Uncertain future

It’s all just discussion right now.

But it’s a discussion that’s been going on for a long, long time.

“The need for child care has been an ongoing conversation since I’ve been here,” said Jay County Community Developer Ami Huffman. “That’s 12 years.”

The Portland Foundation put the spotlight on early childhood education early this year with a series of meetings around the county led by staff from Ball State University, and at a summit session in May the scope of the issue became clear.

With about 27 percent of the county’s children living below the poverty line, an estimated 62 to 67 percent are in need of care during the day.

Huffman said about 10 percent of children attending kindergarten in Jay Schools are held back a year before entering first grade.

“They’re not ready,” she said. “We somehow have to find an affordable way to get them into an educational program before kindergarten.”

Within that context, Huffman’s office has been working with Youth Service Bureau, Jay Schools and the United Way to explore a sustainable solution to the problem.

An application for a Portland Foundation grant to fund a feasibility study will be considered by the foundation board in December.

That meeting will take place about 10 days after the Jay School Board makes its decision on whether to close the Judge Haynes Elementary School building — scheduled for Monday — and superintendent Jeremy Gulley believes that building might have a future as home to an early education center that would incorporate the current pre-school program and provide day care.

“I do not speak for anyone but me,” Gulley made clear in May. “But this seems like an emerging possibility.”

Huffman agrees.

“We’ve been on a search eight years for a building,” she said.

Youth Service Bureau chief executive officer Reda Theurer stresses that sustainability is the key to anything that might go forward.

“It’s feasible if a building can be secured that doesn’t have debt. … I think it’s going to depend on this feasibility study. That’s integral. I believe there is a need. But there’s a difference between the need and the feasibility to see what can be sustained. … People all know it’s important and there’s a need. But when we get down to details,” she said, her voice trailing off.

Among the many questions to be explored are how such a facility would dovetail with existing private-operator day care centers, programs like Head Start, and the school corporation’s pre-school program.

And there are more:

•Who would own the building?

•What would the revenue stream look like?

•Would local industries and businesses step up to help fund day care for the children of their employees as a way of reducing absenteeism?

•What sort of state assistance might be possible and would it be reliable?

Theurer recalled problems with the development of Wee Care Child Care back in the 1990s. In that case, a Community Focus Fund grant helped build a facility on Arch Street in Portland; but expected revenues from a state day care voucher program were scaled back, making the business model unsustainable. That building is now the home of Head Start.

Huffman and Theurer are cautiously optimistic this time around.

“Jeremy Gulley has been 100 percent supportive of whatever we can all do together,” said Theurer.

The question, she said, is this: “Is it really possible for us in this county to support that center?”