Child Development Center leaders explain congestion and confusion

  • Published
  • By Airman 1st Class Scott Saldukas
  • 435th Air Base Wing Public Affairs
RAMSTEIN AIR BASE, Germany --  Everybody needs to set priorities straight before they can move on or everything would become chaotic. For instance, if there were no waiting in line at the commissary, it would be a complete mad house. 

Priority is how the Child Development Center handles the issue of the waiting list for children to be accepted into the program. The KMC, at this time, has a maximum capacity of 502 children dispersed throughout the Ramstein, Vogelweh and Sembach CDCs. 

"Simply put, the child care waiting list is affected by the fact that the KMC demographics warrant more capacity to support the childcare needs than we currently have," said Dorothy Choate, chief of the Family Members Program Flight, on the time families must wait to be accepted into the CDC program. 

All of the child development programs require installation commanders to develop a priority policy for their installation. 

Priority one says that the children of staff members working in positions directly related to child care have top priority. If the staff member leaves, the child will be removed and will be replaced with the next person in line. 

Priority two states that a single parent, military or DOD, dual military and dual command sponsored DOD civilians assigned to the KMC are second in line. 

Priority three involves active-duty members with a spouse that volunteers outside the house more than 20 hours a week on a regular basis, or is a full-time student. Volunteers are reserved five percent of childcare space. 

Priority four is reserved for all other patrons who are eligible to join and should be enrolled. 

With so many children, cooperation from all angles is needed to help the process run smoothly. 

The average waiting time at the second priority is zero to six months, but that can move faster depending on the season, a child's age and the location requested, said Ms. Choate. 

To help with the congestion, a renovation of the Vogelweh CDC and a new CDC annex on Ramstein will open up an estimated 136 slots. The Ramstein project is scheduled to begin Aug 11, said Ms. Choate. Also, the Army manages three CDCs that can be found on Landstuhl, Miesau and Kleber. 

"Individuals who receive orders to the KMC should work with their sponsor to register for child care," said Ms. Choate. "Our Resource and Referral Office will assist our parents with placement and school districts which may have available school age care."