Lillian Webb

Every day, roughly 4,200 students walk into a Rolla School District building. Soon, there will be another building awaiting 350 Phelps County four year olds to begin their education. In early January, the district bought the soon-to-be Phelps County Community Foundation Early Childhood Center, and they are hoping to begin classes in the fall of 2026.
Before the idea came to fruition, Early Childhood Director Laura Brown ensured the district was doing everything possible with the limited space available for early childhood.
“We continued to grow our program the most we could, make it as robust as we could with what we had, and knowing that when the opportunity [to expand] came around, we would proceed as quickly as possible,” Brown said.
When the expansion became available, that mindset is exactly how the board of education and Phelps County Community Foundation approached the opportunity.
“We sat down with the foundation and said, we can staff it, we can manage it, we can run it. We don’t have room, we just don’t have the space…We went out and toured [the building], and we said, it’s a college, but it’s a good facility. It’s the right size. We think we can make this work. So we very quickly made steps to kind of lock that in…And fortunately, it checks all the boxes…It was a lot of moving parts that just kind of all came together all at once,” RPS superintendent Kyle Dare said.
As RPS establishes the early childhood center, they will transfer all current preschool programming to the new building.
“So we’ll actually move all of our early childhood programs [into the new space] … We’ll move all the support systems. So the occupational therapist, physical therapist, speech language therapist, special ed process coordinator, all the things that work in that early childhood realm will all move out there. We’ll also move Parents As Teachers…the Early Childhood careers program,” Dare said.
Currently, the district has 9 half-day early childhood education classrooms in three elementary education buildings. The new space will create room to double the amount of preschoolers enrolled and double the learning day; the program will become a full-day preschool.
“Overall, [my goal] is just bringing all of our preschoolers together, so being able to provide a spot for every four-year-old in Rolla that would like to come to school, and then with that, giving them a space to come to school all day, because our half day programming now is a hardship on some of our families,” Brown said.
The Four Rivers Community Health Center is partnering with the RPS District and Phelps County Community Foundation to include a clinic inside the new early childhood center.
“I think for the community, I think there’s two pieces. One, I think, is the immediate impact. So the ability to have more kids, reduced transportation barriers, and no cost…Long term, I think the ability to get to those kids early to help build that emotional, social, health, wellness piece…I think that’s generational…That’s something we’ll see pay off for years to come,” Dare said.
The early childhood center will be vital in continuing community partnerships and strengthening the RPS’s educational impact.
“I’m very passionate about early childhood education, because I think the sooner we can help lay those foundations and build those foundations, the better off we will all be later,” Dare said.