For the past few years, the Range Community Kindergarten has been quietly transformed from a fragile service with an uncertain future into a confident, well‑governed and fully enrolled community‑run asset. That change has come not from a corporate operator, but from a small committee working alongside a dedicated teaching team, led until now by outgoing president Brooklyn Coyle and Jeshanah Erb, treasurer.
From uncertainty to stability
When Brooklyn and Jeshanah first became involved, the kindy had been running at a loss for over eight years and was still operating on assumptions that no longer matched a new funding reality. The shift to per-child funding for eligible aged children (four-year-olds) exposed just how vulnerable the finances had become, especially with many early entry (three-year-old) enrolled children who, in this new funding model, did not attract government support. “It was a critical turning point,” she said.
Faced with that, the committee made the difficult decision to collapse back to a single cohort of eligible aged kindy children whilst they rebuilt the operating model to support the new funding environment. It was not easy, there was strong demand for early entry in the community, but Brooklyn, supported by the committee, is clear that the priority had to be those children transitioning to Prep the following year. “We had to make sure we serviced those children first,” she says. “If we didn’t change, it just wouldn’t have been sustainable.”
New structures, tighter rules
The turnaround started with deliberately unexciting decisions. Capital spending was effectively frozen unless new money was brought in specifically for that project via grants, donations or sponsorship, and day-to-day costs were held to what the service could realistically afford. “The rule was simple,” Brooklyn explains. “If you wanted to do anything beyond day-to-day operations, you had to bring in the funds.”
At the same time, the committee recognised that modern early-childhood services are both education and small business. Previously, the senior early childhood teacher had also carried the director’s administrative responsibilities, leaving little capacity for facilities management, grant applications or compliance work. A new service manager role was created to take charge of the “business side”, maintenance schedules, inspections, upgrades and capital planning, so that teachers could concentrate on the children and their families. “The teachers were freed up to focus on teaching, which is what’s important to provide a quality service,” Brooklyn says.
Another quiet change was continuity. Instead of a complete committee turnover every year, several key members stayed on across multiple terms, giving the kindy consistent leadership and a clear plan. Brooklyn herself spent a year as an everyday parent helper at the kindy before stepping into formal roles and ultimately serving three years as president. That continuity meant there was “one direction”, as she puts it, “and we stuck with that direction and delivered on it.”
Treasurer Jeshanah Erb has been central to that continuity. Her meticulous stewardship of the finances, and her willingness to stay the course across multiple terms, gave the committee the stable foundation it needed to plan and invest with confidence. She has signed on again this year to support the incoming committee through the transition.
The lost document that changed everything
One of the more memorable moments in the story, already edging into local folklore, involves a long-misplaced building classification certificate from 1987. As the committee searched for ways to return to two cohorts and meet local demand, they discovered that increasing numbers would trigger requirements for extra toilets unless they could produce the original building classification documentation. Council didn’t have it, the Department of Education didn’t have it, and weeks of enquiries went nowhere.
“I’d basically given up,” Brooklyn recalls. “We’d talked to council, talked to the Department of Education, and no one had a copy.” It was Jeshanah who decided to search the office one more time. “She just had this feeling she was going to find it,” says Brooklyn. “She opened a cupboard, went into this box and there it was. We celebrated.”
That single piece of paper meant the kindy could increase its approved capacity to 27 children without an unaffordable rebuild. “Without finding that document we wouldn’t have been able to go to 27,” Brooklyn says. “We couldn’t run at 22 to be financially viable, and without that certificate we would have been stumped.” The increased capacity, combined with stronger enrolments, has underpinned the return to financial viability.
Today, the Range Kindy operates two cohorts, the Magpies and the Black Cockatoos, providing the full 15 hours per week of kindergarten, delivering a Queensland-approved programme and keeping local children “on the Range” as they transition into the local school.
A community on call
The kindy’s physical environment has also been transformed. A capital programme that was once expected to take five to seven years has largely been completed in around 18 months: internal and external painting, new flooring, a refurbished kitchen and toilets, upgraded shade sails, a new playground, new fencing and refreshed educational resources. Multiple grants and sponsorships allowed the kindy to tackle long-deferred maintenance and effectively secure the building and grounds for the next two or three decades.
Local organisations have been central to that work. The Mapleton Men’s Shed and Blackall Range Lions Club have become the kindy’s first call when something big, or urgent, needs doing. Brooklyn tells the story of standing in a classroom with the service manager and senior teacher a week before new flooring was due to be laid, worried about what might be lurking underneath the old lino. “We just decided to rip it up, so we knew what we were dealing with,” she says. “It was damaged. There was no way we could lay new flooring over it.” Within hours she was on the phone to Blackall Range Lions contacts. “I sent them photos and a sketch of what needed replacing. They cut the floor out and replaced it within a week, so the flooring could go ahead.”
For Brooklyn, this is what community looks like in practice: knowing who to call, and knowing they will answer. “Whenever the kindy has needed support, that call has been answered,” she says. “Everyone wants the kindy to be successful.”
Her view of volunteering is deliberately broad. “Volunteering comes in many forms,” she says. “People contribute in different ways and that counts. If someone is fully stretched being a single mum with three kids, or working full-time and running a business, maybe they can’t do the gardening roster, but they can show up for a Bunnings sausage sizzle. All of that creates value.”
Kindy helping kindy
The Range Kindy’s strengthened footing has already been tested beyond its own gate. When the Nambour Community Pre-School & Kindergarten (often referred to locally as the James Street kindy) was left unusable after flooding, Range offered to share its site and effectively run two services out of one building. The memorandum of understanding had to be pulled together at speed because, as Brooklyn notes, “every day those kids weren’t in kindy was a problem.”
“It was quite challenging to set it up in such a short period of time,” she says. “But we all knew the purpose: to make sure children had access to kindy and were prepared for Prep the next year.” In the first week, a power outage threatened to close the visiting group again because the toilets couldn’t operate without pumps. “Our team just said, ‘There is no way we are shutting them down,'” Brooklyn recalls. “The service manager drove over to my house, picked up a generator, we hooked them in and they kept running.”
Although the shared arrangement brought its own pressures, especially as the James Street team struggled with uncertainty about their long-term future, it stands as a tangible sign that the Range Kindy has moved from barely coping to being in a position to support others.
A necessary part of a living Range
Closer to home, the kindy now sits at the heart of a web of relationships that runs across the Blackall Range, from the local schools to MADCA, the Lions and the Men’s Shed, and long-standing volunteers whose children attended decades ago and who now bring their grandchildren. Brooklyn points to regular visits from school students and to joint activities as part of ensuring children see familiar faces before Prep. “The children get to know the teaching team before they’ve even transitioned,” she says. “That certainly helps with the transition from kindy to Prep because they’ve got familiar faces.”
She is also conscious that early-years services quietly underpin whether young families can realistically base themselves on the Range. Without kindy places, parents of small children look elsewhere, and the balance of the village shifts. A functioning community-run kindy, by contrast, helps keep the area intergenerational, a place where grandparents, parents and children all have a reason to stay.
Knowing when it’s enough
Behind the governance changes and capital works are the ordinary pressures of family life and work. Brooklyn balances paid employment, parenting and community responsibilities, and has also carried the formal weight that comes with being the legally approved provider for the kindy. “If something happens legally, the committee and I are responsible,” she notes. “You carry that very serious responsibility.”
Stepping down after such an intense period has not been easy, but she is clear that it is the right time. “Emotionally it’s always very difficult to step back when you’re so invested,” she says. She will remain close by this year to support a smooth transition and to help complete a few major governance tasks, but day-to-day leadership now passes to the next committee.
‘We’ve set it up for the long term’
Asked what she is most proud of, Brooklyn names two things. “Forming the right team with the right structure, we have good people, good quality staff who are passionate,” she says. “And the capital investment to secure that asset for another 20 to 30 years. It’s done.”
She comes back more than once to a simple image: her little girl sitting on the bench at home, eating morning tea and looking out into the valley. “I thought, that’s why,” she says. “We’ve set the kindy up for success for the long term, because it’s such an important place for our children.”
A few years ago, the Range Kindy was running at a loss, wrestling with an outdated funding model and facing questions about its long-term viability. Today it is operating two full cohorts, sitting on a sound financial base, housed in an upgraded facility and woven tightly into the life of the Range. Brooklyn’s departure as president marks the end of that rescue phase, but the structure she helped build is designed for the next generation to take up and carry on.
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