It was a quiet Friday afternoon at Campus Child Care when the alarm sounded.

Not to worry, however, as it was just a routine fire drill. Still, assistant director Lisa Schmidt walked around the building, alerting the children and staff of the fake disaster at hand.

“Warn him,” Schmidt said to director Christine Herrmann, who was talking to a male visitor.

It turns out the warning wasn’t necessary. There were no screaming infants and toddlers running in every direction, with teachers scrambling to intercept them as the little ones ran for the exits.

Rather, everyone streamed out the back doors in an orderly fashion before returning in a matter of minutes. Not a peep was heard from the front of the building.

This scene is not out of character for Campus Child Care, which not only gets praise from the student parents, but from the National Association for the Education of Young Children, which has accredited the program time and again. That accreditation process has gotten significantly more difficult in recent years, Herrmann said.

As parents return to school after losing their jobs in the recession, facilities like Campus Child Care become ever more important. And this week, Campus Child Care will observe Week of the Young Child, an annual celebration of children sponsored by NAEYC to boost knowledge about youngsters’ needs. Events will include a hot breakfast, dessert day, a performance by an opera singer and a parents’ talent show.

Junior biology major Lori Ellis is one of the approximately 120 parents who take their children to the center. Ellis has a 3-year-old daughter named Kaylee.

“Instead of feeling guilty for leaving my daughter to study or going to work, I feel good that this is adding value to her life,” she said. “I probably chose NIU in large part because of the child care facility.”

Herrmann, whose been the center’s director for nearly 20 years, continues to be impressed by the children who stay there. Once when one of the teacher’s aides was pregnant, Herrmann said a boy put a ball under his shirt and said he too was pregnant, showing he had at least a general understanding of why the aide had a large, round belly.

“You get to the point where you say you’ve seen it all,” she said. “But that never happens.”