Our goal is to provide high quality, affordable, and equitable care and education environments to all children in our program.  We are open after school, Monday through Friday 9 months of the year. We open full days when there is no school and full days during the summer.  Our care for school-agers was at the Main Center during the summer of 2021.  Schools opened up for all including after school for ACPC last fall 2021.   Because of ASSET funding, ACPC is able to offer a multi-tiered reduced fee scale providing access to a larger percentage of families as well as additional discounts for parents who are also full-time ISU students.  ACPC partners with the Department of Human Services to accept families with Child Care Assistance or who are currently in foster care. ACPC also partners with Child Care Aware to provide assistance for military families in addition to ASSET tiers

Our services are open to any child enrolled at the appropriate elementary school.  Nearly all of the children reside within the Ames city limits with just a few children open enrolling to the district.  Any enrolled family may qualify for the sliding fee scale, but we must keep the discounts in line with the total funds we receive from ASSET funders.  ACPC provided care and early education for 251 children ages 5-12.  We ran our before and after school programming at a limited capacity last year.  We were able to keep nearly all families off of the waitlist because many families kept their children home.   Our school age program also took on the unique capacity as a remote learning site last year adding five classrooms at the Main Center for more than 70 remote learners on a daily basis.  This past summer, we were able to operate a summer program with similar capacity of non-pandemic years onsite at our Main Center.  

251 different children were provided care last year in one of the six sites where we provide care.  The parents of school-age children are encouraged to access the sliding fee scale if they qualify by income. ACPC fulfills the Income Priority by having a sliding fee scale to assist families in their ability to maintain employment or further their education. We also address the Education Priority by measuring literacy skills, reading times by the child and the parents, relationship building and the impact of the program on each child.  Childcare is a major expense for all families.  ACPC works very hard to maintain the most cost effective rates for all. The families of those on the sliding fee scale realize the additional benefit of lower tuition rates for the same quality services that all receive at ACPC.  At ACPC, we utilize tools such as PBIS coaching for staff, and annual staff and family survey to better understand the impact and effectivness of our program and aid program leadership in planning for the future.