UP church starts new school for early learning, child care in response to COVID-19
A new school offering child care and early learning for children between 6 weeks and 6 years old is opening in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The New School at Chambers Bay is located on the campus of OURCHURCH, 5000 67th Ave W. in University Place. OURCHURCH is led by senior pastor Dean Curry.
The school is enrolling students and has the capacity to serve 65 child care and 40 part-day preschool children. Starting Sept. 8, the school will be open 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. each business day. Tuition varies depending on age and the type of program, and an application fee is being waived through Aug. 25.
The school will start with seven lead teachers, who are “encouraged to have at least an AA degree” and “required to have 10 hours per year of ongoing education,” according to the school’s website.
The hope is to have the school continue even after the COVID-19 pandemic passes.
“It’s more than just child care, it’s really childcare and education,” said Melanie Grassi Wood, marketing director for the school and OURCHURCH executive pastor. “We want families to understand that we believe in both excellent care and excellent education.”
The school will conduct assessments on every child to help determine skill levels and develop activities and lesson plans for each child. Students in the program can engage in language development, math, science, gym, phonics and writing.
COVID-19 precautions include having staff wear masks, implementing hand-washing stations and temperature-checking all students prior to entering the building.
Karen Curtiss was hired as director of The New School at Chambers Bay and has nearly 30 years of experience in early childhood education and formerly worked as the director of the early learning center at Cascade Christian Schools in Puyallup. She’s also on the Advisory Council for Early Learning at Pierce College.
OURCHURCH started the school in response to school closures from COVID-19 and impacts to family schedules.
“We heard it from families at church; we heard it in community; we’ve heard it as we were serving families through the food pantry that’s here on campus for community partners. And so it kept being a recurring theme — and as Karen said, a crisis, really,” Grassi Wood said.
In Tacoma and University Place in particular, there’s a high need for child care, Curtiss added.
The COVID-19 pandemic has dealt a blow to an already-struggling child care industry in Washington state and across the country, causing concerns that a shortage of slots will worsen.
As state restrictions ease and businesses slowly reopen, Child Care Aware of Washington says it is seeing some child care programs starting back up again.
As of Thursday, there were 972 closed child care programs across Washington with the combined capacity to serve 44,125 children, in addition to 25,169 vacancies at existing child care programs, according to Child Care Aware data. The closures represent 18 percent of licensed child care capacity in Washington, compared to 24 percent of licensed providers that were closed earlier on in the pandemic.
In Pierce County specifically, there were 102 closed programs and 2,453 vacancies at existing programs as of Thursday.
Right now the focus is more on school-aged children, said Marcia Jacobs, communications manager of Child Care Aware of Washington.
“We are ramping up to serve families who have school-age children that now need child care because schools are moving to remote learning. We are also helping providers that want to serve those children,” Jacobs said in an email.
For more information about The New School at Chambers Bay, visit thenewschoolatchambersbay.us or call 253-298-2788.
