Staff photo by: Darcie Thom
30 child care spaces will be reserved for Kipling

By Lizz Bottrell, Citizen Staff

Kipling is one step closer to gaining a child care centre. On May 28, the Minister of Education, Honourable Ken Krawetz announced funding for 500 new child care spaces, 30 of which are reserved for Kipling once the town has its centre up and running.

“When I heard the news I was jumping up and down in the halls at work and people were asking if I was okay,” said Kelly Beattie, one of the parents spear heading the development of a child care centre in Kipling. “We’re very excited,” said Dan Manns, another parent working hard to bring a child care centre to the community. “We didn’t expect to get them so quickly. We thought it’d be a drawn out process.”

Part of the reason that the funding came quicker than expected is because of the fact that the Kipling area is growing so fast. “Our growing economy has created an unprecedented demand for child care as more parents want to find their place in the workforce, or pursue post-secondary education,” Krawetz said. “These 500 new licensed spaces, at a cost of $1.7 million, will provide more Saskatchewan parents with a high quality early learning and child care environment for their children.”

In order for the provincial government to provide funding for spaces, the applicant must meet certain requirements. “Kipling met three of the priority criteria,” said Brenda Bougherty, Director, Early Learning Childcare Program. “The first was they are seriously looking at school linkages. Another is the fact that it’s in a rural community with a population of less than 5,000. The other is they’re looking at non-standard hours of service in order to cater to people working shift work.”

Beyond those criteria, in order to qualify for funding this year, Kipling also demonstrated a potential readiness to develop within the current fiscal year. “They are hoping for us to have it going by March ‘09,”said Manns.

The committee working towards having a child care centre in Kipling requested funding for 40 spaces, however, at this time, received funding for only 30. “They can develop for more spaces, but the province will only provide funding for 30 at this time,” said Bougherty. Despite that fact, the funding provides the committee with a good start.

Now that they have funding in place, the next step is to find a location. “We’re investigating building right now,” said Manns. In the coming weeks, Beattie said someone will come down to Kipling to inspect potential buildings in order to determine whether any buildings suit the needs of the future centre.