Community turns former Catholic School into childcare center run by Silver Bay YMCA
By Tim Rowland
After Ticonderoga Central School had lost its fourth teacher of the semester for a lack of daycare, then-superintendent Cynthia Ford-Johnston got on the phone with Ti Alliance Executive Director Donna Wotton for a little talk.
Three years and no small amount of difficulties later, interested parties got their first look at the Ticonderoga Community Early Learning Center, a childcare center serving up to 48 children ages 6-weeks old through pre-school, which will open in September.
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Silver Bay YMCA will run it and operate out of the former St. Mary’s Catholic School, which closed this year due to declining attendance.
“We’re so excited; this school was built for children,” said Jackie Palandrani, education director for Silver Bay. The center has been kid-approved by youngsters whose parents brought them in to check out the facilities.
“They were running around, leaving their parents behind. It was such an experience for them,” Palandrani said.
A common problem in the Adirondacks
Communities throughout the park have struggled with a paucity of daycare, the lack of which causes a cascading effect on families and the economy. The Adirondacks has struggled with a critical labor shortage in part because the lack or expense of daycare forces a parent who might want to work to stay home.
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“That impacts family income,” said Wotton. Without a second wage earner, families fall into what’s known as ALICE (Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed) territory, a term representing families that make too much to be eligible for public assistance, but not enough to build wealth or live without financial stress.
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In its community assessment, Wotton said the Ti Alliance surveyed 140 community members, 43% of whom said the lack of daycare was preventing them from working. The landscape is gradually improving, with new or expanded daycare centers in communities including Bloomingdale, Keene and Willsboro.
It’s also critical, Wotton said, because “Stable care and development in children from birth to 3 years old dramatically changes their prospects for success in school and their ultimate life outcomes.”
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Wotton said some things are beginning to change that have had positive effects. State assistance more tailored to small, in-home caregivers has now opened up for larger centers. For Ticonderoga, the big boost for the $600,000 project came with a $250,000 commitment from the Northern Borders Regional Commission, a federal-state partnership for economic and community development within the most distressed counties of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, and New York. Contributions of foundations, businesses and community members made up the rest of the funding.
A process in finding a location
Finding a home for the center was also difficult. When Ticonderoga middle schoolers moved into the high school to save costs, the middle school space seemed ideal.
But various state regulations and an open floor plan that would have required a new HVAC system pushed renovation costs to an unaffordable $1 million, Wotton said.
A former Hudson Headwaters clinic also seemed promising, until deed restrictions got in the way. The break came with the closure of St. Mary’s, which had opened in 1959 but saw attendance dip from 200 students at its peak to 61, according to the Plattsburgh Press-Republican.
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Ticonderoga Supervisor Mark Wright, who attended St. Mary’s, said the opening of the daycare center eases the emotional pain of losing the school.
“This is a great facility and a great repurposing of the building,” Wright said. “We have people leaving the town because they can’t get housing or daycare — it’s an issue throughout the county.”
Tuition at the center will be on a sliding scale, and it will pay competitive wages and benefits — the typical low wages being another problem that has stymied child care. “We are not going to have a revolving door (of employees),” Wotton said. “We’re committed to that.”
Work will begin in earnest next month, but for one day several dozen supporters were able to bask in their accomplishment. “This is an amazing day we thought would never ever come,” Wotton said.
On his Facebook page, Ford-Johnston’s husband David reflected on the “incredibly complicated process” and added ”I wake up every day grateful and humbled that most people in this area know me as Mr. Cynthia Johnston.”
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