The Golden Bear Preschool will offer a childcare solution in June and July for current Golden Bear Preschool families.

At Wednesday’s Shelbyville Central Schools board meeting, the summer dates, operational hours and tuition were approved to create another childcare opportunity in Shelbyville.

“I think it’s a great opportunity to help in many ways,” said SCS Superintendent Dr. Matt Vance during the meeting. 

One classroom at the preschool, 1115 East State Road 44, will be operational from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. from June 3 to June 28 and July 1 to July 26. There will be no childcare option on July 4 and July 5.

Similar to school days, all children will be at the facility five days a week. Tuition is $35 per day or $700 per month.

The classroom will be staffed by one lead instructor and one assistant. The preschool’s indoor gymnasium and outdoor playground also will be available for use.

Chartwells will provide breakfast and lunch through its summer food program.

Enrollment is based on a first come, first serve basis and is capped at 16 students.

In addition to the summer childcare option, the SCS board also approved a new Golden Bear Early Learning Program that will offer daycare during the 2024-2025 school year to all SCS staff.

The program will be available for children ages 1-2 and will be hosted at the Golden Bear Preschool from 6:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. for the 185 operational days on the school calendar.

Cost is $45 per day. The school system received a grant to help with the cost of this startup program.

There will be two rooms available to the program with a maximum of 10 children per room. A district childcare survey showed an interest for as many as 18 children in the age group. 

The goal is to have 5-6 staff members, potentially two full-time and the rest part-time, available on a daily basis. SCS plans to use current staff until the need arises for further hiring.

“This is something not every district is doing,” said Vance. “We feel like this would be a good opportunity to help our staff that have children. We feel like this is a good way to start this program.

“We really want to make sure we do this right. We do have a grant from the state to help us get started a little bit. We can look at some other grant opportunities to try and help us get this going and sustain it.

“This is exciting. It’s been a good step forward for us as a district,” continued Vance. “I know it’s been talked about here before but I feel we have some things in place that we can go ahead and get started.”

In other board business, the regularly-scheduled school board meeting on March 20 has been moved up to March 13. The school system is on spring break the week of March 18.

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