The Iola school district hopes to secure grant funding to build a daycare on the elementary school campus.
If successful, the project would build a facility on school grounds, east of a playground at Iola Elementary School. Two private daycare centers that participate in a districtwide preschool program — Munchkinland and More and Ready, Set, Learn — would move their operations there.
“It could be a huge benefit for families to have everything at one site,” USD 257
Superintendent Stacey Fager said. “It would be a hub of activity.”
For the past four years, the district has partnered with Munchkinland and More and Ready, Set, Learn to share training and curriculum for preschool teachers and students. Preschool students are divided into morning and afternoon sessions between the three facilities, with the district providing transportation.
The program has been so successful, it now has a waiting list — and that’s after an additional classroom at IES was designated for a combined 3- and 4-year-old preschool class. Administrators have had to turn away families who live outside the district.
The new facility would add about 31 daycare slots for a total of 96, in addition to 120 preschool students. An architect has estimated the size of the facility at 13,216 square feet.
It would include room for infants, identified as a top need for area families.
It also would make things simpler for families of preschool students who attend for a half-day. The students could simply walk from the school to the daycare center for the remainder of their day, easing the transportation burden and making it easier for working parents.
THE DISTRICT is applying for a grant from the Kansas Children’s Cabinet and Trust Fund. Entities can ask for up to $5 million to construct shovel-ready projects to provide early child care.
Marmaton Valley School District also is applying for the same grant with a similar proposal, hoping to build a daycare on its campus. Superintendent Kim Ensminger proposes a 6,000-square foot facility to add more than 50 daycare slots for infants through school-age children.
Fager said he believes both facilities are needed and is hopeful the Children’s Cabinet will fund both grant requests.
Jenna Higginbotham, USD 257 curriculum director who leads the district’s preschool program, attended Tuesday’s county commission meeting along with representatives of Munchkinland and More and Ready, Set, Learn. They asked the county to provide a letter of support for their project. Commissioners agreed; they also issued a letter of support for Marmaton Valley’s grant.
Fager said he believes the district’s grant will appeal to funders because it has the support of a wide variety of partners, including the two daycare business owners. If the facility is built, it will be owned by the school district, and the two businesses likely would be folded into the new entity.
“That isn’t something that happens lightly. The daycare owners have to see this as a benefit to their businesses and to the community as well,” Fager said. “I think that sells the strength of it.”
