Youth services — Facility on Sitka Avenue to be repurposed for Newberg School District program

The Child Development Center in Newberg, operated by the YMCA, has closed and the building will be put to new use by the Newberg School District.

The Newberg center had been in operation since July 2002.

“Over the past several years, there has been less demand from the community for the program,” Jama Lee, senior executive director of the YMCA child care division, said in an email. “There was an opportunity to partner with the Newberg School District to meet the needs of students in the community and the YMCA made the decision to close the current program.

“Staff and families from the Newberg location have been offered opportunities to move to one of our other child development centers, including the neighboring Sherwood area,” Lee added.

The last day of operations at the care center was Aug. 28. The YMCA operates 16 other child development centers in the Portland metro area.

Since its closure the Newberg space has been the site of a great deal of contractor work, as it prepares to make the shift into its new use by the school district.

Partnering with Chehalem Youth and Family Services, the school district will open a new long term care and treatment services facility in the former YMCA space.

Long term care and treatment programs partner education and mental health professionals to serve children with therapeutic and education needs. A goal of the program is to create an environment in which the child will gain the behavior skills and abilities to function successfully in a non-institutional environment and transition back into public school whenever possible.

The move to start its own program came earlier this year when the Willamette Education Service District notified the school district it would no longer provide long term care services, and the school district began building its own program.

Given the center’s location on Sitka Avenue, the new long term care and treatment facility has aptly been dubbed the Sitka Academy.

The district announced Aug. 18 that it had hired long-time administrator Kari Sanders as principal of the Sitka Academy program.

The new program opened Monday to 36 students between the ages of 11 and 19.

Written by: Colin Staub; Newberg Graphic