It Takes a Community to Build a Village

When the doors opened up in January at the Ray A. Corbett Building, new tenants were getting used to a remodeled building that went from being a clinic which had served the Valley for many years to a childcare facility and preschool that had previously operated in separate buildings.

Valley Village Childcare (VVC) became the building owners thanks to the efforts of the board and cooperation with the ExCel Developmental Preschool (ExCel) board.

The year included learning experiences. Before purchasing the Corbett building from the Town of Saratoga, VVC rented their former building on the west end of Bridge Avenue. When they purchased the Corbett building, the board hadn’t thought about property taxes. ExCel, a federally funded program, is not subject to property taxes but they don’t own the building.

Ellie Dana Raymer, a board member who had spearheaded the purchase of the Corbett building, said property tax was just one of the things the board learned as they navigated through their first year as building owners. She researched it and found that Teton County had introduced a bill to make home daycares tax exempt, but the legislature wasn’t fond of the idea of giving multi-million dollar houses a tax exempt certificate in Teton County and the bill died. To start the process again would take three to five years, Raymer said. It is not something the board is interested in pursuing at this time.

The Building

The Corbett building is divided with ExCel in the west end and VVC in the east end. Both ends require a passcode to get through the door. VVC is licensed for 48 children while ExCel is licensed for 39 children.

Raymer said before the move, the most children they had at the old daycare building was 18. That number has grown to 31 and continues to change depending on the need. The children are separated into age groups, as the laws for licensed daycare require one teacher to every four infants, but maxes out at 10 infants.

Because of the increase of children in the childcare area, which mandates an increase in staff, the staff at VVC has doubled.

The increase in children and staff adds a new set of items to be aware of like documentation, paid time off for employees, unexpected absences and coverage for each classroom. Raymer said all of these require the attendance of the staff to be much more important.

The rooms are divided by age group - one for infants under one year old, one for children 1-3 years old and a room for 3-5 year olds. Each room requires a certain number of teachers per student. Each room has child-sized toilets and sinks. Currently, the 1-3 year-olds are the largest class and have the most teachers.

Raymer said learning to fit what they are trying to do was a big lesson, like deciding whether or not they needed a building maintenance person. Since the building is under warranty until January 2026, they found they did not need a maintenance person, but they did need someone to cook and clean the building.

The board recently hired Allison Gonzales to cook and clean and Raymer said she does an excellent job.

Raymer said what looks good on paper changes when they put it into practical use. For instance, the decals on the walls had to be moved because little fingers were taking them off the walls. A simple fix, but something they didn’t become aware of until the decals were on the wall.

Another learning example was that they needed to rotate the toys as children get bored after a few days. They didn’t have the storage space to do that, so they rented a 10x10 storage area from the Scotts dentist office next door.

“At first, a 10x10 room seemed huge,” Raymer said, “but we could have used more storage space.”

It has been advantageous for VVC because, if the storage space was in their building, the board would have had to have fire sprinklers and alarms in the storage space.

Raymer said putting in the fire system—which included sprinklers, fire alarms and carbon monoxide alarms—was more than $250,000. The fire system is required by the State of Wyoming and, even if it wasn’t, it would be the right thing to do, Raymer said.

The bathrooms were another learning experience when designing the building changes. They redesigned the bathrooms with the size of small children in mind, as many of the children are in the potty training stage. Raymer said the small toilets changed the proposition of toilet training and the board discovered it was a really good decision.

Other designs included putting a sink in every room and putting an exterior door in every room. The exterior doors allow the children to go to the state of the art playground from their own classroom.

The rooms are all interchangeable. For instance, if VVC has no infants, but several preschoolers, the overflow of preschoolers can go into the infant room.

“The interior design has worked really well for us,” Raymer said.

In the infant room, they discovered the lights were too bright, so they put screens made of fabric over the lights panels to darken the room. Now when a baby looks up, instead of seeing a bright fluorescent light, the baby sees a giraffe or a landscape scenery and the room has a peaceful feel to it.

The most successful part of the design was combining the VVC with ExCel in the same building. “For the families, it is huge,” Raymer said.

In the past, the parents picked up their child from the daycare and took them to ExCel class. For instance - a parent dropped off their child at daycare at 8 a.m., then they would have to come back to the daycare to take them to ExCel for the morning class at 9 a.m. Then, the parents came back at noon to pick up the children from ExCel to take them back to daycare. Having the children in the same building has made it much easier, because they can sign the child in and out to go to ExCel.

“It is the easiest thing,” Raymer said.

Combining the two entities in the same building was part of the original plan and it has worked really well, Raymer said.

The idea for putting ExCel and the childcare into the same building grew out of necessity, Raymer said, and when the Corbett building became available it was Schelby Merrill and Raymer who approached the Town of Saratoga. Raymer and Merrill said Laura Bucholz was the one who mentioned combining the two entities after a conversation with Karen Youngberg, a board member for ExCel.

Merrill said she learned a lot in the preparation process of what children need in the classroom. Merrill said members of the board talked with several professional childcares and received a great amount of feedback.

Raymer complimented Mayor Chuck Davis and councilman Mike Cooley for their commitment to understand what the VVC was trying to do. Raymer said they came to the board meetings before they were elected. Once elected, the new mayor and council made it much easier for the VVC board to get the purchase of the building approved. In the end, the VVC board paid the Town of Saratoga $1 for the building.

The help from the council didn’t stop there, Raymer said. The Town of Saratoga voted to put an easement in place to build the playground and to add a four way stop sign to the corner of Constitution Avenue and River Street. The Town also added crosswalks and helped put in a water line for the fire suppression.

“They [the council] put in every effort on how to do it instead of how not to do it,” Raymer said. “They were phenomenal. They were there every time we needed an issue resolved.”

Raymer said there is an operating agreement between ExCel and VVC that spells out what happens if either entity goes out of business.

The Children

Children are the basis of VVC. Without the need for childcare in communities like the Platte Valley, there would not be a VVC. In the past, there have been a few licensed home daycares run by private parties, but until VVC opened their doors on Bridge Avenue, there was not a childcare center. As private entities closed because of stricter daycare laws and regulations, there was a need for a larger daycare for those children.

When VVC first opened their doors to the new building, they had a large intake from another home daycare closing which had 12 children. VVC took in most of those children.

At their peak, VVC had 38 children, Raymer said. When school started this semester, several of the children in the childcare went into kindergarten and infants had become toddlers. COVID had provided childcare with a lot of infants, but now they are in short supply, Raymer said.

Currently the three-to-five year old classroom has 17 children, but many of them will go into kindergarten next fall and they will have more room for children.

In order to keep qualified employees at the center, the board chose to increase their wages across the board by 40% in 2023 in order to compete with the schools in the area. The board recognized to attract employees interested in children and education they would need to be competitive.

When the board did that, they created a gap in income and expenses.

“If we were a standard business, we would change the model,” Raymer said.

It is not just a problem here in the Valley, Raymer said, but a nation-wide problem.

The Community

“We are blessed with very generous people in the Valley,” Raymer said.”That makes a huge difference.”

The board fundraised for the building and raised $1.2 million for reconstruction and now they fundraise every year for $100,000 to close the gap between the expenses and income. This keeps the cost of childcare more affordable for those who use VVC. Raymer said the board knows that if the community wants to attract people to the community to live and work, they need to offer affordable childcare. Rather than raising the rates for the parents, the VVC board hosts an annual fundraiser, Burlap and Bandanas at Brush Creek Ranch, to help bridge the gap. Fortunately the Platte Valley has generous donors, Raymer said.

”If we as a board raised the rates to where the parents can’t afford it, we have done nothing to help the community,” Raymer said.

Raymer said that there are people who write the checks, but there are also people who show up and help. She used Cody Detterer as an example. He donated $10,000 worth of landscaping work to the play area. Ryan Munks, of Plattoga Aggregates, provided gravel. R.G. Raymer Construction donated a portion of the construction costs. Michael’s Fence in Casper gave the board a discount on the fence, because his daughter, Melissa Spaulding, lives in Saratoga.

For the countertops, the company took the board to the bone pile to help reduce their costs on granite countertops. This list goes on, Raymer said. In the entryway to the building, there is a list of people who donated more than $1,000 to VVC.

At one point the insurance company told the board they would not insure their facility unless they replaced the parking lot and it had to be done by June 17, 2024 or they would cancel the building’s insurance.

“We needed $80,000 and we didn’t have $80,000,” Raymer said.

The board went to two of their sponsors and said “here is the problem.” They responded by saying “We were going to write you a check this year anyway, so here.” They were able to get the parking lot replaced before the deadline.

“It’s not just in terms of money, but in timing and ‘how can we help you’,” Raymer said of the donors.

Bridge Streets Bargains is constantly donating to VVC helping them with various needs, Raymer said.

Members of the board include Raymer, Schelby Merrill, Ryta Sondergard, Darrin Jennings, Amber Waldren, Megan Martin-Buszkiewic and Jackie Hall. Raymer complimented each of the board members for their strengths in making the childcare sustainable.