Playhouse opens new child care center to ease shortages

by Darren Diekmann

news@thenewsleader.com

Sauk Rapids now has a new child-care facility with the opening of Playhouse Child Care Center on May 23.

This will be Playhouse’s second act in Sauk Rapids. It opened a center in 1991 on Benton Drive near the Sauk Rapids Bridge that closed in 2005 due to the imminent demolition of the bridge. It did not relocate in the city.

Now Playhouse is back, renting two classrooms in Trinity Lutheran Church on Mayhew Lake Road. The two rooms accommodate one class each of toddlers and preschoolers. The gym will be prepared to provide space for a third class of school-aged children.

Playhouse, headquartered in Sartell, had been planning on expanding, but the question was where.

“Since we had a previous location there, and we have the other centers in Sartell and St. Cloud, it made sense to get back into Sauk Rapids,” said Kristen Vosberg, program and curriculum administrator for Playhouse.

“We are aware of the shortage of child care in the area and that is why we’re opening up this new location and doubling the size of the St. Cloud location, so we can help provide more child-care slots for the families in the area,” she added.

At full capacity, the new center will enroll 68 children: 25 toddlers, 25 preschoolers and 18 school-aged children up to 12 years old. They will be tended by a staff of 8 to 12, depending on the full- to part-time ratio, including an administrator, a kitchen worker and two teachers who will also double as the health-and-safety coordinator and curriculum coordinator.

The purpose of the coordinator positions is for added support for the company administration and other staff, Vosberg said.

“It’s also part of the system of checks and balances that ensure we are providing the highest quality of care,” she said.

The Trinity location will be the smallest of the company’s five centers when the South St. Cloud center re-locates in July and doubles its enrollment to 96. The other three locations – Sartell, Montevideo and St. Cloud Technical and Community College – each have about 100.

Shortly after opening its first location in Sauk Rapids, Playhouse Child Care quickly expanded to Monticello in 1992, SCTCC in 1993 and Sartell in 1995. It later expanded to Brainerd, Little Falls and Baxter. The latter three have since closed for various reasons.

In 2014, Playhouse bought the building of the former Little Innovators child care on 33rd Street S. in St. Cloud. They are expanding and moving this center to a nearby location.

With a fee of $195 for a five-day week for a toddler, Playhouse is at or below the average cost in the area for centers and is in keeping with its intent to mitigate the shortage of child care in the area. But since most centers have a waiting list for new children to enroll, Trinity and the south St. Cloud locations will probably soon reach their capacity, and there will still be a shortage of affordable care in the area.

Many parents say they still feel the cost of a center is beyond their means and turn to in-home child-care providers who charge about $140 for a toddler for a five-day week.

Caitlyn Heinen, a teacher living in Sartell, tried placing her son with an in-home child care about two-and-a-half years ago. She said she was told to start looking early and did, about nine months ahead.

“I called about 40 places,” she said. “I couldn’t believe it. I called daycares in Sartell and Sauk Rapids until finally I found one.”

Heinen’s situation is typical of parents interviewed. Placing a first child seems to be particularly difficult. Providers tend to keep space available for infants of current customers, to keep families together.

And the situation may be getting worse.

According to the Minnesota Department of Human Services, the number of in-home child-care providers dropped from 156 to 137 from 2011 to 2015 in Benton County, and from 520 to 416 in Stearns County, and the trend appears to be continuing.

When asked about the declining numbers, in-home providers say they believe it’s because of both increased state regulations and expectations of parents. With centers offering preschool and ensuring kindergarten preparation, in-home providers are being asked for the same service.