The Osoyoos Child Care Centre is hoping School District 53 will grant or lease it property at Osoyoos Elementary School to build a new centre. (Vanessa Broadbent / Osoyoos Times)

By Vanessa Broadbent

Osoyoos Times

The Osoyoos Childcare Centre wants to build a new centre on Osoyoos Elementary School property.

Centre manager Karen Greig presented to the School District 53 board on Sept. 25 to ask for the district to either grant or lease property to the centre to construct a new, larger building, now possible with new funding from the provincial government.

In June the centre received a $900,000 grant from the province to expand its current location on 89th Street and create 18 new spaces.

On Sept. 23 the province announced that municipalities can also apply for up to $4 million to buy land to create new childcare centres.

A new 4,000 square-foot centre would create 51 new spaces.

The most desirable location for a new childcare centre is at the elementary school, specifically the lower field green space near 17th Avenue, Greig said.

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“The school is the hub of the community,” she said. “It creates that cohesiveness within the community when we can keep everything together. Parents are bringing their children not just to childcare, but then they’re walking to the elementary school.”

Relocating to school property will also help children transition from daycare to school, Greig said.

“Strengthening our partnership with the school district provides that seamless transition and that familiarity that children get from being close to the school,” Greig said.

“They get to meet the teachers, they see the children, so that coming back and forth just builds that sense of security and there’s nothing finer than seeing a child go ‘I know that teacher.’”

The new building would house the centre’s infant-toddler program, after school and before school program, and its daycare. Its current building is on Town of Osoyoos land, and will go back to the town.

The centre’s planned expansion to its current location allows for 18 new spaces, but there are currently 57 on the centre’s waitlist.

“Our building can be expanded but it’ll never meet the growth that’s needed,” Greig said. “We’ve experienced numerous calls, families looking for care. A lot of families coming from different locations to Osoyoos are postponing until they know the can secure childcare.”

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Renovating the current building will also create “major” service disruptions and closures.

“Families are really concerned about that,” Greig said. “We had a disruption a year ago when the building flooded and we were closed for five and a half weeks and that threw families into a big turmoil.”

There are long-term structural issues with the current location as well, Greig said. Results from a recent radon test require the centre to include a new filtration system with its expansion.

“It’s worked for the 25 years it’s been there. Will is continue to work? If it has to, yes, but this money is not going to come along again. I can hope it would, but realistically it probably won’t,” Greig said.

The proposal will be discussed at a future school district committee meeting before coming back to the board.

“As we go through this in the next little bit I would imagine we’ll have some back and forth questions,” board chair Rob Zandee said.