Delaware Child Development Breaks Ground on New Child Development Center

Press Release
June 2nd, 2015
by Tim Hudson

Delaware Child Development Center will be breaking ground on their new Child Development Center June 2nd, 2015 at 2 P.M. The building will be located on Lenape Addition on the Delaware complex at 5110 Tuxedo Blvd, Bartlesville, OK. Delaware Tribal Council Members, Bartlesville Chamber of Commerce, team members, friends, and family will be in attendance for this highly anticipated event. The Child Development Center will be a larger facility than what is currently located on the property. In 1999, the Delaware Child Development Program built their first child care center in Bartlesville with four small classrooms. They quickly outgrew the facility.

The new Delaware Child Development Center will be constructed across the parking lot from the current building and adjacent to the Delaware Child Development Resource and Education Center. The current DCD building will be re-purposed for other needs within the Tribe, including expansion of the elder nutrition program.

The new center will be able to serve 90 children, ages birth through five years, and almost DOUBLE the capacity of the present child care center, which has 47 enrolled and 151 children on the waiting list. The new and improved center will have adequate space to create gardens and other natural outdoor play environments recommended as best practice for early childhood programs. The added outdoor space will allow for an infant playground that will be designed to specifically meet the needs of infants and provide them with a safe outside play environment to explore their surroundings.

“We are looking forward to finally opening a new space for children in Bartlesville that will meet more of the growing need for quality programs for young children. Our teachers are very excited to have added indoor space and to be able to add natural outdoor environments that are so beneficial to children.”
–Sherry Rackliff

DCD Centers use a developmentally appropriate curriculum that provides a structure for teachers to observe children and document their progression of developmental growth and structure classroom experiences that will enable every child in the class to grow and develop to her fullest potential. Observations of the children by the teachers include experiences that encompass the full range of a child’s growth from developing language skills, early literacy, mastering fine motor techniques, exercising gross motor activities, social skills, cognitive development, art, music, and more.