Appellant was the legal guardian of two elementary-school-aged children. The children had attended the Saydel Play & Learn (PAL) daycare in the Norwoodville Elementary School building. All parties agreed that PAL was an excellent program and served the needs of the children who attended and their parents very well. The program was started in 1986, after a community survey showed there was interest within the District for a program to provide convenient, quality daycare for ages 2-12. The program was designed and established by school board members, administrators, teachers, parents, volunteers, and a program director. The program was originally designed solely for children within the District and financially independent from the District. The District had provided start-up funding. It also did not charge the program for space, utilities, maintenance, surplus equipment and furniture and janitorial and other services. The program director was suppose to seek federal and state grants to repay the District for the start-up funds. It was unclear whether all this money was repaid. Parent fees were suppose to cover all operational expenses.
PAL had two parts, daycare which also included preschool-type instruction and a before-and-after school care program. The program is coordinated with the Headstart Program at the school building with many children attending both Headstart and PAL daycare. Parents pay $85 per week for two to five year olds for full-time care. They pay $30 per week for before- or after-school care, or $45 per week for both. The daycare part of the program was expanded to allow children who live in other districts to attend. This was done in an effort to make the program pay for itself.
The before-and-after school care part of the program pays for itself; the daycare program does not. At the October 1997 Board meeting, a board member presented an overview of the PAL program. In January 1998, an audit report showed the daycare part of the program had a deficit of $52,245. Closing of the daycare portion of the program was discussed in February 1998. Appellant attended and spoke in favor of continuing the program. In March 1998, Ms. Burton and others attended a board meeting and spoke to Board members following the meeting regarding their concerns.
On March 16, 1998, the Board voted to continue the before-and-after school care, but terminated the daycare portion of the program for financial and space reasons. There are no rules or laws that require a district to maintain a daycare or any other type of prekindergarten program. The rules and laws which refer to daycare and prekindergarten programs state that districts MAY operate programs. The Board clearly had the authority to decide it wanted to focus on reducing class sizes and to use the available space to do so. The fact that a comprehensive daycare program was a priority of a previous board does not bind this Board, if it believes it is no longer in the best interest of the District to continue it.
The Board made the decision it felt was in the best interest of all the children in the District.
That the decision of the Board of Directors of the Saydel Community School District made on March 16, 1998, to close the daycare was affirmed.