As David Glover was still trying to get comfortable behind his desk as the new superintendent for Kingfisher Public Schools, he was paid a visit by one of his new employees. It was Derek Patterson, a math teacher at the junior high as well as a high school and junior high coach in multiple sports. Patterson and his wife, Kelsey, had begun the search for a day care for their two young daughters.

The family lives in Cashion. While Derek works in Kingfisher, Kelsey was about to begin a full-time job in Oklahoma City.

Most local facilities are full and have waiting lists. “We were looking at a couple of different day cares in Oklahoma City,” Patterson said. “The cheapest one was $1,300 a month per child.”

He recalled a survey of KPS staff when Jason Sternberger was the superintendent inquiring about interest in a day care being provided by the district for its employees.

“I just think there wasn’t enough interest to get it started then,” Patterson said. With the monumental task of paying for childcare looming, Patterson stopped in to see Glover in June. “It was maybe his first or second day on the job,” Patterson recalled. “I asked him if he had heard about school child care being of any interest. He said he didn’t know anything about it, but he would definitely look into it.” Glover did more than that. He’s helped make it a reality. The Kingfisher Board of Education last Tuesday approved Kara Tripp to manage Little Stingers Preschool, which will be a day care for children of KPS employees only.

The cost will be $500 per month per child.

For the Pattersons, that’s a savings of at least $1,600 a month.

“It’s a huge blessing to teachers and staff who maybe couldn’t get into a day care that was in town because of wait lists or costs or whatever the case may be,” Patterson said.

“I know this will also be way more convenient for my family, personally, because the day care is on the way to work. My wife doesn’t have to go 20 minutes out of the way before she has to be at work any longer.”

The day care opened on Friday, a bit of a delay than was originally hoped.

Glover said they wanted the day care to open earlier intheweek,but“theDepartment of Human Services has a substantial amount of red tape that we’re still working through.”

Fortunately for the district, it already owns a facility that will be used.

It will be the location of the former Head Start building, which is located just east of Heritage Elementary.

The district had been leasing the building to Head Start for $1 a year, but Head Start ceased operations there last year after struggling to adequately staff it.

Tripp, said Glover, “sort of fell in our lap.”

He said she’s been providing day care for Deer Creek Public Schools employees from her home. He said she will be assisted at the facility by one or more teacher’s aides who are currently employed by the district.

Glover said the day care will have at least eight children and could grow to 10 or 12 soon.

The district will handle all the overhead, including insurance costs.

“This year it won’t happen, but we do want it to pay for itself,” Glover said. “Once we get enough children there, we hope it proves to be a benefit for the teachers and not be a burden on the school.”

It’s the latest in a series of “perks” the board has approved for teachers.

The board voted late last spring to pay the teachers’ portion of insurance, which is about an 8% bump in pay. In August, it also approved across-the-board raises for all extra-duty positions.

Glover mentioned multiple other districts that offer day care facilities for employees.

“This isn’t a new thing; it’s just new to us,” he said. “We are hoping the day care turns into a good recruiting tool in the years to come.”