Early Childhood Center gives kids room to learn

Toddlers bounce around on near-indestructible playground equipment, smiles of glee on their faces.

Generally, this scene requires sunshine -- or at least the great outdoors.

Not so in the new Early Childhood Center at the College of DuPage. It has a playground indoors.

Recess there is the same as it is everywhere else -- even in bad weather.

"In the winter, children in the Midwest still need to be playing but we can't be outside," said Diane Kubetz, coordinator of the college's Early Childhood program.

The building is the first completed in the Glen Ellyn school's massive Facility Master Plan and officials gathered recently for the grand opening ceremony.

The school's early childhood program long had a demonstration school where students could work with children in a day-care setting, but it was housed in classrooms in portions of the school's small, original buildings.

Kindergarten teachers, for example, needed to clear their room at the end of the day so adult students could use the space at night.

And while there was an indoor play area for the youngsters, it could only accommodate eight children at a time, Kubetz said. The $6.8 million project includes an indoor play area for up to 40 kids.

"It's a lot more space for large motor skills," she said.

The new building also has a high-tech security system that specifically encloses the day-care area while still allowing access to the classrooms and faculty offices.

There are 103 children enrolled in the program, in a combination of part-time and full-time preschool and all-day kindergarten. Kubetz said they have plans, hopefully in the next year, to add an infant and toddler program, as well.

Students take courses in the classrooms, then move into the demonstration centers and open areas to work directly with the kids.

"They can sit in the classroom, but they learn best when they observe," Kubetz said.

Construction of the building was not without its difficulties. Started in 2005, it immediately hit budget woes when bids for the work came back more than $1 million over the estimated $4.5 to $4.7 million. Part of the reason was increased construction costs after Hurricane Katrina. Numerous facets of the project were eliminated to reduce costs.

The college also wound up adding a geothermal heating and cooling system to the project that uses the ground to control the building's temperature. While it's expected to save money in the long-run, it also helped bump the project's cost up to its current $6.8 million.