help our students, but also really help the community,” Sylvia Ramirez, chief operating officer for MATC, said. “But we know that of the bigger providers around here, there’s just not enough infant and toddler care.”
Madison’s South Side already suffers from a severe lack of infant and toddler care, Ramirez said. The need for child care for Madison College is clear, as about 50% of MATC students have children.
While much of the state is considered a child care desert, the South Side stands out in the Madison area as having both high levels of poverty and a lack of child care.
Based on a study from Community Coordinated Child Care, also known as 4-C, there was about 0.4 open slot, on average, for infants and toddlers at child care centers within the ZIP codes that make up South Madison, Ramirez said.
“Which means less than one spot, which is like no spots, right? Because you can’t put your kid in less than one spot,” she said.
Expansions underway
MATC already is undergoing an expansion of its child care facilities at its Truax campus on Madison’s North Side.
When MATC first moved its child care program to the Truax facility in 2021, the college started with four classrooms that allowed MATC to accept twice the number of children the college could at MATC’s former Downtown location just blocks off the Capitol Square.
It’s expanding again, as the second half of a former Penske Trucking facility is being remodeled to include three new classrooms and more kitchen space. All three of the new classrooms are reserved for infants and toddlers, Ramirez said.
The expanded Truax campus child care facility is expected to open in January 2025.
MATC also has considered how it could add child care to its satellite campuses in Reedsburg, Portage and Fort Atkinson. It is also opening “family study spaces” at some campuses across the district.