Iowa City schools considering piloting its own child care program

IOWA CITY — The Iowa City Community School District is exploring piloting its own before- and after-school program next year at four schools in an effort to provide consistent, equitable and engaging experiences for families.

The proposal presented to the Iowa City school board Tuesday would create pilot sites at Alexander, Grant Wood, Twain and Garner elementary schools. These sites currently offer before- and after-school programs operated by Neighborhood Centers for Johnson County.

The goals of a district-operated before- and after-school program include:

The district currently partners with Champions, Neighborhood Centers of Johnson County, the City of Coralville and parent run boards to operate before- and after-school programming.

The current operations range from the number of students served — between 30 to 133 students, depending on the site — and cost ranges from $210 to $328 a month. The start and end times of the programs also vary and not all programs offer both before- and after-school care.

The district will explore hiring a before- and after-school program manager early next year and begin programming and operational planning in the spring.

The plan is for the four pilot sites to be operational by fall 2026. The district will gather feedback from the pilot program and further study the feasibility of operating its own program by winter 2027.

School officials hope the program eventually could reduce the number of families on a wait-list for before- and after-school programming.

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