Kaskaskia College has received a $600,000 state grant to help fill the need for employees in child care centers.
College President George Evans says the grant for a three year period of time.
“”Find more early daycare workers, provide them the education that they need through this type of grant to help offset the employee issues that are ongoing in the daycare environment. There is kind of a critical mass issue in the northern and southern part of the state as far as finding qualified workers who have to meet the state of Illinois intra-standards, which is basically DCFS standards to work in a daycare facility. It’s becoming more and more of a struggle.”
Evans says the grant will pay for tuition and other expenses for many income qualified students. He notes within six months students will have enough training to meet minimum requirements to work in a day care facility. Each level of supervision requires additional college credit leading up to a two year degree.
The college board Monday night approved a coordinator to direct the training program.
Evans believes the grant funding is only temporary due to the current need in the day care facilities.
In other personnel action, the board agreed to the request for Dean of Health Sciences Megan Hollmann to move to a full-time nursing faculty position due to family commitments.
The board hired Justine Milicevic as Reading Link Coordinator, Byron Keller as Math Transition Success Coach, Jennifer Gazda as Accounts Receivable Specialist, and Byron Shanks as Industrial Technology Instructor for Greenville Federal Prison Camp.
The board accepted the resignation of Jill Hercules as Director of Human Resources and thanked her for all the extra time she put in to help the college deal with COVID-19 restrictions. Jessica Ingersoll-Pauling resigned as Senior Accountant.
