Submitted by: Judith Blum
This entry relates to past and present.
Category(ies) of this entry:  Coming to Davis

I first came to Davis as a 17 year old freshman.  It was 1958.  There were three of us from high school in the car with one suitcase each.

I left Davis in 1960 for the Bay Area helping my husband through graduate school.  I was a counselor at the California School for the Deaf, in Berkeley.  We returned to Davis in 1966 so I could complete school and we could raise our two sons. 

My first job while going to school was at The Children’s preschool on F Street.  My salary was .75 an hour. 

I graduated with a B.S in Child Development, began my teaching credential and Masters through the department of Education.  My children were in Longview School for part of that time.  Jane Welker was also a parent and there was a teacher, Julie Edwards.  Her mom was the writer, Tillie Olson.  It was now 1970. 

Jane was the director of the on-campus Early Childhood Laboratory Preschool.  They wanted to expand the program after Julie left that spring.  For the next 7 years I was contracted as Director of the Longview Nursery School. 

A young student, Nancy, a geology student worked as my assistant.  You know her as Nancy Hodges, Director of Applegate Nursery School for more than 25 years. 

Besides our role teaching children and supervising the UC Davis students, we realized there was a need to establish full day care, to professionalize the program and to help parents coordinate services.  The Davis community of preschool teachers mobilized to bring that about. 

We established an Early Childhood Needs Committee.  We did need assessments and promoted the City of Davis hiring a Child Care Coordinator.  That has turned into the Davis Child Care Services department. 

Additionally, several of us wrote the curriculum and taught the first formal courses on the now mandated 12 units of Early Childhood Education through UCD extension. 

Some of us who “pioneered” in early childhood education in the 1970’s are still actively involved in the lives of children and their families.  Besides having 6 grandchildren, I am an individual and family therapist in Davis.  Nancy has her first grand child and is interning as a therapist on campus.

Judith Blum