By Leah Murray

Preschool looking for a new home after lease with SD76 isn’t renewed

Feb 15, 2018 | 4:47 PM

MEDICINE HAT – Mother Nature’s Preschool is looking for a new home.

The day care program has been operating in the basement of Elm Street School for the past 18 years, but as the school exceeds capacity, SD76 needs the space back.

Enrolment at Elm Street School has been going up steadily for the last five years and right now, it’s at 117 per cent capacity.

“It’s been a gradual increase and for the last two or three year’s we’ve been looking [closely] at it,” said Andy Christie, director of facilities for SD76.

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In order to have enough room for the students at the school, SD76 has made the decision to terminate its lease with the preschool.

Christie said the school district is disappointed, but it had to be done.

“We really like having the daycare in the school, but it’s really impacting our ability to provide our own school programs,” he said.

Preschool owner Sherri Jean is concerned about what this will mean for the 40 kids and their families who attend the day care.

“[Parents are] very upset, the reason they put their children in this school was because of the program that is here,” said Jean.

For parents it means finding a new child care centre, or waiting and hoping the preschool will relocate to somewhere close by.

Jean received a message last June, informing her the school district might not renew their lease. On February 13th she said she got the official notice the lease would not be renewed and they’d have to be out by August 31st.

She said she has been looking at other locations since getting the first notice last year.

“I have approached the City of Medicine Hat and have inquired about space,” she explained. “I’ve talked to two other community partners in regards to setting up a child care centre elsewhere in the city, not in the River Flats area but elsewhere.”

Jean said she’d like to stay in the Flats and is asking for assistance from organizations in the community that may have some space that would work for a preschool.

So far a couple of churches and the Top Hat Bingo have reached out and she’s going to visit the sites to see if they’d be suitable for a day care facility.