DAY-CARE PROVIDERS PLAN FOR INFLUX; NEWHALL DISTRICT'S YEAR-ROUND SCHEDULE PROMPTS ACTION.

Byline: Teresa Jimenez Daily News Staff Writer

Local day-care providers are making plans to accommodate the extra children expected in the off-season due to the Newhall School District's switch to a year-round schedule.

The school district, anticipating some of the problems that will go with the scheduling change, set up a task force that included representatives from the city, the YMCA and Sunshine Day Care, which operates after-school care on district campuses.

The task force looked at making daytime programs available for youngsters who have breaks during months such as October and November.

Participants in the task force praised the school district for planning for the problem in advance, but worried about how they would find counselors to provide services every month of the year.

An estimated 1,500 children from the Newhall district will be out of school every month. About 2 percent of those are expected to enter city programs, said Jodi Jones with the city Parks and Recreation Department.

``We usually have day camp for 10 weeks in the summer, and that will continue,'' Jones said. ``Now we're planning a weeklong day camp every month.''

The city and other organizations are anticipating that parents will sign children up for a variety of programs, Jones said. For example, a child can spend a week in the city's day camp, a week in Placerita Nature Center's Nature Camp and a week in The Master's College's Sports Camp, she said.

``We will share the effort with the other programs,'' Jones said. ``We can accommodate whatever number of kids sign up - if we can find the staff. We usually have college students (for summer day camp), and they're not on year-round schedules.''

The city estimated a 2 percent participation rate because about that many sign up for city programs out of the 19,000 students out during summer break, Jones said.

Other organizations have made changes, as well. Sunshine Day Care's Valencia Valley Elementary School Camp, for example, will be completely restructured. The camp used to be offered only during the summer months, said Peter Bunnell, director of Sunshine Day Care's Valencia Valley Elementary School Day Camp.

But because of the calendar change and the fact that the center serves mostly Newhall School District students, the camp will be offered all year, Bunnell said.

``Now we have four groups of kids,'' Bunnell said. ``We're ready for it.''

Sunshine has had practice setting up new schedules, Bunnell said, since it already offers a program that meets the needs of Pinetree School students, who are also on a year-round schedule. Also, Valencia Valley was on a year-round schedule from 1993 to 1995.

But Sunshine will face the same dilemma as the city: It must fill counselor jobs that normally are snatched up by college students on vacation.

``We need people who can work full time, year round,'' Bunnell said. ``We'll probably get the people who are taking a year off from school or who just graduated.''