A group wanting to start a daycare within the empty parts of Gronlid Central School is reeling after the North East School Division told them they wouldn’t lease the building – seven months after supporting the concept.
The division’s board decided to not give a lease to the Gronlid Little Giggles Daycare Inc. because they didn’t have a permanent source of funding.
Amy Hedin, Little Giggles’ treasurer, said the decision to not lease is disheartening – and confusing.
“We’re upset. This was heartbreaking, actually. It was kind of a light for the school after the grade discontinuance [of Grades 9 to 12] because that high school wing is empty and that’s where we were going to be leasing space.”
In a letter dated Feb. 28, the school division said they would be supportive of a daycare centre within the school as long as the school served Grade K to 8 students and any renovations and operating costs were paid by the daycare. Don Rempel, the division’s director of education, said that was to support the daycare board in applying for permanent funding from the education ministry’s Early Learning and Child Care branch.
After getting that support, Little Giggles applied for that funding. Because they were concerned that the funding would be allocated to larger centres, the daycare board held fundraisers, secured grants and even took a small business loan for any of the renovations.
The goal was to start renovations for a 20-space daycare in November and open in the New Year.
The daycare didn’t get the funding from the Early Learning and Child Care branch.
On Oct. 11, Little Giggles and representatives from the school division’s staff had discussions on what a lease agreement could look like. The division wanted an one-year agreement, while the daycare board wanted a three-year agreement so it could meet its financial obligations.
At a Committee of the Whole meeting Oct. 24, the board decided to not go ahead with any lease agreement.
“We talked to the group a little while about what an agreement would look like, but we decided in the end not to have a lease agreement,” Rempel said.
It let the daycare know in a letter dated Oct. 25 that it wasn’t going to do that for “various reasons.” The letter did not elaborate.
Besides the lack of permanent funding, the school board had another reason to not support a lease.
“School viability is another reason,” Rempel said. “We had the discussion talking about what would happen if the school closed in the future.”
The director of education said at this point, there’s not much that would change the school board’s mind.
“The best-case scenario would be that there’s another facility available for the daycare group to pursue, another option for them,” he said.
Hedin said that’s not really an option.
“That was financially our only option, was to be in the school. Gronlid doesn’t really have a whole lot else for rental and unfortunately because we started the process, we’ve done multiple fundraisers, we’ve gotten the grants from credit unions,” she said. “Respectfully, we have to regroup and have to reassess what we are going to have to do now.”
