 "Photo: Aaron Gould/ The Olympian")
 "Photo: Aaron Gould/ The Olympian")
The new Sophia Bremer Child Development Center will house Olympic College’s three current children’s programs under one roof.
Rhodes Lockwood, director of the Child Development and Family Center at OC said the “goal of the center is to provide care for what OC parents need.”
Lockwood said the current need is for the early childhood, ages 3 years and younger. He also said the “Sophia center will provide an entire wing devoted strictly to early childhood education as well as classrooms.”
The groundbreaking ceremony for the Sophia center was held in October 2009. It is contracted out to Serpanok Construction based out of Tacoma. Ken Blankenship, capital project coordinator for the college, said the building is to be completed sometime around mid September.
The program is scheduled to move into the new building January 2011, although Lockwood said things do seem to be running ahead of schedule.
According to Blankenship they are currently framing the early childhood education wing and working on the plumbing and other aspects of the building.
“They are set to begin roofing the building in about two weeks,” said Blankenship.
Lockwood said the new center was given $2 million by the Bremer Trust and a matching gift from a state public funds program for building and construction.
He said the old building’s capacity was 36 children and they had about 80 enrolled throughout the day. The new centers capacity is 100 and they are expecting enrollment to be at about 200 within the first year of the center’s opening.
Blankenship said he believed the square footage of the Sophia building to be about 15,000 square feet.
The program is currently having to turn children away, which Lockwood said “is forcing parents to either find another option of childcare, which may not be the best option as the TV will often times become the babysitter at a friend or relatives or the parent is forced to drop out and stay home.”
In the beginning week of the quarter they have about 36 children on the wait list who are less than 3 years old.
Although, Lockwood said, “Spots will often open up a couple weeks into the quarter. The parent has usually either dropped out or found other arrangements by this time.”
Lockwood said even though more children will mean more staff, they are prepared, as it will also mean consolidating other areas of staffing.
Currently there are three programs based out of three different buildings, which in turn means multiple receptionists and clerical staff for each different building, which will now be condensed under one roof Lockwood said.
According to Lockwood, any students who work in the child development center are required to enroll in three credits of early childhood education, which the program will pay for if you are working for them.
He said, “This entitles the workers to understand why they are doing what they are doing and appreciate it better.”
He also said they feel accountable for their job and duties, which creates a sense of desired responsibility in their workplace. He said this has immensely increased their retention rate from quarter to quarter.
“Many who are coming to this department from another major simply for a job have actually decided to change their major,” Lockwood said.
He said the teachers will learn how to incorporate activities that are helpful for the special needs child by improving the skills that the specific child needs while the rest of the kids are simply doing an activity that they think is fun, thus “allowing kids with special needs to remain in the classroom and receive the same experience as the other children in the class.”
The Sophia center will also have a kitchen, which the old building did not. They are currently in a contract with the Bremerton School District for food and are paying $3 per lunch for a preschooler, in addition the food is not as nutritional as they would like.
With their own kitchen in the Sophia center they “will be able to employ a cook, student aids and a nutritionist to provide food that doesn’t just taste great but will be more nutritionally sound.”
Lockwood said they would like to provide “simpler food that is kid friendly, healthier and less salty.”
Having an onsite cook also “allows the cook to dialogue with the teacher everyday” Lockwood said.
The price will be the same, but this will now cover the food and the wages of the kitchen staff.
Better quality at no more cost seems to be the recurring theme of the Sophia Bremer Child Development Center for everything from the classes, to the staff to the kitchen.
“We will make each dollar go farther than it has in the past” said Lockwood.
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