ROCHESTER — Rochester Public Schools has surpassed its goal of expanding its school-age child care program over the last year.

The Rochester School Board heard a presentation about the effort on Tuesday, April 8. RPS Director of Community Education Amy Eich described the program as important to helping alleviate the child care shortage, and also as important to the local economy.

“This is one thing we can do … to alleviate that pressure on families,” Eich said, referring to the child care shortage. “Certainly it’s an economic engine as well, in terms of freeing up adults to work in the economy.”

The program provides child care at 16 different schools, both before and after school.

Between September 2023 and September 2024, RPS added 481 new slots to the program, surpassing the goal of 325, which would have been a 25% increase.

Now, it has an enrollment of around 1,900 students in its school year program, and 1,500 enrolled in its summer program.

Eich told the school board that in addition to responding to the child care shortage, the expansion of the SACC program was meant to coincide with the implementation of new start times in the district.

In January 2024, RPS held an information session that quickly became focused on the shortage of available spots in the SACC program. When describing the process of trying to enroll, one parent at the meeting likened it to the “Hunger Games.”

The program has been working on expanding its capacity since then. Last summer, the SACC program announced that it had been able to eliminate its waiting lists.

One of the ways the district has expanded capacity is by relying on high school students, who receive both pay and school credit for their time. Nate Schriever, manager of youth enrichment for Rochester Community Education, said the program has more than 100 high school students working in the program.

Like Eich, Board Chairwoman Cathy Nathan emphasized how important she thinks it is for the district to offer the program to the community.

“We could choose not to offer SACC,” Nathan said. “But we do because we know it improves our students’ experience (and) our families’ experience.”