ROCK SPRINGS — An early childhood education program and daycare facility for employees of Sweetwater County School District No. 1 is closer to reality after the Board of Trustees authorized Superintendent Kelly McGovern to move forward with the project this week.

The new facilities will be located in the old Overland Elementary School on Foothill Boulevard where the Head Start program is currently running.

McGovern presented the need for both facilities at the Board meeting Monday night while outlining the funding model for the project. She said federal CARES funding for start-ups will be available to get the project off the ground.

The district must meet certain criteria in order to secure the money including proof that it’s a reasonable use of the funds and the need to address learning loss within the district.

McGovern said both facilities would be a great recruitment and retention tool for attracting and keeping quality teachers and employees in the district. She also said this decision does not aim to hurt existing, smaller local preschools or daycare businesses in the community.

What we are doing is simply addressing a need that we know our community has in spite some of the things that we know are currently in place.

~ SCSD No. 1 Superintendent Kelly McGovern

The Wyoming State Legislature mandates that 85 percent of third graders must be reading at grade level. McGovern shared statistics which showed district third graders we’re reading at about a 55 percent level by the end of the 2021-2022 school year.

WY-TOPP reading summative results show that number dropped to just under 37 percent for third graders in the 2021-2022 school year.

McGovern said that level of “learning loss” will qualify the district for the federal funding.

Creating a daycare for students who are also parents will serve as a “dropout prevention strategy” that will provide care for their children and help them earn a diploma, McGovern added.

A Growing Trend

SCSD No.1 statistics show that six certified teaching positions were closed and 5.5 long-term substitutes had to be hired due to a lack of applications at the beginning of the 2020-2021 school year.

Those numbers spiked to 28 vacant teaching positions and the hiring of 25 long-term substitutes the following year. And at the beginning of the current school year, the district had 52 unfilled certified positions and hired 26.5 full-time, long-term substitutes.

Staffing data also shows that the district had 27 open paraprofessional positions, 10 bus routes without drivers, and seven vacant nutrition services job on the first day of school this year.

A survey conducted by Central Administration shows that district staff overwhelmingly supports the creation of a preschool and daycare using grant funds, McGovern said.

“The idea is to sustain this, to provide something that our staff desperately needs…and really support our staff so that they can have someone caring for their kids during the day so that they can do a great job working for us,” said McGovern.

First steps would include hiring an executive director at Overland Elementary who would oversee a director of the preschool and daycare, as well as oversee the director of Head Start and the early literacy/family engagement liason.

Chief Financial Officer Scot Duncan said the total start-up cost of three preschool classrooms at Overland Elementary would be $650,250. The cost for establishing 10 daycare classrooms would be $1,243,250.

Chairwoman Carol Jelaco said the board recognizes the growing need for both the daycare and preschool, and later in the meeting the board voted unanimously to authorize McGovern to move forward with the project.