Local providers working on plan to improve child care in the Coulee Region - WEAU

LA CROSSE, Wis. (WEAU) - A group of local child care providers are coming up with ways to improve the quality of care in the Coulee Region.

At the Coulee Children’s Center, Executive Director Angie Wells says there’s been a waiting list of families needing care throughout her seven years of employment.

However, the number of families in line has grown over the last few years, with about 200 currently waiting for spots to open up.

As Wells explains, there actually are slots available at the center, but she doesn’t have enough staff to cover them.

“We are licensed for 125 students, and we only have about 92 enrolled, but we’ve hit that teacher to child ratio,” Wells said.

Even though Wells is actively recruiting for the Coulee Children’s Center, she’s having difficulty filling job openings.

“We can’t raise tuition to raise our hourly wage, so we’re competing not only with our childcare counterparts for educators, we’re also competing with the local school district, or even local retail establishments that can pay more per hour,” Wells detailed.

Child care providers around the Coulee Region are facing the same issue, so the La Crosse County Board of Supervisors is trying to find solutions.

A resolution before the board last week called to allocate $3 million of the county’s allotment of American Rescue Plan Act dollars towards a care model proposed by the School District of La Crosse.

The district provides day care at two neighborhood sites, and planned to open 30 slots to children who qualify for the Wisconsin Shares program, and 30 for children of district employees.

As the matter came before the board, businesses like Sprout Childcare spoke out about how the plan was put together.

“We were not heard in the process,” Sprout Co-Owner Sherry Picha said. “We were represented by a research and referral agency, and no one asked any child care providers about how do we solve these issues.”

Picha believes the district’s idea won’t solve the actual child care problem in the Coulee Region, as she would rather see support go directly towards existing providers.

“We need to be able to get the centers that do not have that staffing, with their open slots already, to be able to fill them up,” Picha expressed. “We need to sustain what we have so that when we do open more slots, it’s not harming the infrastructure.”

That sentiment was shared by other providers, so the county board decided to postpone its vote on the school district’s child care model until June.

Until then, county supervisors intend to meet with businesses like Sprout in a collaborative effort to find solutions to child care problems.

In addition, Picha says a group of Coulee Region providers will be meeting Tuesday night to form an alternate proposal to put before the county board.

Copyright 2022 WEAU. All rights reserved.

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Local providers working on plan to improve child care in the Coulee Region - WEAU
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