The Gasconade County R-2 Board of Education on April 20 approved increasing the employee-only daycare rate from $10 to $12 per day for the 2026-27 school year.

Assistant Superintendent Dr. Staci Johnson shared with the board that staff currently using the daycare plan to utilize it again for the upcoming school year. The board approved in March to add a third daycare classroom to OES.

“I’m happy to say that every employee who is utilizing the daycare is planning to return next year,” said Johnson. “You have already approved the addition of a third classroom. I think after May hiring, we will probably be full.”

There will be three nursery rooms at Owensville Elementary School. According to the daycare expansion plan, two rooms will support babies, and one will support toddlers.

The plan is to have one lead staff and one para for each classroom.

“If somebody decides they want to have a baby later next year, they’re going to have to wait to enroll that baby in our day care,” said Johnson.

At the March board meeting, they approved expanding the daycare at OES to add a third classroom. The $169,051.37 expansion package includes adding two staff members with the classroom.

Another option the board reviewed was to add a classroom to Gerald Elementary School (GES). Johnson said that expanding GES would put the district over the expected faculty-to-student ratio, and there are more children at OES.

“There’s not enough people on site that have infants in the daycare program (at GES),” said Johnson. “It would put us over the expected ratios here at OES for the babies’ room and toddlers’ room and there would be some other cost issues.”

Johnson said that keeping the location at OES helps combat staffing problems.

“I went back and looked and 30 percent of the days the daycare has been open, we’ve had at least one staff member in our daycare out,” said Johnson. “The other reason why we want to keep it all on one site is because when it’s on one site we can move the kids around and still meet the correct ratios.”

Johnson said the district might expand the daycare in the future to GES, but looking toward the upcoming school year, that was not feasible.

“The other thing we discussed was the tuition rate this year,” said Johnson. “For our first year, we charged $10 a day. The recommendation is to increase that to $12 per day, that would work out to an additional $30 withheld from each employee’s check per month.”

Johnson said raising tuition would be a hit to the employee’s paycheck, but it keeps the tuition under what people in the area are paying for child care.

“So that is like a pre-tax, which is a benefit to them as well,” said Johnson.

Johnson said the daycare will have 25 children enrolled for the upcoming school year. Moving from $10 to $12 per day will bring in $9,050 for a total of $54,300 coming to the program. Tuition will be allocated back to the program for the salaries of daycare staff and programming.

Board member Debbie Landolt made a motion to approve the tuition increase from $10 to $12, which was seconded by Jason Crowe. The motion passed with a 6-0 vote.

The next board meeting will be at 6 p.m. on May 18 at the Administration Building.