Jewish early childhood
educators join parents
in advocating for
scholarship assistance.

DIANA LIEBERMAN
Staff Writer

W

hen Jason and Bonnie
Roskind moved to Oak Park
last December, they assumed
they would enroll their 8-
month-old son, Raffi, in a Jewish child
care center.
Jason had been hired as director of
informal Jewish education at the
Agency for Jewish Education of
Metropolitan Detroit. Then, Bonnie
found a job as an administrative assis-

tant at the West Bloomfield Jewish
Community Center. Raffi, a bubbly
toddler with dimples and an irre-
sistible smile, is their only child.
The Roskinds were very interested
in the JCC's Sarah and Irving Pitt
Child Development Center, the only
Jewish-oriented early childhood pro-
gramming in the Detroit area to offer
full infant and toddler day care as well
as preschool and kindergarten.
They definitely wanted a Jewish day
care situation. They had heard of the
high quality of the Pitt Center pro-

grams, and having Raffi at the JCC
would allow Bonnie to eat lunch with
him and be there in case of emergency
But this scenario turned out to be
impossible. Even though both parents
were employed, the Roskinds couldn't
afford Pitt Center fees.
And there was no scholarship mone y
available — not from the Pitt Center,
not from the JCC and not from the
Jewish Federation of Metropolitan
Detroit.
Their situation is not unique. While
Jewish educators and communal lead-