Child care options in Kodiak, like in many rural Alaska communities, are few and far between. But a proposed partnership between the YMCA of Alaska and the Kodiak Island Borough School District aims to potentially ease that burden for school-aged children, K - 5th grade.
YMCA of Alaska’s CEO Nate Root said this week that his organization is interested in providing after-school programming in Kodiak.
“We’re really looking forward to helping, and hope that it works out. We will do the best that we can to make it work out. But this is a community that we would love to be a part of," Root said.
He spoke to about 25 Kodiak residents who came out to meet him on Tuesday evening, April 22, at the local ports and harbormaster office, after receiving an invitation from the Kodiak Collaborative. Roughly two months ago, parents Beate Daly and Erica Blondin organized the Kodiak Collaborative to help serve local child care and after-school needs.
Among its staple youth and adult sports leagues, YMCA of Alaska also provides after-school programs at 14 sites in Wasilla [Mat-Su YMCA], Eagle River and Anchorage. But after seeing survey results from the grassroots group, Root said he’s never seen the numbers or need like what he’s seen in Kodiak before.
According to an informal survey Kodiak Collaborative sent out earlier this month, roughly 90% of the 215 residents who responded as of April 24 said they would use after-school programs for their school age children, K-12. This question did not include a reference to the cost of the program as that hasn't been determined yet. A separate question about how much respondents deemed “reasonable to pay for after-school services” was included further down in the survey.
Kodiak’s options for licensed child care and after-school programming has shrunk in recent years. In most cases, the main obstacle locally has been finding enough state-licensed staff to operate and sustain some of the after-school programs.
Root, with YMCA, told residents on Tuesday that his organization would handle the staffing for the potential program.
The Kodiak Island Borough School District doesn’t have the capacity to stand up after-school programs on its own, according to Superintendent Cyndy Mika, especially after cutting four administrator positions amid last year’s budget cuts.
But if the YMCA were to start after-school programs in Kodiak, then Root said they would oversee the state licensing process for those sites and the staff.
“We’re now familiar with the process after setting up our locations in Wasilla. And the state, I would not say is hard to work with, but they have a process that you have to follow and regulations that you have to follow; but those are all to ensure the safety of the children in the program and that’s important," he explained.
So YMCA provides the staffing and the structured program, but what about the physical space?
Root told KMXT on Wednesday, April 23, that East and Main Elementary schools could be ideal locations. He said the YMCA of Alaska prefers using school buildings to host its after-school programs.
“Because you eliminate the need to transport children," Root said. "And transporting kids to another site adds a lot of logistical issues, a lot of liability issues.”
Kodiak Island Borough School District Superintendent Cyndy Mika said she needs to discuss the logistics and feasibility of the plan with the principals of East and Main. Outside of those two schools, she said the other remaining elementary school that will be open next school year, Peterson, is already spoken for.
“I already have in the works, that I’ve been working on for over a year now, an agreement with the Coast Guard CDC to look at providing after-school care," Mika said. "And because I’ve already been in the works on an agreement with them, I need to honor that.”
Mika said that if the agreement between the Coast Guard’s Childhood Development Center and the district falls through, then she will consider adding Peterson Elementary into the YMCA partnership for after-school programs.
There are several major hurdles that still need to be overcome before these after-school programs become reality, including the YMCA getting state licensing for Kodiak’s two school sites and the district’s Board of Education approving a formal agreement with YMCA.
But Mika said she is optimistic about this partnership moving forward.
The grassroots group Kodiak Collaborative were the ones who invited the YMCA of Alaska to visit Kodiak and potentially partner to offer after-school programs. Daly told city and borough officials during a joint meeting last month on March 12 that the collaborative has drummed up support from 20 local organizations too, including the school district, that want to create a centralized child care center.
“We have multiple community partners interested in partnering with our school district, because this truly needs to be a community lift to make it happen,” Daly said. “And as we all know, Kodiak can’t have a strong workforce unless we have the child care needed to support our employees.”
Possible locations the Kodiak Collaborative has explored in town include the soon to be closed North Star Elementary School building, the Griffin Memorial Hospital building, renting the basement of the Family Federation building and adding additional capacity at the Teen Center.
