Another school in Horizon School Division (HSD) is getting a daycare.
Lake Lenore School is undergoing renovations to turn one classroom into a daycare, explained Kim Moorman, one of the organizers behind the new daycare.
"There was inconsistent child care in the community," she explained. "Something was needed."
Right now, a lot of parents take their kids out of the community for daycare, placing them in daycares in the communities they work in, Moorman said.
Keeping the kids in the community will benefit the community, the parents, and the children, she stated.
Moorman and several other people in the community started working on a plan to get a daycare in the community during the summer of 2008.
"We started looking into options and then in the spring of 2009, the provincial government offered us some assistance and gave us some options," Moorman explained.
Then the group started working with Lake Lenore School and the HSD.
The renovations started in August 2010 and the group hopes to have the construction phase finished at the end of December and the daycare opened in January.
The new daycare will have space for 15 children, said Moorman.
The group has already hired a daycare director and is in the process of hiring more staff. They are looking for one more full time person, along with one part-time and several casual positions. The daycare will try to be flexible in their hours to meet the needs of the community, she added.
The total number of employees will depend on how many children are registered, Moorman said. There is still space as the group gathers a list of names of children whose parents would like to utilize the daycare.
According to Ralph Viczko, principal of Lake Lenore School, when discussions began about two years ago, they were focused on whether the school division would support the inclusion of a daycare in the school and whether there was room in the school for a daycare.
Representatives from the Ministry of Education surveyed the school and decided that there wasn't a big enough space in the school that they could use, so funding for an addition was provided to ensure the project took place, Viczko said.
The addition is on the southwest side of the school and will include a kitchen area, a bathroom, and space for a washer and dryer. There will also be a fenced-in play area right outside the daycare area for the children to use.
The daycare will have its own entrance, Viczko said, because the daycare will be operating longer hours, and will be open in the summer.
The daycare will provide space to 18 month old to preschool age children.
Viczko hopes the daycare will draw people to the community.
"I think it's a case of if you build it, they will come," he said. "I know there is difficulty in finding daycare in the community."
The Horizon School Division is a partner in the daycare, but just to the extent of providing space and sharing some services, Viczko said. The school division didn't put up any money for the project.
"There is a partnership between the daycare board and the HSD," he explained. "Partnerships and cooperation are important in rural Saskatchewan."
The daycare and the school will work out details about sharing other facilities in the school such as the library and the gymnasium, Viczko said.
The provincial government has been trying to get daycares into schools in the province as part of the Early Learning and Child Care program in the Ministry of Education.
The provincial government has provided funding for the construction, renovation, furnishing and equipment for the new daycare.
The Ministry of Education provided $475,000 for the renovation and construction of the addition to the school. The Early Learning and Child Care program provided several one-time grants to the daycare to cover the cost of furnishing and putting the finishing touches in the space, as well as purchasing equipment to enrich the learning environment. These include $50,400 for development of the space, a $9,225 start-up grant, and $3,690 to enrich the learning environment.
