The USD 475 Geary County School Board recently voted to allow the district to enter a lease-purchase agreement to acquire the funds necessary to build the new Early Childhood Center on the site of the former Junction City High School.
The vote occurred at the school board’s Dec. 4 meeting. Superintendent Dr. Reginald Eggleston joined KMAN this week and noted the financial benefits to the district that the current agreement provides.
Eggleston also discusses how the center will create more room around the district by pooling the early childhood classrooms in elementary schools into the new facility.
Eggleston emphasized the importance of the early childhood classrooms throughout the district as a means of developing the early learning skills and behaviors necessary for elementary school and beyond. He also discusses the opportunities for potentially generating more jobs for the district with the Early Childhood Center:
Similarly, Executive Director of the Governor’s Military Council, Lt. General (retired) Perry Wiggins, spoke at an October USD 475 school board meeting on the subject, noting the eventually boost toward Fort Riley recruitment that the Early Childhood Center would bring,
“Spouses make that decision. They circle a school on a map and they tell a service member that’s where I want to go. The biggest and number one recruiting tool for that right now are early childhood centers.”
The lease purchase agreement comes after the district failed to secure grant money to help supplement about half of the overall cost of the project.
Dr. Eggleston will appear on KMAN’s In Focus Dec. 27.
