MARK WAITE / PVT Day care worker Jayne Woodard carries Madison Howard, 18 months, after some play time at the new Pahrump Early Learning Academy. MARK WAITE / PVT Day care worker Jayne Woodard carries Madison Howard, 18 months, after some play time at the new Pahrump Early Learning Academy. Advertisement

Two girls, Abigail Howard, 2, and her sister Madison Howard, 18 months, practically had the run of the spacious Pahrump Early Learning Academy late Wednesday afternoon, waiting for their grandmother to pick them up.

About a dozen children have been enrolled in the new pre-school and child care center on 1.2 acres just north of J.G. Johnson Elementary School on Highland and Honeysuckle streets since it opened last weekend. The 8,800-square-foot facility is licensed to hold up to 125 children and another 13 children in after-school programs.

Brand new toys inside and playground equipment outside await the children. Sixteen surveillance cameras monitor activities. Parents will be able to enter by a controlled access sytem.

Owners Curt and Pam Moen think there's a definite niche in the Pahrump market for child care, particularly after the closure of Lil' Rascals in 2006 and Looking Glass day care center in 2007.

"No one else has the combination of a child care and pre-school in one facility," Curt Moen said. The depressed economy could actually help enrollment, he said.

"Now with the economy the way it is, a lot of families, both parents do have to go out and get jobs. Now they do have to have child care," he said.

Pam Moen has a degree in early childhood education and 16 years experience as a teacher. She expects to have an infant toddler license by this fall, which will allow them to have more than four children under age 2.

"Capacity won't be an issue, not for a long time," Curt Moen said. But he added optimistically, "Hopefully, next year at this time we'll be at capacity. That'd be great."

"We're still kind of in a residential area but away from all the commercial traffic," he said.

"A lot of people don't want to leave their kids here when they have three months left," Pam Moen said. "But we're going to have a yearround pre-school. This summer I'm going to come in and be teaching a 'getting ready for kindergarten class.' It'll be designed for children who are entering kindergarten in the fall."

Pre-school classes are scheduled from 8:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. Pam Moen said rates depend on the age of the children but are comparable to other child care facilities in town. There's a pre-school option in the morning only, or a full-day, pre-school and child care.

Funding for child care is available for eligible participants through the Economic Opportunity Board, while Nye County Health and Human Services said they could provide child care funding to eligible participants for two months, she said.

"What we're doing is writing our lessons and curriculum based on Nevada pre-K standards," Pam Moen said. "Right now Nye County School District, the Even Start program, is leasing a place from us for their kindergarten Kick Start program, and they're doing that from March to May."

The Even Start Program is for low-income families.

"We tried to get this all done and financed and ready to go and have it ready to go by August. At least we got the process started before the big collapse of the banks, otherwise it wouldn't have happened at all," Curt Moen said.

They eventually got caught in the tail end of the credit crunch and had to apply for small business loans through the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which resulted in delays, he said.

There were also some delays in getting construction permits, but Moen, a former county planner, isn't complaining. In fact, he said acting Public Works Director Dave Fanning and County Manager Rick Osborne are considering plans to let him pay for off-site improvements and $41,000 in impact fees on a payment plan over 10 years instead of up front.