EAGLE LAKE – Parents of young children may soon have a new solution to a challenging problem: child care.
As part of the 2023 bond referendum, Mankato Area Public Schools asked taxpayers to approve a plan to support child care in Eagle Lake. At their School Board meeting on Monday, the next steps in that process were taken as the board approved going forward with a project that would renovate two classroom spaces in Eagle Lake Elementary into two spaces for child care businesses to operate out of.
“Seats for children in childcare have diminished extensively in the state of Minnesota since 2019. … So our vision is that there would be two independently operated child care businesses in those classrooms … each of them holding their own license for child care through the state of Minnesota, in partnership with Blue Earth County,” District Director of Community Education Audra Nissen Boyer said.
Boyer says that the planned construction, which the district estimates will cost about $1.18 million, will take place over the spring and summer of 2026, “in ways that do not interrupt the flow of the school year.” During that time, the district will also be taking requests for proposals, Boyer says, from businesses interested in operating in these spaces. The goal is to have the businesses up and operational by the start of the 2026-27 school year.
Right now, there’s no plan on who will operate in the classrooms, or how many spots will be available. However, Boyer says that the district is already hearing from businesses in the industry.
“Our responses thus far have really been in our partnerships with the people who work in the child care industry and their absolute excitement for (this project),” Boyer said. “People in the industry of child care are recognizing that resources are limited and any time a partnering agency is willing to come forward and be a part of a solution there is exuberant support for that. So we are really experiencing a lot of positive support from people in that industry.”