‘A very happy place to be’ | Little Buccaneers GISD Staff Childcare Center sailing toward success | News


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After only three years of providing childcare services for staff and students of Granbury ISD, Little Buccaneers GISD Staff Childcare Center, at 3000 Acton Road, is already flourishing in the district.

In November, Little Buccaneers received a four-star rating from Texas Rising Star, a quality rating and improvement system for Texas early childhood programs.

“There are four different categories that we were assessed on, starting with the director and staff qualifications and training, along with teacher child interaction, program administration, and indoor and outdoor environments,” the school’s Childcare Director Karly Middlebrook said during the Jan. 23 school board meeting. “We set out with a goal of becoming a TRS center by the end of this year, so May of 2023, but because our staff is so incredible, we actually achieved our goal in November of 2022. A four-star rating is the highest rating possible, and we will obtain that for the next three years at least.”

From 6:30 a.m.-5:30 p.m. each Monday through Friday, Little Buccaneers GISD Staff Childcare Center provides services for Granbury ISD employees’ children and grandchildren, as well as teen parents who are enrolled students of Granbury ISD. Children eligible for the childcare center must be between the ages of six weeks to four years old.

The childcare center has also implemented several programs this year like the Frog Street Curriculum and the Book Buddies program, where fourth-grade students from Connie Oelschig’s class at Acton Elementary School come over to the campus and read to the three-year-olds at Little Buccaneers.

“It’s amazing,” Middlebrook said, of the Book Buddies program. “They’ve developed some great relationships through that, and we (received) really great feedback from our families, as well as our teachers and staff (on the Frog Street Curriculum).”

Little Buccaneers increased its family involvement this year by hosting a Parents and Grandparents Day and will host their first Sweetheart Dance next month.

The childcare center also received its first Granbury Education Foundation grant this school year in the amount of $996.14. The funds from the grant will be used to implement the Bloom & Grow Outdoor Learning Center.

Little Buccaneers is currently serving 62 children, but Childcare Coordinator Tiffany Rodriguez said that they are expecting several more infants by the end of the year. In addition, the infant room is waitlisted until next year.

“The center is just growing, and we could really use a second location if that comes up in chat or anything,” Rodriguez joked during the school board meeting.

She also bragged on all the employees at Little Buccaneer’s, saying they are the “world’s best staff.”’

“They truly have hearts of gold,” Rodriguez said. “They come in there every day and work with those little kiddos, and they just enjoy what they do. You come in and just see smiles on their faces all the time.”

Rodriguez said there are currently 15 staff members at the center, adding that their teacher turnover is “extremely low.”

“Teacher turnover is really high right now in childcare, so for us to keep our teachers has been really good,” she said. “We attribute that to just building relationships with our staff, making connections, and in turn, they do that with their children in their classroom. Little Bucs is a very happy place to be, and it’s always a good day at Little Bucs.”

GISD Superintendent Jeremy Glenn remarked during the meeting that Middlebrook and Rodriguez are the “dream team.”

“When this vision became a reality, they just took the ball and ran with it,” he said. “It has been great to watch it flourish. It is a cost-neutral program, so it’s funded and supported by our parents. For teachers that work in the district, they pay tuition to keep it going. The vision behind (the childcare center) was to retain teachers and I know there are teachers that stay in this district because they know their kids are cared for, loved, and taken care of at Little Bucs, so thank you.”

All eligible interested families are encouraged to register for childcare services immediately. The center operates on a first-come, first-served basis. An application fee must be paid to ensure that a child’s spot on the waitlist is saved.

For more information on Little Buccaneers, visit granburyisd.org online, or call 817-408-4421.


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