BELLE — Plans for a new Maries County R-2 Early Childhood Education Center were announced on March 25 after district teachers presented annual evaluations on the preschool programs.

“As a district, we have decided to pursue construction on an early childhood facility — all contingent on funding,” said Maries County R-2 Board of Education President Kenda Sanders during the monthly meeting. “Before we enter into that endeavor, we have to do a construction manager selection.”

Teachers of the early childhood education programs who presented included half-day preschool teacher Caryl Koch, Early Childhood Special Education teacher Alex Busch, and Parents As Teachers Coordinator Tamra Lockard. Alexis Kohrmann, the new full-day preschool teacher, submitted her report but was not present at the meeting.

After the presentations, Superintendent Dr. Lenice Basham she’s pleased with the programs the district has to offer.

“I am incredibly proud of our early childhood programs,” Basham told the teachers and the board following the presentations on early childhood education programs. “Our families have a great deal of opportunities and I know we have an amazing early childhood staff.”

The announcement left the three program educators present at the meeting stunned and at least one with tears.

“We wanted you to hear from the board how much they value early childhood education, that they are willing to put together a separate facility that will be just for the early childhood program,” Basham told the teachers. “They believe strongly in what you guys do and are willing to put the finances of this district up to support you and your ability to do amazing things with our kids. Wanted you to hear that this evening.”

Wet laughter and stunned “wows” met the board’s announcement.

Basham said they would operate according to board policy and advertise in the newspaper for a construction manager.

“I know we don’t have all the details worked out, but I really didn’t want to wait until the next board meeting,” Basham said. “I really feel like I need to push this hard right now. I don’t wanna slow down. That’s what this is about, hiring (a construction manager) with the understanding that we may not need it if something happens. We may not need to hire somebody.”

Basham said she would draft the solicitation. The board approved the request to advertise for a construction manager with a 7-0 vote.

Following the March meeting, both Basham and Sanders gave a more in depth interview on the decision to expand the early childhood education programs into a new facility.

“We’ve been talking about facilities and facility development for years,” Basham said, adding that the board revisited the conversation at the beginning of the 2025 school year.

“We are out of space at the elementary school and started the conversation about providing instructional spaces for our preschool,” Basham said.

The board began to seriously discuss the new facility at the beginning of the year when a new grant program allowed the district to provide a full-day preschool program. Space constraints were glaring.

“We didn’t have a separate space for (both half and full-day preschool classes),” Basham said. “So they joined the (two) preschool classrooms. We realized if we wanted to put resources into early childhood then we wanted resources for those classes.”

The board began a discussion about the early childhood programs in January, and the space constraints that came with them.

“There really aren’t spaces available, we felt,” Sanders said when asked if the conversation was between housing the programs at the elementary school or building a new facility. “Not enough space in our existing facility. Because of the popularity of our preschool classes and early childhood development in our district, we felt it was an important program to find the space for, and what better way than to create it, to build it?”

Sanders said the board was concerned a preschool half-day class and full-day class were forced to share the same classroom due to space constraints.

“In general, when you’re doing early childhood development, you need space,” Sanders said. “Even though they are little people, they need room. We are blessed to be able to do something like this with our community because there’s a need and we’re working to meet it.”

Belle Elementary School (BES) did not have enough room to accommodate the space needed at the existing campus.

“We didn’t really feel there were any feasible options within our current district structure, our current building structure, to be able to do it,” Sanders said.

During the district’s summer building tours, the board frequently discusses other options for the shared music room, located in a separate building not attached to campus. Constructing a separate Early Childhood Education Center could solve that space conundrum as well.

“It would, by natural attrition, open up new spaces,” Sanders said about adding the early childhood facility. “We take this program and move it to a new building, thereby opening up the classrooms that are occupied now with that program. We would then re-evaluate our current space for things like the music room that is still in the trailer. It would all come through new evaluation of our space.”

Maries R-2 administrators recently learned that the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) Missouri Quality Pre-Kindergarten (MOQPK) grant that Basham applied for in November 2024 may be eligible for renewal. The district was awarded the grant on Dec. 13, 2024, to expand the preschool program for 10 students. Officials can apply again and receive the grant for a full school year.

Sanders and Basham anticipate the new facility will allow the expansion of the program to become permanent, and offer another new opportunities for teacher retention.

“Right now, we’re anticipating six classrooms, 5,000 square feet, a multipurpose room and a therapy office for early childhood special education to have their therapy there,” Basham said. “Those four classrooms and then hopefully a daycare for staff children.”

The daycare program, when implemented, will be available for the children of teachers and staff only.

“We’re always looking for ways to improve our teacher retention,” Sanders said. “We know finding childcare providers in the area is hard. We felt like it was something we could potentially offer as well because there are other neighboring districts doing it too, and it seems like they’re having positive results. We have great staff and we want to keep them.”

Sanders hopes the daycare expansion is something the district will be able to do in the next couple of years, once the new facility is open.

The next step in the project, Basham said, is to hire a construction manager and architect at the May board meeting.

“After that, we will have more of a deadline on how things are going to go,” she said.

One of the board’s requests is that any contractor awarded the bid be willing to work with the district’s Building Trades class.

“We’re hoping that Building Trades has some opportunity to work with the contractors,” Basham said, adding that the job is much too big for the class to attempt on its own. “They are four kids, and it’s a bigger project than they can handle in its entirety.”

Basham said she would love to have the project completed by late next year, but isn’t sure that timeline will be feasible. When the project goes out for bid, the district will name an expected completion date.

“I had hoped we would have this (facility) open in December 2025 or January 2026, but I’m told that may not be possible,” Basham said. “What we put out for the construction manager is we would like to have completion by May 2026, so the start date would be August 2025.”

The district plans to use property that boarders First Street and County Road 738, it purchased during a past bond issue as the building site.

The building budget is expected to be discussed at the April board meeting, though officials expect to be able construct the facility from existing funds.

“We are just proud to be able to do it,” Sanders said.