Opposite page clockwise from top left:

Fania Goldvekht relaxes Jack Blackwell.

Jack Blackwell, 13 months,
peeks out of his crib.
Michelle Marakhen, 4, jumps
over the rope that Tanya Ilyasova
holds during exercise activities.

Clockwise from bottom right:

Fania Goldvekht feeds the babies
one at a time, while the older ones
enjoy lunch at their tables.

Tanya Ilyasova teaches the children
counting and the alphabet. They are
singing the "A, B, C," song.

Breakfast, lunch and snacks are
included at Fania Goldvekht's in-home
day care for infants and children.

after shopping around found her
prices to be competitive with what
other houses were charging.
The low end I found was around
$110 per week, but she's about average
for home day care," said Cheryl
Sukenik-Raisky, whose son Matthew is
at Fania's House. She hadn't looked
into the JCC because "the main thing
I heard was the expense, so I didn't go
any further in the investigation."
What started slowly five years ago has
now turned into a 16-hour-a-day job for
Goldvekht, with the maximum of 12
children coming in each day, ranging in
age from 5 months to 5 years.
"It was hard to get started,"
Goldvekht recalled. "The language
was hard and no one knew me.
Now, she has five children who are
the second in their family to be with
her. "If I had a third child, I'd send
them there too," said Julie Berlin,
whose 3-year-old son Maxwell used to
attend. Berlin's 8-month-old Aaron is
there twice a week. "It's like dropping
them off at their grandmothers."
Berlin's oldest son does what

"

Goldvekht said several kids did: move on
to the nearby Temple Emanu-El nursery
school when they are 3. "I tell parents the
kids should go somewhere else after they
turn 3," Goldvekht said. "Most of the
American kids do that, but some of the
Russian children stay until they are 5."
Goldvekht keeps the kids on a regular
routine. From 6:30 to 9 a.m., they get
dropped off at the side door of Fania's
one-story home, and they get a hot
breakfast consisting of pancakes or hot
cereal. Playtime starts at 9; at 10 the kids
are split up. One- to two-and-a-half-
year-olds are watching educational videos
with assistant Sima Brenner and the
older kids are in the makeshift classroom
in the kitchen with Tanya Ilyasova.
Ilyasova, who was a kindergarten
teacher in the Soviet Union, helps the
children with simple math on a chalk-
board set up in the kitchen and
reviews numbers, letters and colors.
From 11 or 11:30, the kids eat on
small Rubbermaid tables in the
kitchen and then go down for a nap
from noon until 3 p.m. Each child
uses the same cot each day, Goldvekht

said, to reinforce the routine. Every
infant is in the same crib each day.
At 4, they get time to play outside
in the back yard and on the huge deck
that was added to the house.
Goldvekht's primary responsibility
is to take care of the infants, which
number two to four on any given day,
and to prepare the meals while the
kids are being taught.
The language barrier hasn't been a
problem and many of the American
kids have picked up some Russian.
"My husband is Russian and it was
important to have the baby in a
Russian-speaking environment," said
Sukenic-Raisky, whose husband
Michael speaks Russian to their son
Matthew. Matthew will be moving on
to Temple Emanu-El in the fall, where
his older brother Jeremy now attends.
Goldvekht held several jobs helping
her husband Yafim and twin sons
Roman and Alex through school before
finally opening the day care center
where she could focus on infants.
"I work with them like they are my
own," Goldvekht said. Li

four staff people affected will be
able to stay with Temple Emanu-El
or fill openings in the program on
the Maple-Drake campus, he said.
The price of the program when
Temple Emanu-El takes over on
July 1 will be $39 per day, a signifi-
cant reduction from the $975 per
month that the JCC had been
charging.
"The whole pricing system is
different because it is part of the
nursery program, which is full,"
Silverman said.
The program will be able to
accommodate 22-25 children
according to the JCC, and all chil-
dren currently enrolled at JPM are
assured places.
The expense to parents also
stands to be less because the JCC
required participants' families to be
members of the Center. Temple
Emanu-El doesn't require member-
ship to be enrolled, but offers a
break in temple dues to families
who have children in the program.
The cost of the program being
lower doesn't please some parents as
much as that there will still be a
program at JPM.
"It's just wonderful," said Karen
Hess, a mother of three children in
the JPM program, who plans on
keeping her children there despite
questions on how Temple Emanu-
El will run the program. "When
you find a place where you're com-
fortable sending your children, you
like to keep them there."
Lauren Hirsch, another JCC
parent, is excited by the news, but
is looking at it just like she is look-
ing at other options.
"I'll review how the folks at
Emanu-El plan on running it," she
said. "What would sell me is if they
could commit to keeping the three-
kid-to-one staff ratio.'
Both Hess and Hirsch have been
pleased with the consistency of the
JPM staff. Emanu-El's Silverman
plans to use as many of them as she
can, based on the program's enroll-
ment. Starting next week,
Silverman plans to meet with sever-
al of the staff currently at the JPM
program.
This will be the second time that
the temple has had an infant-tod-
dler program. The first ended six
years ago after being in operation
two years.
"It can work because it's in a dif-
ferent location," Silverman said.

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4/16
1999

Detroit Jewish News

7

