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Five months after the Tri-Valley YMCA daycare program at Fairlands Elementary was cited for a Type A violation by state regulators, the Pleasanton Unified School District terminated its contract agreements with the Y for operating after-school and summer programs at three district elementary schools.
The YMCA had been operating at the Fairlands, Lydiksen and Mohr campuses, with five-year contracts previously set to expire June 30, 2021. Now that the contracts have been canceled, the district will take over operations of these services.
The district has not yet stated whether the November violation, in which a kindergartner was left unattended outdoors, was the reason for discontinuing the contract with the YMCA.
“We along with the YMCA of the East Bay believed it was in the best interest of both entities to have the District operate after school and summer programs at Mohr, Fairlands and Lydiksen through Kids Club,” said PUSD spokesman Patrick Gannon.
The decision to terminate the contracts was voted upon as three separate items on the consent calendar during the May 8 board meeting, one item listed for each of the elementary schools.
The YMCA declined to comment when contacted by the Weekly.
The citation against the Fairlands daycare was issued Nov. 8. According to the Department of Social Services, Community Care Licensing Division, Type A citations constitute the most serious class of violations “in which there is an immediate risk to the health, safety or personal rights of those in care.”
According to the division’s report, an afternoon kindergarten student lined up with the older children to transition from the Fairlands YMCA facility to the school itself. The kindergarten student, however, did not follow the others through the school gate.
“A school staff member was greeting parents in the parking lot and noticed a child alone crying near the multipurpose room,” the investigative report continues. “The child was returned to the facility.
“The facility staff supervising children were not aware that the child was missing from the group. Per director, a staff member was responsible for watching the children walk from the facility until the last child entered through the school gate. The staff member failed to provide visual supervision and did not observe the younger child losing her way,” the report stated.
As a result, the Fairlands YMCA daycare was issued a Type A citation, fined an immediate $500 and required to send the licensing division a written plan of action “detailing the steps staff will (take) to ensure visual supervision at all times.”
Additionally, “procedures were revised, administrative actions were taken and the staff member involved is no longer employed at the facility,” the report said. Copies of the licensing report were also required to be posted and provided to parents and guardians of children enrolled in care at the facility.
The YMCA program at Lydiksen Elementary also received Type A citations in recent years, including a citation in June 2016 for having a staff member whose criminal record clearance was inactive and two in August 2016, one for a child having been left unsupervised and another for an insufficient teacher-student ratio. The latter violation was corrected after two additional staff members arrived at the center.
All three YMCA-operated sites received citations for Type B violations within the last three years. Type B are violations “that, if not corrected, may become an immediate risk to the health, safety or personal rights of clients,” according to the licensing division. Since 2015, three Type B citations were recorded at Fairlands, two at Lydiksen and two at Mohr.
The three contracts for the YMCA-operated sites were terminated May 18. The district-operated Kids Club is now providing after-school and summer care at these sites.
The YMCA was the worst organization to ever exist. I was a staff member at the fairlands child care site for three years. Staff constantly yelled at the kids and made their time at the site miserable. The administration for the YMCA is completely incompetent and they never knew what was going on at their sites. The directors were constantly rude to the parents and the directors were miserable managers always berating children and staff alike.
The very expensive District-run STEAM preschool on the District Office location was also issued a Citation from state inspectors two weeks ago for improper storage of medication.
If this link does not work, go and take a look at the state website.
https://secure.dss.ca.gov/ccld/TransparencyAPI/api/FacilityReports?facNum=013422059&inx=1
Parents should realize that they need to be extremely careful about ensuring that their children will be supervised adequately in any facility on District property including those run by the District.
Also the letter from the District due to the State as a result of their recent STEAM school preschool violation needs to be submitted to the State tomorrow. Has the PUSD responded and can the Pleasanton Weekly obtain a copy of it?
Parents beware….
I too was an employee at two of their sites about ten years ago. It was a ‘poop’ show then and seems to still be. The directors that I worked with were more worried about hanging out in the office and doing paper work than actually working with kids. The ED would hire her kids to run programs, and in turn the kids would hire their friends. (At the time they were older high school/beginning college age.) Nothing wrong with that but the conflict of interest was loud and proud with them. (Oh my mom is the ED, I can do what I want type mentality.) Glad to see that’s flushed out of the district.
When did Kelly Dulka leave the YMCA and what happened? I don’t recall seeing this in the Pleasanton Weekly….so what is the story?
Under “Our Leadership”
http://www.ymcaeastbay.org/Locations/Tri-Valley-YMCA/About.htm
…the following has been recently removed from the YMCA website, but it used to be right under the Our Leadership section:
“Kelly O’Lague Dulka
Vice President and Regional Executive Director
A licensed clinical social worker, Kelly O’Lague Dulka has more than 25 years of experience working with children and families. She holds a master’s degree in Social Welfare from the University of California , Berkeley and a master’s degree in Pastoral Ministries from Holy Names University . She received her clinical training at Stanford University Medical Center and later joined the staff of the Children’s Health Council in Palo Alto as a children’s therapist. She also has served as the director of Religious Education at Our Lady of Grace Catholic Church and later as the director of Faith and Ministry Formation for the Roman Catholic Diocese of Oakland. Kelly joined the YMCA as the executive director of the Tri-Valley branch in August 2006.”
It’s appauling and sad that this article is so one sided. My children and I were actively involved in the Tri-Valley YMCA and their programs and I have nothing negative to say about them. It’s funny how you can talk about violations but not mention that the school districts programs aren’t even licensed… not to mention you walk into half of them and they are a complete wreck. Research and a non-biased opinion is important when writing articles and saying facts so justly. Please keep in mind there are two sides to every story.
The PUSD posted positions for the candidates to take over the Y-Kids facilities long before the ‘consent calendar’ action to remove the management because it operates in secret. It failed to even discuss the issues because PUSD and the Board fails to keep the public informed.
There have been a number of complaints, but the PUSD attempts to hide them. That is why it is better to have childcare in a non-district facility that is located away from a district site. That way, parents can complain to the state, and city, county. For any district site, neither the city or county have the power to shut the facility down. And PUSD hides the complaints.
It wants to hide the complaints about unsupervised children at Lydiksen
https://secure.dss.ca.gov/ccld/TransparencyAPI/api/FacilityReports?facNum=013415570&inx=3
https://secure.dss.ca.gov/ccld/TransparencyAPI/api/FacilityReports?facNum=013415570&inx=2
And injuries at Mohr because of Mohr’s unsafe outdoor area for the school
https://secure.dss.ca.gov/ccld/TransparencyAPI/api/FacilityReports?facNum=013415572&inx=1
As well as other issues involving substantiated complaints against other YMCA of East Bay operated facilities nearby involving rodents, staff yelling at kids, and violations involving grabbing kids inappropriately/corporate punishment and citations involving “Each child shall be free from corporal or unusual punishment, humiliation, intimidation, ridicule, coercion, threat, mental abuse, or other actions of a punitive nature.”
But PUSD should have held a public meeting to discuss the issues, decide whether another contractor should be found and come up with options. Instead it operated out of the public eye and replaced the staff with their own people so now all of the elementary sites are unlicensed except for Walnut Grove.
fyi-Links to other issues in surrounding communities referenced above….
https://secure.dss.ca.gov/ccld/TransparencyAPI/api/FacilityReports?facNum=013419472&inx=3
https://secure.dss.ca.gov/ccld/TransparencyAPI/api/FacilityReports?facNum=013412851&inx=7
https://secure.dss.ca.gov/ccld/TransparencyAPI/api/FacilityReports?facNum=070212375&inx=1
My kids both went to the Kids Club program and it was really impressive and from all the daycares in the area I had looked at the best program with really good supervision. The Kindergarten program was really great. Always organized and plenty of activities and very clean.
Unfortunately, the district did decide a few years ago to double the number of kids at the sites which also doubles the adults and they did not really double the space as the additional space is in extra classrooms or portables which do not have the kitchen and bathroom facilities and makes it harder to supervise.
So, it is definitely louder and more chaotic than it used to be just based on the sheer number of kids and adults. In additional, they have been asked to do more with all of the staggered schedules i.e. early reader/late reader, TK….. Bringing the numbers back down or improving the facilities to accommodate the higher number of kids would definitely improve the program but I don’t think that will happen. My younger son had this for a couple of years and not such a big deal for him as was older but definitely a difference from the early days. We still never had an issue with them being clean or not run well. They were always organized with activities for kids who wanted to do a project and the toys were always on shelves at the end of a session and picked up by the kids. They new how to organize and clean up their area and that each toy/game/book had a place.
Hansen Curious, do you mean that there is no more Tri-Valley YMCA Board of Managers and it has been eliminated? The last I see any mention of a list of Board managers listed on the website was November 2017 https://web.archive.org/web/20171105153051/http://www.ymcaeastbay.org:80/Locations/Tri-Valley-YMCA/About.htm
Subsequent web pages delete the information. Am I correct that the Tri-Valley YMCA Board of Managers no longer even exists?
Now the current website http://www.ymcaeastbay.org/Locations/Tri-Valley-YMCA.htm has no board members listed for the Tri-Valley YMCA Board of Managers and the Board is not even mentioned. And there is no management staff either.
But other locations like the Oakland YMCA still have board of managers and a staff according to http://www.ymcaeastbay.org/Locations/downtown-oakland-ymca/about.htm Also Hilltop has a board of managers as well http://www.ymcaeastbay.org/Locations/Hilltop-Family-YMCA/About.htm
Was the Tri-Valley YMCA the only sub-organization of the East Bay YMCA to lose its complete board and management and if so why and what happened?
Hansen Curious, I think I found the answer to the questions I asked you.
Apparently the YMCA of the East Bay no longer exists. Or rather what it used to be is called a “Disappearing Corporation” according to a document I found on the web. I found a document dated May 25, 2017 which states that the Central Bay Area YMCA (YMCA CBA) group consisting of Albany, Berkeley and Pleasant Hill YMCA’s is the “Surviving Corporation” and that the previous YMCA of the East Bay organization no longer even exists – as of July 1, 2017. It was “merged out” which I believe means it was taken over by the YMCA CBA organization.
All of the assets and funds from the YMCA of the East Bay were all turned over to the Central Bay Area YMCA group according to IRS filings. And the Central Bay Area YMCA group is now going under the name YMCA of the East Bay and operating out of Oakland.
My son attended the YMCA summer program every year from 2004 until 2009 and he loved it. As he became older he assisted during the summer as a Junior Counselor and later on was helped by Kelly Dulka when he was having difficulties adjusting in High School. Kelly got him involved as a “homework helper” at the after-school program at Mohr and had him work with a mentor for several months. I steered many friends to the summer programs for their children and all were impressed and pleased with the care and activities their children received. I am saddened that there is no longer a YMCA program nearby and friends were dismayed to know that their children would not be attending the Y’s summer program this year. I have nothing but praise for the Pleasanton YMCA. What a loss to the community.
@ Parents Beware – Kelly left the Y about 8 months ago.
The YMCA of the East Bay who had administration control over the Tri-Valley YMCA (TVM) staged a complete takeover of the Tri-Valley Y about a year ago. They disbanded the local TVM Board of Managers and have slowly been forcing out or eliminating all TVM personnel. In addition, they have closed down all the programs and services offered by TVM with the exception of the Y-Guides/Y-Princesses program. That program will now be administered through the YMCA of the East Bay with no local representation.
Programs that have been eliminated include Family Counseling, YMCA Summer Camp, and After School Care. These services and programs provided much needed assistance to families and kids in need.
All these changes were made in secret without any notice sent to even the TVM Board of Managers nor the communities the programs served.
@ Parents beware – Yes, you are correct. The Central Bay Y absorbed the East Bay Y hence absorbing Tri-valley and Castro Valley Y’s. I would characterize it almost as a hostile takeover if the Y was a for-profit entity. The BOD of the CBA Y is solely focused on gyms. They believe the Y’s mission is to provide for-profit gym facilities and any other programs are distractions.
The East Bay Y owned a few high value properties where they delivered services and programs to their respective communities. After the takeover by the CBA Y, these properties were sold off for enormous profit. To date, the proceeds from those sales have not been directed back into programs and services.
The CBA/East Bay YMCA is being run now as a for-profit entity which is counter to its original mission.