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Conclusion On November 13, 1971, the California Parents’ Association for Children’s Centers (CPACC) held its twenty-third annual conference in San Francisco. It was CPACC’s first meeting since AB 750 had “change[d] the thrust” of the children’s center program and since the retirements of John Weber and Theresa Mahler. The organization struggled to readjust to the new political landscape, the loss of its experienced leaders and allies, and a changing clientele. As it had for decades, the parents’ association attracted enthusiastic people who understood the importance of the children’s centers and wanted to mobilize mothers to have a strong political voice. Ironically, just as the parents’ association was struggling to keep the membership engaged and active, it received statewide recognition as a vital preschool interest group. A week after the annual convention , CPACC President Lynne Monti received an invitation from the governor’s office to nominate three parents to serve on the recently established statewide Advisory Committee of Preschool Educational Programs. State political leaders had watched what one observer described in 1952 as a “wacky, amateur parent pressure group” sustain diligent political action for child care for more than twenty-five years and assumed it would continued to do so.1 As the small cohort of parent leaders tried to reinvigorate the organization at the convention, they searched for improved methods to communicate with members and mobilize them. The presentation on motivation was presented by Farida Melendy, twenty-nine and a single mother of three, who had just been elected president of the Parents’ Association of the Lincoln Child Development Center in Santa Monica as well as a statewide officer. She described the Lincoln Center’s success in recruiting active parents over the past year and reported on strategies that worked. She was also aware of the movement’s history: “When we understand the beginnings of the children’s centers in the war years and learn how interested parent groups were able to make their voices heard in Sacramento so their centers were able to receive funding and continue in operation and also to grow in number, we can see our place in a long chain of parents and thus are able to feel the responsibility of our position at this time.”2 Melendy most likely appreciated the program’s history because the Santa Monica centers were still under the direction of Docia Zavitkovsky, a child care director who had been working alongside parents since World War II and imparted to this new generation of parents her knowledge of successful strategies: supplying babysitting at parent meetings, holding meetings after work and providing dinner, and assigning parents the responsibility to train newer participants and help them become active members.3 Lynne Monti, too, was determined to rejuvenate the statewide parents’ group. Having gained experience and a reputation as legislative advocate for the previous two years, in November 1971 Monti became CPACC president. When she took the helm Monti knew the organization needed to rebuild. Soon after assuming office, she wrote to Assemblywoman Yvonne Braithwaite, seeking assistance and advice. “The organization is weak, but the potential for educating large numbers of women is great,” she explained. “We are a group of twenty thousand women and a few men who are primarily single parent low-income people struggling to make ends meet.”4 Monti met with Jeanada Nolan, who oversaw the children’s centers and served as bureau chief for Preschool Education Programs, and corresponded with the president of the California Children’s Centers Directors’ and Supervisors’ Association about the parents’ desire for “having closer relations with administrators.”5 Finally, she strategized with many CPACC executive board members. In a letter to David Michaelis, an executive board member and leader in the Long Beach parents’ group, she declared, “I am certain we will all be able to work together and put the organization on the map.”6 Well trained by Theresa Mahler in the legislative process and acutely aware of CPACC’s importance to preserving child care for poor single mothers, Monti did everything she could in northern California and across the state to keep the organization viable. Despite the best efforts of Melendy, Monti, and other dedicated parents, however , the statewide parents’ association disappeared from the political landscape sometime in 1972.7 Individual parents and local parents’ groups remained active, but by the time a crisis over federal child care funds ensued in 1973, parents were still speaking out but no longer as members of CPACC. How...

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