(Elk Horn) Kids in the Village will partner with Exira-EHK for a daycare within the school.
Superintendent Trevor Miller calls it a great opportunity for the district. “They will hire all the staff. They will take care of the insurance, the training, and organizing the room. We are just providing the space. We thought it would be a great partnership to keep our kids in the district and not lose them to open enrollment. Once you start going somewhere it’s hard to get them back so we wanted to provide this for the families in our district. It’ll be good.”
This has been on the table for a while and fills a big community need. “I’ve been on the committee the last three years. They were trying to find a spot in our district.” One of the providers left late last winter. “We really have a shortage of daycare providers. We’ve had a lot of our students end up going to Harlan, Atlantic, Audubon, and different daycares so the committee got together.”
It will be located in the Elk Horn Building in the room that formerly housed preschool and kindergarten. “It’ll be switched over to the daycare for right now. Now they just have to have DHS come in and approve what changes need to be made. It’s a great opportunity. The board is really excited about it, I’m excited about it because I know how hard daycare is to find in our district and to make sure our kids stay in our district instead of going somewhere else.”
Miller says they are looking into a wrap around program to open early before work and pick them up after work. The facility will have its own entrance and exit so that parents will not need to enter the school.
