The UCLA Academic Senate overwhelmingly passed a resolution Tuesday calling on administrators to reverse a decision to close the university’s childcare centers in June 2027. 

UCLA will shut down the Early Care and Education program – which primarily serve faculty and students’ children – June 30, 2027, Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost Darnell Hunt announced in an email to parents, citing budget shortfalls. The University Parents Nursery School will also close at the end of the 2026-27 academic year, according to the resolution.

[Related: UCLA childcare program, which faced 2024 sex abuse case, to close amid budget deficit]

The resolution, which the Legislative Assembly passed in a 89-4 vote, said UCLA’s childcare programs are essential to faculty members. 

Though the resolution cannot require UCLA to reverse the closure, it provides a list of demands to Chancellor Julio Frenk and Hunt, including for them to reverse the decision, acknowledge child care as an essential benefit and create a new oversight structure for childcare programs and benefits.

“This surprise announcement immediately threw into chaos the lives of hundreds of UCLA parenting families, many of whom are Senate faculty, along with their teachers,” the senate said in the resolution. 

UCLA consistently pays less than one-fifth of the cost to operate ECE each year, according to a UCLA Faculty Association report citing figures the association said were provided by Chief Financial Officer Reem Hanna-Harwell. Other ECE funding comes from parent tuition, state funding, student fees and donations, according to the report. 

UCLA Media Relations did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the resolution. 

UCLA will directly pay about $1.7 million of ECE’s more than $10.3 million operating costs for 2026-27, UCLA Faculty Association said in the report. UPNS does not receive annual funding from UCLA, according to the report.

The UCLA Faculty Association also argued in the report that the university’s spending habits show it can afford to continue operating ECE, citing growth in UCLA senior administrator positions and the university’s investment in the Ascend project, which aimed to modernize the university’s financial systems. 

UCLA spent at least $213 million on the Ascend project, which has resulted in few concrete accomplishments. 

[Related: ‘One timeline after the other was not met’ – UCLA’s $213 million project is failing]

Erica Weaver, an associate professor of English, said in an emailed statement that Hunt attended the beginning of the meeting but did not stay for the full discussion about ECE and UPNS’ upcoming closures. 

She added that finding childcare on the west side of Los Angeles will be challenging without ECE.

“We are already in a childcare desert; if UCLA closes over half of all licensed infant spots in Westwood, faculty will have nowhere else to go,” Weaver said in the statement. 

Tim Groeling, chair of the senate, did not respond immediately to a request for comment on the resolution. Groeling is a former member of the ASUCLA Communications Board, which oversees UCLA Student Media, including the Daily Bruin. 

The senate said in the resolution that under the School of Education and Information Studies, ECE failed to protect children from abuse, calling for more effective administrative oversight of the program.

ECE employed Christopher Rodriguez – who was convicted in April 2025 for nine charges including sexual battery against a minor – for 25 years. A Daily Bruin investigation found that UCPD received notice of suspected child sex abuse at the University Village center more than five years before Rodriguez’s arrest.

[Related: UCPD received notice of suspected child sex abuse years before childcare teacher’s arrest]

“The ECE program has been a vital lifeline for UCLA parents, but at the same time, as currently structured and managed within the School of Education & Information Studies (SEIS), ECE has not always provided safe child care and catastrophically failed to protect children from abuse, demonstrating a serious need for more effective administration and oversight,” the resolution said.