Loyal School Board approves school child care for 3-year-olds

The Loyal School District is expanding its offerings for its littlest learners by providing child care before and after school for ages 3 and up, and a daytime program for 3-year-olds. The hope is this service will benefit the community and boost district enrollment.

Last Wednesday, the board approved the creation of a 3-year-old child care program, Lil’ Pups, as well as a revamp of the Lil’ Dawgs afterschool program. Lil’ Dawgs began in November 2023, and was modeled after the Greenwood Elementary Kids Club. While Lil’ Dawgs had been for children in kindergarten and older, it will now be for age 3 and older. It will run from 6 a.m. until school starts at 7:50 a.m., and from the end of school at 3:20 p.m. until 6 p.m. The program will also run on snow days and no school days, such as teacher in-service days. It will also be available for 4-year-old kindergarten (4K) students on Fridays, as the 4K program only runs Monday through Thursday.

Lil’ Pups will run during the day, utilizing the same room. It will be for 3-year-olds and 4-year-olds who have not yet started 4K. Children can start with Lil’ Pups as soon as they turn 3, even if in the middle of the school year.

“Ideally we would like to expand the program [beyond age 3],” said Jennah Stark, parent who served on the child care committee that worked through some of the details of the program. “If 3K is a hard no-go, we did also consider the idea of a faculty daycare to help retain staff, for any of our staff that have young children. We just wanted some way to occupy the classroom during the day versus leaving it empty.”

She said in an initial poll the committee had done, there were seven children of teachers who would have a need for child care.

“I think any program might be a little rough to start,” she added. “I think the community needs to trust the program before they take their kids out of where they are and bring them in. We’re just trying to stay competitive with the surrounding towns and offer things that they offer as well.”

The school district plans to employ one full-time employee and two part-time employees for this program. For 3-year-olds, the allowable ratio is 10 children per one teacher. That will allow a program cap of 20 children to start with. Stark said that if they got to the point of starting a waiting list, the district could look at hiring additional employees to grow the child care program.

The child care service will be flexible—parents can choose to send their child just one or two days a week, if desired. The committee did not set a fee schedule yet, but talked about having an hourly rate with a daily minimum amount to make it worth their while if a child was going to be contributing to the head count but only there for a couple of hours.

The plan is to use the old kindergarten room, on the lower level on the east end of the building. It was used as a resource room last year. The benefits of that room are it has a bathroom and an exterior exit leading to a loading ramp. Stark proposed moving the barricades by the school building slightly back while still blocking off the paved area behind the school. Then parents could park their car at the end of the ramp, come to the door, and walk their child up the ramp when they were done with child care.

Lil’ Dawgs/Lil’ Pups staff plan to use the Remind app for communication with parents regarding pickup times or any changes to the schedule.

Lil’ Pups will utilize the school lunch program and the committee said they had already been in contact with food service director Lisa Mahoney. Each child in the program will have a lunch account of their own, just like the other students do. On snow days or in-service days when the lunch program isn’t running, the children will need to bring their own lunch. Stark also discussed summer meal options. The food service currently serves meals through June as part of summer school. For July and August, Stark said there may be grants the school district could look into for meals. She said she knew the Rookie Rockets child care center in Spencer has summer meals covered but wasn’t sure what service they went through.

High school students will have the chance to work in the Lil’ Pups room during the day as teacher assistants. If they are enrolled in an early childhood class, they can use that time to fulfill classroom hours requirement. The district also is considering employing students to assist with the afterschool program.

“The way I look at it, it’s a way to not only bring children in, but a high school student could also take a teacher assistant class and then work there. In an area where we don’t have a lot of job options for kids, this would be a convenient in-house option. It’s a good opportunity to fill some space up,” said Doddie Rahm, educational support staff and another member of the child care committee.

Funding The school district will not receive funding for 3-year-old programming. In Wisconsin, 4K programs are funded by the state at 50% of per-pupil funding for older students, but there is no specific funding for 3K.

The parents will be charged to send their children to Lil’ Dawgs/Lil’ Pups. They will pay the school, which will in turn pay the employees.

District Administrator Chris Lindner said financially it would be a wash, although the district may lose some money because of startup costs. However, he felt it was still a net positive because of the service being provided to the community and helping to get more families in the doors. He said he had talked to other nearby districts that have a child care option, namely Granton and Spencer, to get an idea of how it would work.

“Granton has a birth to 3 program. I believe they break even on it. Spencer got a grant for their new child care center. They do not break even; they lose money on it. However, they made sure the community knew up front that they would probably lose money on it. But the community was OK with that because they wanted to have that service available. It’s definitely not a money maker,” said Lindner.

“At task force meetings, it was a big concern in the community, so I believe we need to start somewhere and build from there.”

He also said that the district should look at the long-term view of getting more families interested in the district.

“Mr. [Mark] Lacke, who was our interim superintendent, talked about this. He said if you can get students in at an early age, those students usually stick with us throughout their school career. It is a convenience for the parents. If you’re looking at $11,000 per student per year for 13 years, that’s no small amount of money [$143,000]. So it is an investment and we’re looking at how to get more students into the building,” said Lindner.

“And you’re providing a service,” said board member Derek Weyer.

“Yes, it is a service,” said Lindner. The program will be run through Fund 80, the district’s community service fund. That pool of money is used for various initiatives that benefit the community, such as golf course maintenance and the summer recreation program.

Background Since the Little Angels Daycare at St. Anthony School closed in September 2023, there has been a gap in child care services in Loyal. Little Angels provided care to more than 60 children, whose parents had to seek other places to take their children. There are a few in-home child care providers in town or just outside of town, but they can only accept so many children. Some parents have been forced to take their children to Spencer or Greenwood.

The child care idea has been tossed around for several years, dating back to at least the 2019-20 school year when Lacke was superintendent. But there was a renewed effort to get something going after Little Angels closed, and especially after the strategic planning process the district went through this past school year. Task force participants thought a daycare would be a good way to potentially recruit and retain teachers with young children, knowing there was somewhere for their kids to be cared for on site. They also thought it could help attract new families to the district, as if they took their kids to Loyal for child care, they would be more likely to have them continue in school there.

Out of the strategic planning process, a committee was formed, consisting of Stark; Rahm; Kaila Fitzl, fourth grade teacher/school counselor; and Lindsey Mueller, high school receptionist and parent. They will now serve as the hiring committee for the child care director and employees.

Next steps School board member Tom Odeen asked if the board could just approve the daycare, or if anything needed to be updated in the district’s policies to reflect the change. Lindner said he would check with Nancy Popp in Granton, Jason Gorst in Spencer, and their education consultant at Neola to see if there were any updates that should be made.

Dave Clintsman made a motion to approve the 3K and the before and after school child care program, contingent on the district’s policies being updated. That motion was seconded by Kirk Haslow and approved unanimously.

“I think you will have a good turnout; I really do,” said Weyer.

With the go-ahead from the board, the school district plans to post employment ads for the positions and start inviting parents to enroll their children.