THE STRUGGLE TO FIND GOOD CHILD CARE; WAITING LISTS ARE LONG AND QUALITY COSTS.

Byline: Sherry Joe Crosby Staff Writer

Fabiola Ayala used to think it was a joke - parents so desperate for good day care that they placed their unborn offspring on waiting lists that seemed to stretch into eternity.

Now the Burbank mother is living the nightmare. Ayala's 2-year-old son, Dylan, has been on the waiting list for Burbank's Horace Mann Child Care Center since March - and he still hasn't cracked the top 10.

``I waited too long,'' said Ayala who has since placed her son in a family child-care home that lacks the educational component the center offers.

Ayala isn't alone in her struggle to find top-notch day care for her little one.

According to a study released last week, licensed child care is in severely short supply throughout California. The shortage is especially acute in Los Angeles, where supply meets only 17 percent of the estimated demand for licensed care for children of all ages.

Child care experts attribute the shortage to California's booming economy and recent welfare reform legislation that has pushed thousands of parents off the public rolls and into the job market.

``There's a greater demand for child care now than there has been in decades,'' said Laura Escobedo, associate director of community relations for the Child Care Resource Center in Van Nuys, a resource and referral agency which provides a soup-to-nuts array of services for parents and child-care providers.

Especially hard to find is infant care, school-age care and care during evening and weekend hours, according to the study. And quality care isn't cheap.

At Children's Wonderland in Woodland Hills, where parents of infants and toddlers face a six-month waiting list, the rate for full-time infant care tops $795 a month.

``This is the demand of the market and we have a such a long waiting list,'' said Deanna Weigold, chief operating officer of Children's Wonderland, whose Warner Center facility serves about 150 children between 6 weeks and 6 years of age.

Child-care providers said infant care tends to cost the most because required child-to-teacher ratios are low, 1 to 4 in California, and staff members need extra training.

``It's higher maintenance altogether,'' Weigold said.

Search early

At the Northridge Hospital Children's Center, the waiting list for infants and toddlers stretches into summer 2000.

``People are shocked when they call,'' said Tammy Reich, director of child-care services at the center, which serves about 60 children each day between the ages of 6 weeks and 5 years. She urged parents to start searching for day care as soon as possible.

``If you want good quality, you have to start early, unless you have a special grandma or someone you know who will have an opening,'' Reich said.

Patricia Ng, a Sherman Oaks pediatrician whose daughter is enrolled in the program, said she had to wait five months, which forced her to extend her maternity leave a month longer than planned, before an opening popped up.

She said the center was well worth the wait.

``I was so fortunate,'' said Ng, who was attracted to the center's age-appropriate learning activities and a sign-language program that starts with infants. ``I have the peace of mind knowing that my child is in a safe and loving environment.''

And while Ng and her physician husband spend about $6,000 a year on child-care costs - less than 10 percent of their yearly income - she bemoaned the fact that many families are unable to afford the high-quality care that her daughter enjoys.

``That's the difficult and frustrating thing,'' Ng said. ``Everyone wants the best for their child, but it's becoming this higher-end thing for people who make money. It's not fair.''

High costs, low

Day-care providers sympathized with parents' woes over high prices but said the cost of providing care, especially for high-maintenance infants, outstrips any revenue they receive.

``No one is really living high off the hog on child care,'' said Reich of Northridge Hospital's Children's Center.

In fact, day-care providers said they are forced to offer their workers low pay and inadequate benefits to compete with other providers and make care relatively affordable for parents.

In Los Angeles County, the average child-care worker makes about $16,140 a year. For preschool teachers, the figures rises to $20,090 and for entry-level public school teachers, the yearly pay averages $23,835.

Child care often is a ``stopping ground for something bigger and better,'' Reich said. ``You get people who are really terrific and who want to be in the field but can't because of the hardship of pay.''

Reich said she recently signed paperwork qualifying three of her workers for federally-subsidized housing.

However, Reich said she has managed to staunch high turnover among her employees by offering full medical and dental benefits, a 401(k) retirement investment plan and other perks.

``We're trying to do things to keep employees,'' she said.

Roland Armstorff, a Burbank writer and production coordinator in the film industry, said high prices are complicated by substandard care.

He and his wife, Cherie, pulled their then-infant daughter out of one family day-care home after discovering the baby alone on a couch. The provider was in a bathroom, combing her hair.

``We just left,'' said Armstorff, who found better care in Horace Mann, which is operated by the Burbank Unified School District and accepts infants as young as three months old.

``We immediately fell in love with the place,'' said Armstorff, whose 3-year-old son is now enrolled in the center's preschool program. ``All the teachers are credentialed and the aides, for the most part, are working on getting their credentials.''

Ayala, the Burbank woman who hopes to enroll her son in Horace Mann, said she is pleased with the provider who looks after him now, but she yearns for the academic-rich surroundings of a day-care center.

``It's a great place, but I'd rather have him in a learning environment,'' Ayala said.

And after eight months of waiting, the safety and health consultant for a workers' compensation insurance firm has no plans to pull her son off the list just yet.

``I'm going to stay on that list,'' Ayala said. ``It's close. It's a great school. And he's up to No. 11 (on the list) - up from No. 50.''

The study was released by the California Child Care Resource and Referral Network, a group of 61 state-funded agencies in all 58 counties that provide child-care referrals and information to parents as well as training to providers, among other services.

CAPTION(S):

2 photos, box, chart

Photo: (1 -- color) Debbie Eggena, lead teacher at Bright Horizons child care center in Northridge, spins a group of boys on a merry-go-round.

(2 -- color) Pat Ng, left, visits her daughter Kylie at Bright Horizons for some play in the sandbox.

John Lazar/Staff Photographer

Box: Who to call

Chart: Child care in Los Angeles