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North Rock Creek Superintendent Blake Moody with Kara Fuller in the school’s new day care. Photo/Brian Blansett
North Rock Creek School has opened a daycare facility to coincide with its start of the new term that begins today.
CougarCare actually opened its doors on Monday of this week as teachers and staff returned for professional days in advance of today’s first day of school.
Kara Fuller is director of the daycare that holds up to 15 kids ranging from infants to three-year-olds. “The daycare is for the children of teachers and staff members first who need it. They are the priority, and then we take those from the community,” she added.
“About half of those will be kids of teachers and staff from newborns to three-year-olds,” Fuller said. “Each child has his or her own place to play, eat and sleep.”
She said Amberley Anderson is the other full time employee. Hours of the daycare are from 7:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Monday through Friday. “We follow the school calendar, “Fuller stated.
She noted, “We are full. We already have a waiting list.”
School Supt. Blake Moody explained the waiting list from the community, “We started with three-year-olds because the state will give us supplemental funding to help us pay for them.”
Moody stated, “The idea for the daycare originated because it seemed every female teacher who taught here became a new mother in the first couple of years they were employed here. We wanted another way to help our staff.”
The superintendent said on his hiring Fuller as director, “I had been secretly recruiting Kara who was the pre-school director at University Baptist Church here in Shawnee.”
Fuller is bringing her three school-age daughters with her to NRC, including Karlee a sixth grader, Harper who is in third grade and Nora who is a first grader. Fuller’s husband Corey is an art teacher at OBU who teaches Graphic Design.
“He developed the logo for CougarCare,” Fuller said.
Asked about what it cost to have a child in the daycare, Moody replied, “We took the average cost of local daycares in Shawnee and hit right in the middle, $25 a day.”
The room housing CougarCare has served as the band room for about five decades, Moody stated.
“We completely remodeled the room that is 1,800 square feet. Our maintenance people did almost all of the work. We had to redo the plumbing, the fixtures, lower everything because the room was designed for older kids,” he explained.
Fuller said, “We use our cafeteria food and are feeding breakfast, lunch and providing them snacks.
The two pointed out, “That even though the daycare is run by our public school, it had to be inspected and have DHS approval.” Monday stressed, “Kara spent the last couple of months going through everything that DHS required.”
The inspection took place last week a few days before Monday’s opening.
Elaborating on the process of whose children are attending the daycare, Moody reiterated, “Taking care of our faculty members and staff was the first priority. Once we had done that, we sent out a text to all of our parents in the district and starting with 3-year-olds within 10 minutes we were full.”
Moody mentioned among those currently in the daycare are an infant and another infant coming later in the fall. The others, he said, are 1, 2 and 3-year-olds.
Fuller said, “We have potential to grow. This is just our start.”
Moody believes, “This is going to be handy for our teachers and staff members to check on their kids.”