A recent $400,000 contribution from Jennie Stuart Medical Center will allow Christian County Public Schools to enlarge a child care program, and many of the new openings will go to children of hospital employees, administrators said Thursday at a school board meeting.
The district will upgrade 11 classrooms for the Inspire child care program at Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Early Learning Center on Blane Drive.
“We will reserve some of those spaces for Jennie Stuart employees,” said Dr. Jason Wilson, district technology director.
MLK assistant principal Heather Carden told Hoptown Chronicle that several dozen hospital employees have responded to a needs assessment from the school system that will help determine the ages of the children expected to enroll at Inspire in the fall.
In Hopkinsville and other communities, demand is high of child care services. Many private day care centers and church preschools have closed in recent years.
MLK, located in the former Indian Hills Elementary School, has two programs — the district’s half-day preschool program for children ages 3 and 4, and Inspire, which provides full-time child care for ages 2 to 5.
Inspire was established with assistance from the South Western Kentucky Economic Development Council, mainly for children of the school system’s employees and of several local industries that pledged $80,000 to help with startup costs.
Inspire provides care from 5:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Monday through Friday. The weekly fee per child is $150. It is a popular program because the school provides a cafeteria, a nurse and a school resource officer, said Carden.
At the end of the school year in May, there were 126 children enrolled in Inspire.
Originally designed for elementary school students, classrooms at MLK must be upgraded for younger students. Some of the rooms need to have a restroom installed, and the addition of plumbing lines is the biggest concern in the project, Wilson told school board members.
The school board voted unanimously to approve state education paperwork needed to begin school construction work.
There were eight classrooms upgraded to Inspire standards last year. The Jennie Stuart contribution will more than double the capacity for Inspire child care.
Carden said she expects MLK to have a waiting list for Inspire child care even after the new classrooms open up in the fall.
(Editor’s note: Jennie Stuart issued a joint press release from the hospital and the school system on May 30 announcing a partnership to support expansion of the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Early Learning Center. The release did not specify if the hospital was providing monetary assistance and a Jennie Stuart spokesman declined a request from Hoptown Chronicle for more information.)
Jennifer P. Brown is co-founder, publisher and editor of Hoptown Chronicle. You can reach her at editor@hoptownchronicle.org. Brown was a reporter and editor at the Kentucky New Era, where she worked for 30 years. She is a co-chair of the national advisory board to the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues, governing board past president for the Kentucky Historical Society, and co-founder of the Kentucky Open Government Coalition. She serves on the Hopkinsville History Foundation's board.
