More than 100 child care spaces open in Williston after public investment

WILLISTON, Vt. — Over 100 new childcare spaces are now open in Williston with the help of public investment in Act 76, a new childcare law.

Little Ones University used part of the $125 million investment in Vermont's childcare system to expand its capacity, upgrade classrooms and increase compensation to staff.

The preschool's owner said the kids deserve this after losing a child herself.

"My son, Hunter, passed away this past year, but before he did, he told me that nobody could do this job the way that I can and that he believed in me and he believed in us. And I wholeheartedly feel him today and have felt him in the center and all of the other centers since he passed away," said Caryl Jaques, the Owner and Director of Little Ones University. "Our tester location was opened just a month after, and I believe that he is the person that sends us out to do a job because he believed in what I do and believes that every child needs a champion. and Little Ones University is filled with children's champions."

The team at Little Ones University said that high-quality childcare also helps parents become better parents and that some of the parents say they also learn from the caretakers at the preschool.

"They upload photos of the kid's day, and they also talk about how the activities that they're engaging in are facilitating their development, social, emotional, cognitive, behavioral. And it gives us, as parents, ideas to bring back to the home. It's very difficult to kind of stay abreast of what activities we should be doing with our kids and finding time to set things up and to engage them in a way that we know is optimizing their development," said Emily Smith, a parent and Director for Program Evaluation for the Division of Family and Child Health at the Vermont Department of Health. "So being able to have that feedback and get ideas from the teachers that they're engaging with and also kind of provide a continuity of experience for our children has been invaluable."

Another big goal was to make access to child care convenient and affordable.

In addition to the Williston location, Let's Grow Kids said that this is a statewide initiative and that the number of options for families has increased significantly this year alone.

"This has been a crisis for so long. For the first time in the first, second and third quarters of this year, we've had more childcare programs open than closed for the first time since 2018. So you just think about that. That shows you how deep the crisis was that you'd had more programs closing than opening," said Aly Richards, the CEO of Let's Grow Kids.

This article was originally published by NBC5 on October 23, 2024. It was written by Ericka Love.