SEAN BOSTON
Hutch Post
BUHLER, Kan. — Buhler USD 313 held two ribbon cuttings for its new child care facilities on Monday morning.
The first was held at Buhler Beginnings Daycare, located inside of Buhler Grade School, while the second was held at the Crusader Corner Daycare at 509 East 56th in Hutchinson.
"I wanted to look at daycare back in 2015-16 and it's finally coming to fruition with some grants," Buhler USD 313 superintendent Cindy Couchman said. "This was not done in isolation, this is a huge partnership with a lot of people."
Couchman praised the people behind the scenes that made the daycare facilities possible.
"We have our board of education members here that have been so supportive of the expansion. We have Simpson (Construction) and Landmark (Architects) here that have been amazing partners to work with through all three of our projects, both the Ad Astra (Academy) and our two daycares."
The process to get things off the ground was a pretty simple one.
"We found out about the Child Care Accelerator grant last March and we wanted to join, so we put a proposal in," Kyle McClure, the Director of Curriculum, Instruction, and Assessment PK-5th Grade said. "We found out Reno County had a whole group working on a grant together, so as Cindy mentioned, it's bigger than just us. We're super excited to be a part of the solution for child care in Reno County. Reno County is actually on the forefront of the solution. We hope to partner even further with some other organizations to find some efficiencies, fiscally and in HR wise."
The two daycares will provide several families with child care moving forward.
"We'll have about 85 slots," McClure said. "The county in total is adding about 300 across all of those projects, so about 30 here and about 55 over at Crusader Corner. It is really an innovative thing that Reno County is doing in child care. I had my own children and it was just a stresser trying to find daycare."
Cherish Kelley will coordinate and oversee the two daycares. Both locations are nearly completely staffed and are seeing some children as part of a soft opening.
"We're very close to being fully staffed," Kelley said. "We have about 12 all together in all of the rooms between the two locations."
Couchman says the school district will continue to add more kids as the weeks go on.
"I think it was very advisable," Couchman said. "When you're not ready for that much, that was a lot to figure out procedures and policies."
