The contract for construction of a new child development center at Patuxent River Naval Air Station was awarded last year, and it is now scheduled to open late in the winter of 2013.

But meanwhile, new names are constantly added to the waiting list for child care at Pax River, creating dilemmas for active-duty military parents transferred to the base.

The new center will have space for about 300 children. The existing center can serve 128 children, from infants to age 5, and an annex holds another 65. Before- and after-school care is offered for up to 137 more older children.

Pax River also certifies what it calls “child development homes,” in-home child care offered in Navy housing areas. Late last year, there were 18 of those.

Phyllis Leighton, child and youth programs director at Pax River, said that the waiting list for all these types of child care usually averages 230 during the year. The wait list in mid-November stood at 201, with the greatest need in infant and preschool care. “On average, we receive about 40 applications per month for child care in center-based, child development homes and school-age care,” she said.

First priority on the list goes to a parent or parents on active military duty. Next comes a family with one active-duty military parent and a spouse who is working or attending college or technical school. Following that comes a service member with a non-working spouse, with the stipulation that the spouse must be employed within 90 days after enrollment of a child. Department of Defense civilians and contractors round out the tail end of the list.

Kristin Bell, a 27-year-old mother of two and part-time certified child-care provider at Pax River, said she thinks part of the reason the waiting list is so long is because civilians and contractors are offered the same care as military families. “They get in care and stay in care because they never leave Pax River, therefore taking up spaces for a long time” and preventing military families from cracking the waiting list in a timely way, she said.

The waiting list leaves military and civilian families at Pax River looking outside the base gate for child care.

“St. Mary’s has the lowest number of free-standing child care centers in the tri-county area,” said Siobhan Ponder, executive director for Promise Resource Center in Charlotte Hall, which trains and certifies child care providers.

There are 46 certified day care centers in St. Mary’s, compared to Charles County’s 76 centers and Calvert’s 59. “There just aren’t enough. We have 235 licensed family in-home day cares, but not everyone feels comfortable with that,” Ponder said.

Which was exactly how Danielle Weisner, 27, felt. An aviation electricians mate second class, married to another active-duty sailor, Weisner believing as a dual-military couple they would face little to no wait time in receiving full-time child care upon arrival at Pax River from Hawaii last April.

With a 3-year-old in need of full-time day care and another baby on the way, Weisner was looking for confirmation. “I submitted all the paperwork to get our son in the [child development center] on base the first week of March, right after I found out in February that I’d be transferred to the Fleet Readiness Command here,” she said. “I received an email confirming that we were on the waiting list, but it wasn’t until I actually called in May, when I had specified I’d need the care, that I was informed that there was still a 10- to 11-month wait.”

With her report date for work swiftly approaching, Weisner began searching for off-base child care, and eventually resorting to sending her 3-year-old to his grandparents’ house in North Carolina for two months.

Much of the off-base child care she found in the area would have cost up to $800 a month — far exceeding the base’s biweekly care rate, which ranges from $121 to $301 based on total family income.

Weisner was offered in-home care on base for her son as a last resort — an option she had earlier rejected. “We just didn’t like the idea of meeting the person one time in an interview and then having to decide within two days or so if we were going to trust them with our child. It’s like meeting a stranger one time and then saying, ‘Here, take my kid,’ and trusting that they’ll be OK.”

But after several shaky interviews, the Weisners eventually settled on an in-home care provider in the neighborhood they live in on base, and acknowledged they have been pleasantly surprised. “We got lucky with our provider, but not every situation is the same or turns out as well as ours did,” Danielle Weisner said.

Kimberly Robillard, 25, a Navy spouse with a full-time job, placed her daughter on Pax River’s child care waiting list last January, and said she was assured that a spot should be available once she and her family arrived at Pax in April. Once here, however, that wasn’t the case. “The list was so long that we had to wait a few months before even getting her into a [child development center] on base,” Robillard said.

Robillard was offered a job in June, when her daughter still lacked care.

“Luckily I had called my parents and they were generous enough to have my mom fly out from California to watch Kaysie until we were able to get her into day care,” she said. “My mom stayed from June 10 to the end of the month, at which time she decided to fly back to California with Kaysie until we could arrange care for her.”

A spot opened for Kaysie — the day the child and her grandmother flew to California.

“The gave us a two-week grace period from the day we were offered care before we had to start paying, but by the time Kaysie came back in July we’d already paid for two weeks of care without her in it just to hold her spot,” Robillard said.

But then her 2-year-old daughter was “booted” from the child-care provider’s home, she said. “I didn’t find out until I came home from work one day and my husband told me he’d been given a two-week notice by our provider to find other care because Kaysie and one of the other children weren’t getting along. I couldn’t believe it.”

Pax River’s in-home providers are not required to assist families in finding alternate care if things “don’t work out” — only in instances of personal illness or absence will the provider have to make other arrangements for those they watch.

“After it took us so long to get care in the first place, it just made things that much more difficult,” Robillard said.

But she said the base’s child-care personnel were quick to offer other providers to interview.

“They gave us the names of three potential [in-home] providers right away once we called and told them what happened and thankfully we didn’t have to scramble to find care,” Robillard said. “But I’d just say to other parents out there as soon as you get your orders [to Pax River] or can put your name on the wait list, I would say do it ... It takes a long time to get day care here, and you never know how long you might have to wait.”

jgoolsby@somdnews.com

To learn more

To register for on-base child care at Patuxent River Naval Air Station, call 301-342-7636 or visit www.navymwr.org and click on Child & Youth Programs for more information. For assistance in finding off-base care, the region’s Child Care Administration office can be reached at 301-475-3770.