Elkton Community Child Care and Education Center hasn’t had the first child walk through its doors yet, but it is already being assisted by the Fishback Early Childhood Education Center and the Child and Family Resource Network on the SDSU campus.
In February and July, the Fishback center received $291,000 in grants through the American Rescue Plan Act, which the state administered in response to the federal pandemic stimulus. The aim was to stabilize early childhood programs that had their normal income stream interrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic.
The funds to the Fishback center were used for a variety of purchases and upgrades, including new classroom furnishings and playsets.
The items the center replaced found a short-term home in the Child and Family Resource Network, which maintains a toy and resource lending library for the benefit of families and caregivers. In this case, the network was able to grant long-term use of the equipment to start-up child-care facilities in Huron and Elkton.
The community-based program in Elkton hopes to open later this fall. Part-time director Cheyenne Krein was hired July 7.
New grad opening new facility
Krein is quite familiar with the Fishback center and the Child and Family Resource Network.
Krein, a 2014 graduate of Estelline High School, attended Northern State for education and then business, but neither were a good fit for her. In September 2020, she enrolled in the network’s nine-month Child Development Associate program to become a licensed preschool teacher. It’s once a week for three hours. It can also be credited toward a degree in early childhood education.
Krein took that option right away, enrolling at SDSU in 2020 while also working as a teacher’s assistant at Gracepoint preschool. She graduates in December.
This semester she is student teaching first and second grades at Volga Christian School while working with the five-member Elkton child care board to get that facility off the ground. She said the facility has benefited from the tables, chairs and playsets that had been used by the Fishback center while she has benefitted from its curriculum.
“I do plan to implement some of the Reggio way (of curriculum instruction) for long-term projects,” Krein said.
Federal grant a ‘win-win’
Laura Gloege ’02/M.S. ’07, co-coordinator of the Fishback center with Jen Johnson, said the federal grant was a “win-win. It allowed us to reset our program and support other programs.”
That reset included updating the security system, painting classrooms and playsets, other general maintenance, new furnishings and salary support for the kitchen staff and out-of-school time staff. In addition to toddler, preschool and kindergarten programs, the Fishback center has an out-of-school program for kindergarteners.
Parents who elect to pay for this program can have their child cared for from 7:30 a.m. to 5:15 p.m. during the Monday-Thursday school week.
Kindergarten students are part of the Brookings School District and formally under the leadership of Hillcrest Elementary. Parents must opt for the Fishback center at kindergarten roundup. Afterwards, the class is filled by drawing the names of 22 students. The preschool program serves another 35 students with 20 in the toddler program.
Center gives students hands-on opportunity
The facility features observation booths so parents and SDSU education students can watch the instruction without the youngsters’ awareness.
Much of the instruction is done by SDSU students. There are 25 student teachers in the fall semester covering four sections of preschool and two sections of toddler instruction as well as the kindergarten class. In addition, there are 38 assistant teachers who work once a week with the youngsters, Gloege explained.
Dave Graves
