Earlville opening early learning center

One goal for the Earlville school board is to make sure all students are at grade level in reading and math by third grade.

In order to help with that, the district added a section of preschool a couple years ago.

This year, the district is taking the next step by opening the Earlville Early Learning Center, a day care that will be open to children ages six weeks to 3 years old.

“This was the next logical step for the board,” superintendent Rich Faivre said. “On top of that, it’s a great recruitment and retainment tool to have an onsite day care for our staff. Finally, it filled a community need. There isn’t a licensed day care center in Earlville.”

The center is allowed to open Monday, two and a half years after the initial idea.

“We are super excited,” Faivre said. “Our board has been awesome. There is a lot of startup cost involved in getting a day care going. The board committed the resources to hire a consultant when we asked for one and committed the money to get this up and running. There’s support from the community and staff. It’s just been outstanding. I’m very proud of this project.”

Amy Schultz was hired as a consultant and is now the child care director.

She helped the district navigate the requirements from DCFS, including the application process, paperwork and the buying of equipment and supplies. DCFS also requires background checks and an inspection by the health department and fire marshal.

The early learning center will have two classrooms and a capacity of 16 children: eight infants and toddlers and eight 2-year-olds.

“The children will be learning through hands-on experience,” Schultz said. “We will have a curriculum we’ll be following even for our youngest kids. We’ll be providing them activities throughout the day that supports their development and helps them build the skills they need.”

Schultz and Faivre said the reaction has been positive so far.

“The staff is super excited,” Faivre said. “The community feedback has been very, very good. We’re working now to get all the information out to the community in terms of trying to get kids enrolled and signed up. It’s been kind of a long licensing process. Now that we’re finally open, we’re excited to get going.”

While the day care will help develop young children and fill a community need, it also will benefit Earlville high school students in the future, as they’ll eventually be able to help out at the center.

“We have a lot of kids who are interested in early childhood education,” Faivre said. “They go over to the vocational center at Sandwich. We’re definitely going to see that relationship continue, but we thought this was another nice bonus for them to be able to have a day care on-site for them to be able to work in.”