A ribbon cutting ceremony opens year-round childcare for working parents

ZANESVILLE, Ohio – The Muskingum Valley Educational Service Center, or MVESC, has opened it’s latest childcare center in Zanesville marked with a ribbon cutting ceremony on Wednesday.

The Little Farmers Academy located at 1592 Fairview Road is the latest MVESC location offering year-round childcare from infancy to school age. The educational service center typically offers preschool in partnership with local school districts but for Superintendent Monte Bainter, he wanted the organization to go a step further.

“We do a lot of preschools for partner districts so we thought ‘let’s take it one step further and provide the childcare from birth to school age.’ So we’re very fortunate working with the state of Ohio with some grants, working with some local partners, with grants, obviously the Straker Foundation. We’re trying to make childcare affordable for our families,” Bainter said.

The J.W. and M.H. Straker Charitable Foundation awarded the MVESC $400,000 to facilitate the opening of Little Farmers Academy. Enrollment is now open and offers working parents affordable childcare and education through what is called the Frog Street Curriculum.

“It actually has activities and programing from infants clear through preschool. We utilize the frog street curriculum in the preschool programs that we operate for our local partner districts and felt that it was a good match for what we’d like to do here as well,” said Krystal McFarland, the director of early childhood services. “It focuses not only on academics but also on some social and emotional development and aligns with the science of reading research and the early learning and development standards through the state of Ohio.”

More information can be found on the Muskingum Valley Educational Service Center’s website.