Palouse board will discuss day care options

In the midst of working to save the Palouse day care from closing, the Palouse school board will have its first discussion tonight with the task force it created to help the day care.

Funding losses of Little Sprouts Childcare and Early Learning Center this year led the school board at a meeting April 12 to consider shutting down the center.

After hearing protests from parents with children at the day care, the board that night moved to form the task force to seek options to save the day care.

The task force is currently tracking down details of three options, a day care run as a non-profit, a day care run privately or a day care but with more cost-effective measures.

At the district’s board meeting tonight at 7 p.m. in the Palouse school library, the school district will give the task force information on one of those options.

Superintendent Bev Fox said she has run the numbers on what the district would ask for rent for the day care building. Fox said she’ll give these figures to the task force at the board meeting.

The Task Force is made of school board members Brenda Brown and Darin Watkins and a host of Palouse parents with children in the district.

At a special board meeting held May 19, the group will present its findings on the three options. The board will make a decision on the future of the day care based on those findings.