Meeting at a glance
Here’s a quick look at Tuesday’s meeting of the Barton Community College Board of Trustees.
• Chairman Mike Johnson was presented with a 2024 Cyber Awareness Coin by Chief Information Officer Renee Demel. A similar coin was presented to trustee Carl Helm earlier this month at the board study session. The coin acknowledges Johnson is following guidelines for safely handling emails. He and Helm each got an email asking them to click on a link for training and they took the time to check with board clerk Amye Schneider to ask if it was legitimate.
• The board approved the plans for a Medical Laboratory Assistant Program, which is the first step in creating a new program. State approval is also required.
• The board approved two new personnel. Lucca Munhoz is the new assistant coach for men’s and women’s soccer. Yuchen Wang Boswell was hired as an instructional designer at Barton’s Center for Innovation and Excellence. The position involves designing online instruction.
• There were staff reports on the Child Development Center and the Barton Community College Foundation.
• Staff presented the board monitoring report on END 1: Fundamental Skills. The nine ENDS are the overarching goal of the college. END 1 states, “Students will acquire the skills needed to be successful for the program they are in.” There are indicators for success and the monitoring report was given by Melissa Feist, coordinator of Adult Education; Jo Harrington, coordinator of assessment and instructor of mathematics; and Stephanie Joiner, executive director of Foundational Education.
The opening of a new daycare center and the expanded Little Panthers Preschool in Great Bend had little if any effect on the child care/preschool enrollment at Barton Community College’s Child Development Center (CDC), director Larissa Graham told the BCC Board of Trustees on Tuesday.
She said they may lost one student to the preschool.
Until this year, the center had not raised its rates since 2016. Graham noted that many childcare providers have recently adjusted their rates. At Barton, there was a 10% rate increase in July and there will be another 5% increase in January.
Graham provides a report to the board each year at this time. Each year, she notes CDC has never been a money maker. The latest three-year average annual loss has been approximately $186,000 a year. However, the years 2021-2022 and 2022-2023 were eliminated from the data due to significant COVID funding that essentially eliminated the loss during that time.
“COVID was awesome for child care,” Graham said. “We did very well.”
The CDC is currently serving the children of 46 families: one Barton student, 19 staff/faculty and 26 community members.
The center opened as a preschool in 1978 with two children enrolled. Its original purpose was to serve as a lab setting for the Child Care & Guidance Program and to provide daycare for Barton’s students first and if there were openings, for staff and faculty.
It expanded in 1997 to include infants and school-age children, and a new building was added in 2000. Today, the center is licensed for up to 60 children. The summer school program had 22 this year.
There are five full-time staff, including Graham, as well as temporary aides, student employees and one part-time employee. All receive training and undergo a background check.
“Just like teachers in the school system, we have to be fingerprinted,” she said.
There is a lot of experience on the staff, Graham noted. She has been with the college for 36 years and director of the CDC for 23 years.
Board of Trustees Chairman Mike Johnson said the CDC continues to provide an important community service.
