Education
La Crosse School Board reviews daycares provided by schools vs. private business
It’s a question of government services competing with private business in Wisconsin.
School districts around the state are looking at the idea of having schools offer more daycare to preschool children.
La Crosse’s school board discussed the idea briefly at its Monday meeting. La Crosse Schools superintendent, Dr. Aaron Engel, has concerns about how much private companies could be affected by increased care at school.
“Our job is to educate kids to the best of our ability, and certainly offering 3K and full-day 4K would benefit the education of students,” Engel told the board, “but we’re also part of our community and if we were to jeopardize the availability of child care for folks working at Festival and Kwik Trip and Mayo, we have to be conscientious of our role in that broader fabric.”
Engel added that private daycare facilities often have more funding to work with than schools have available for such a service.
The school board is reviewing proposals that could be acted on by the Wisconsin Association of School Boards in the coming year.
Libertarian Guy
January 6, 2025 at 9:34 pm
Aaron Engel is right to consider the adverse impact on private business, that is daycare facilities, as well as how more daycare facilities going out of business would impact availability of daycare for parents to utilize for their children. What he fails to acknowledge is the fact that such young children belong at home with their parents as opposed to being shunted off to school to let the government/public school system raise their children. This is a bad idea and represents another situation where government funded public education wants to usurp the role of parents. And of course there is a certain segment of parents who would prefer taxpayer funded “free” daycare services provided through the public school system, abdicating their role as parents. Be a little more forceful in your opposition superintendent Engel and school board.
walden
January 7, 2025 at 12:02 am
Engel asserts “…offering 3K and 4K would certainly benefit the education of students”
Really? The La Crosse School District’s own WI Department of Public Instruction ratings for academic performance are mediocre at best. A day care can at least be held accountable for its performance, but District schools operate with no accountability from the School Board or anyone else.
Besides, the District just voted to close how many schools. What next, a referendum to build a new day care center? Is it a coincidence this matter is brought up only two months AFTER the public agreed to a plan to close schools due to declining enrollment?
What a mess, who is sponsoring this latest excursion from common sense?
John
January 7, 2025 at 5:13 am
Walden, my thoughts exactly. The school district can’t even operate on the budget they have now. This is another way for the district to ask for our property taxes to go up within 5 years. Just got my property tax bill. Largest line item is the theft of my hard earned money being stolen to give to the school district to pay for pensions and administrative costs and the minority of it will go to enhance the learning of our kids in the community. I have no problem paying the tax if it actually benefitted the kids but it’s a lie to think so. The school districts play is always ask for another referendum as the old one is about to expire. On the flip side they can’t show us how the funding is helpful to the results of the kids academics.
nick
January 7, 2025 at 7:17 am
Another ploy to keep the conversation away from the schools results regarding actually educating anyone.
We turn on the local news and get three weather reports but very little else.
The broadcast and print media has totally abdicated their responsibility
Kevin
January 7, 2025 at 8:15 am
The public school system is failing. They don’t understand their primary mission any longer. I have had first hand from teachers that they believe they offer better ‘parenting’ than the parents. They have no respect for family boundaries, they punish student athletes for participating in the typical Wednesday Church night, they counsel our children in secret, and so many other corruptions to the mission of education.
Providing more ‘free’ 4k/Preschool opportunities to parents creates ‘one more degree of separation’ between the parent and their children, starting even earlier.
It is clearly a nationalization of our children and we continue to say, ‘thank you sir, may I have another’.
The answer is NO, do not do it, do not vote for it, do not allow it. It adds value to no one, the education is sub-par, the only thing it does is create a rationalization for parents to step away from the reason they even had children.
Dylan
January 7, 2025 at 10:51 am
The cost of living has gotten so high in La Crosse that there needs to be more options for child-care. Unless you are a high-income earner it’s almost impossible to afford a house in La Crosse/Onalaska/Holmen on a single income. That brings up the problem of one parent having to stay home unless you are high income. On top of that, daycare can cost upwards of $300 per child per week. If there aren’t more affordable options for parents in the area, the birth rate is going to continue to drop… Who is going to wipe our butts and build our roads 50 years from now…
I have no idea how the school can fit into this and or if it’s a good idea. Just adding my opinion as a late 20s parent in the area.