The Great Bend Front Door Community Center is on the agenda for the July 7 City Council meeting. The discussion concerns the portion of the facility that was designed as a daycare center. Options include requesting proposals for continued daycare or leasing the area to Great Bend USD 428 to house its Parent Teacher Resource Center (PTRC).
According to agenda materials, the City has leased part of the Front Door to the Great Bend Children’s Learning Center for use as a daycare facility since 2009.
“Over the past several years, the utilization went from year-round to only in the summer months due to staffing issues. This summer, the building is not being utilized, and we only received rent payments of $300 during the three months the daycare was operating in the prior years. After discussion with the Children’s Center, they are looking at opening an additional room in their current facility as the space requirements of the Front Door only allow a small number of children.”
Great Bend Children Learning Center is located at 1802 22nd St. and is described as a non-profit preschool/daycare for children aged 2 weeks to 12 years. It is funded by United Way.
Meanwhile, the Great Bend school board is considering razing the oldest portion of the Washington Early Education Center, located at 2535 Lakin Ave., but would then need a new location for its adjoining Parent Teacher Resource Center at 1225 Washington St. Another option for the school district is to keep the newer portion of the building that is used by the PTRC. However, additional construction would be needed because occupants would lose access to restrooms once the old building was razed.
USD 428 reached out to the City and expressed interest in a lease agreement to move the PTRC into the Front Door facility, City Administrator Logan Burns stated on the agenda.
“Tonight, I am asking the Council for a decision to move forward with either a lease agreement with USD 428 to move the PTRC into the Front Door facility or to move forward with a request for proposals (RFP) for daycare facilities to continue the use of the daycare.” The council could ask administrators to prepare a lease agreement to bring back for future consideration or instruct Burns to put out an RFP for a daycare facility and bring that back for formal consideration.
About the PTRC
The PTRC opened in January of 1997 as a resource center where teachers could find everything they needed to make posters and bulletin boards. Administrator Steve Wolf received a grant from the Migrant Education Program that was used to buy hundreds of patterns for die-cutting.
The district has continued to add to the resources, with hundreds of die-cut patterns, including more than a dozen different alphabets and an assortment of mascots, shapes and borders for creative projects. All sorts of construction paper, card stock, stickers, wiggle eyes and other craft necessities can be purchased by anyone. They also have laminating machines, paper punches and binders.
