Preschool Changes Potty Training Policy

Kayla Desroches/KMXT

It can be difficult to find licensed preschools for children who have yet to be potty trained. St. Paul Lutheran Preschool and Childcare Center will now accept kids who are not potty trained into their classes.

Katie Joca is the director at St. Paul Preschool. She says the staff hopes to  work with a new set of 3-year-olds and 4-year-olds who are nearly done with potty training. The change in policy will allow those children  to join their classmates while previously they’d have needed to wait.

“They have peer pressure,” Joca says. “They get to follow other role models who are kids their age and be like, ‘Look, I can do this.’ And they also get the help and support from the teachers. And we’ve found that a lot of kids who are almost potty-trained and then they come into this environment, usually it’s within a week. They’re done.”

However, the biggest effect of the policy change is that St. Paul will admit 12 students to its new program for 2-year-old children who may not yet be potty trained. Before, they’d only served 3-year-olds and up. The curriculum will include open play, craft time, a once-weekly music class, along with other lessons.

“They will learn simple days of the week,” says Joca. “Colors, following direction, what’s the weather today, what’s the date.”

One class of six students will be Mondays and Wednesdays between 9 and 11 a.m., and the other will be held at the same time on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
St. Paul will show their teachers how to guide students through the potty training stage.

“Our teachers will be fully trained on how to sanitize properly, how to work with the child one-on-one, how to create a safe diapering environment,” says Joca.

The new program will begin August 24th. Parents can learn out more about the program at the Children’s Fair on April 11th at the Kodiak Baptist Mission Heritage Building.