SAN MARCOS — Child care courses have been a staple of San Marcos High School since 1961, but they will no longer be offered starting next fall.

The program’s director is retiring and in this year of threatened cuts in the state education budget, the school has announced it will not be finding a replacement.

The child development program consists of five classes. Three of the classes teach child development, parenting skills and basic instruction techniques. The other two are hands-on courses in which students run a full-featured pre-school using modern curricula. The fee for parents is $50 a semester.

Marilyn Bankhead ran the program for 16 years, but last September, before the budget crisis was announced, the school made her an offer she couldn’t refuse. It was golden handshake — a retirement benefit package that would leave the school free to hire a less-expensive replacement.

Bankhead said she only made the decision to leave once she felt comfortable the program would go on without her.

“I was assured that (school management) thought very highly of the whole program and that they would want it to remain intact,” Bankhead said. “I had two people lined up with credentials, skills and talent who would have at least applied for the job.”

The cancellation of the popular program came as a shock to the 48 students enrolled for next year and the parents of the attending and prospective pre-schoolers — some living as far away as Temecula.

“This class means a lot to a lot of these students, myself as well,” said junior Alyssa Young. “There are people who transferred to this school just to be in this class.”

Young, her mother and several students attended the school board meeting April 14 for an unscheduled question-and-answer period with the trustees. But the board members insisted the decision to cancel the class had been made at the school, not at their level.

“What impressed me the most ... was the commitment of these young women who got up. How comfortable they were and how sincere and how committed they were to the program,” parent Sheila Morris said.

Her son spent two years in the class starting in 2001 in what she described as a win-win situation for students and parents.

“This program teaches the students all kinds of job skills, life lessons, all about parenting. It’s not just preparing for child development jobs — it’s preparing them for life,” Morris said. She added that the program was good at discovering special needs children before they went on to kindergarten, a potential money-saver for the district.

Counselor Randy Wilson described the program as a valuable community liaison, and felt that child development is often underrated.

“This field of study often looks like just an elective. I don’t think there’s such a thing as just an elective. This was a program that may have been in fact more academic than meets the eye. You can get a Ph.D. in child development,” he said.

Bankhead said she knows what the death of the venerable program means for the community.

“What does our society need? We need healthy parents who know how to raise their children. This is what the community’s losing,” Bankhead said. “I think it’s important that (students are) being taught reading, writing and arithmetic, but I’m teaching the latest information on how to help a child grow and mature in school ... to make students the best parents possible to their future children.”