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Oakfield child care students (front to back) Jimmy Helm, Ceci Olig and Willam Mohr wait for breakfast as Sue Ellen Wiese in background prepares it.
Jimmy's father Paul Helm teaches technology education at Oakfield while mother Beth is the media specialist at Perry Tipler Middle School in Oshkosh.
By Paul Helm
Oakfield technology education teacher
The Oakfield School District in Fond du Lac County has turned a stroke of bad luck into a positive addition to the K-12 program. The village was hit 10 years ago by a tornado that destroyed much of the small community and took the middle school along with it (see September 1996 OnWEAC story). The decision was made to build a new middle school, but the students would need a temporary home until the school was built. The district purchased three modular buildings to serve this purpose and they were located outside the high school. These served the needs of the middle school for two years until the new middle school was complete.
After the students were moved to their new home, the "mods" as they were nicknamed were vacant. Enter Kris Dix, wife of high school and middle school Principal Paul Dix. Kris turned the mods into a privately owned child care center. The center thrived, and the enrollment increased over the next nine years under her direction. The mods were only intended to be temporary housing, and eventually the school board decided they needed to go.
The question then was, what to do with the child care center? A committee of administrators, teachers, community members and parents of the center's students was formed to look at various options. The committee decided that the newly built middle school could easily be remodeled to accommodate the center. Also, the business would be turned over to the district and would operate under the district's control.
Over the past summer, the middle school was remodeled. Through the combined efforts of parents, community members, administrators and teachers, the day care center was moved to its new location. The agriculture, technology education, and family and consumer education programs all chipped in to help build the necessary equipment needed to run the child care center.
The center has seen a large increase in enrollment (now than 70) and is proving to be a money maker for the district. The benefits of the center are apparent in many other ways. Many of the children enrolled in the center reside in neighboring districts. Some parents are considering the school choice option to send their children to Oakfield for kindergarten.
Oakfield recently passed an operating referendum that demonstrates the support the community has for its schools. The district has even seen an increase in its enrollment this year.
The family and consumer education program uses the day care center as a lab experience, and school-to-work individuals learn how to create and implement curriculums for 6-week-olds to pre-school students.
Oakfield is only the second school district in the state to own and operate a day care center. Elcho also runs a district-owned center. Child care is needed in every community. This is a great way for school districts to reach out to their communities. The child care center also makes for a much easier transition for those students entering kindergarten. The addition of a 4-year-old kindergarten is also being considered. Small districts like Oakfield can exist and even thrive if innovative programs such as this are implemented.
Posted October 9, 2006