Photo by Richard Hurd
One City Schools to Open Child Care Center for its Staff
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
For comments or more information, contact:
Kaleem Caire
Founder and CEO
Email: kcaire@onecityschools.org
Mobile Phone: (202) 997-3198
Gail Wiseman
Chief Operating Officer/External Relations
Email: gwiseman@onecityschools.org
Mobile Phone: (608) 514-6119
One City Schools to Open Child Care Center for its Staff
The center will offer affordable childcare for infants and toddlers for One City Staff
Madison, WI (Thursday, September 14, 2023) – Today, One City Schools announced that it will begin offering affordable on-site child care for children of its employees beginning in October 2023. One City will pilot its new staff-only center this school year at its Pleasant T. Rowland Leadership Campus located at 1707 W. Broadway in Monona, Wisconsin. The new Gail and Gordon Derzon Early Care Center will enroll children ages 6 months to one year old. Children who are two, three and four years old with parents that work for One City can already enroll in One City’s preschool which serves children from across Dane County. The project is made possible through a $100,000 grant from the Roots & Wings Foundation, a leading funder of child and family wellbeing in Dane County.
One City founder and CEO, Kaleem Caire, shared his organization’s reasons for offering expanded child care specifically focused on its staff. “Each year, we have team members who bring beautiful new children into the world but are unable to find available and/or affordable care for their infants and toddlers. We operate a highly sought-after 5-star preschool with an outstanding, stable and experienced staff. We decided it would benefit our staff, their children, our three schools and the 400 children we teach to offer on-site child care for infants and toddlers. Doing so will enable teachers and staff to keep working and teaching with us while also giving them peace of mind that their children are being well cared for.”
Caire added, “We are deeply grateful for the tremendous and timely support of the Roots & Wings Foundation. We appreciate what they are doing to expand access to high quality early learning opportunities in Wisconsin. It also feels great that we are able to extend child care opportunities to our staff, and provide it at a rate they can afford.”
Bryce Pickett, One City’s Executive Director of Early Education, said One City will open its center next month with one lead teacher, an assistant teacher and six infants and toddlers. The funding provided by Roots & Wings will enable One City to hire staff and purchase equipment and materials to set up the center. One City currently offers all staff a 25% discount on tuition at its preschool for their first child and 10% for their second child. With the 25% discount, One City staff will pay $255 per week for infant care and $240 per week for one-year-olds. Tuition payments, along with the Roots & Wings investment, will cover the full cost of operating the new center.
Pickett said, “As with everything we do at One City Schools, we hope to be an example for other employers and educational institutions who would like to offer the same benefit for their employees. We share everything that we do at One City so others can learn with us and from us. We look forward to sharing how this works with our colleagues and other schools across the country.”
One City’s new infant and toddler center is named after Gail and Gordon Derzon, two longtime and strong supporters of One City Schools. Both are lifelong supporters of early childhood and K-12 education, college access, and health equity in Wisconsin and internationally. Gordon Derzon served for 26 notable years as the president and CEO of the University of Wisconsin Hospital & Clinics. Mr. Derzon has also served on the Board of Directors of One City Schools since 2016.
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