Larry Griffin
lgriffin@thesmokymountaintimes.com
The nonprofit Southwestern Child Development Commission closed its daycare centers in Clay, Cherokee, Graham, Haywood and Jackson counties as of Oct. 31 this year.
According to a press release from Southwestern, the reason for the closures comes down to funding issues.
“New county market rates were implemented on Oct. 1, 2023 and these rates offered only small support or improvement to the rural counties of Region A,” the release reads. “Again, this is a sad decision for our agency, as providing direct childcare services to the young children in Region A is at the "heart and soul" of our work.”
Now, according to Southwestern executive director Sheila Hoyle, the agency is attempting to help those affected, including both children and workers, find new places to go.
While Swain County wasn’t affected, the area is seeing other issues with daycares including a persistent lack of staff to work at them, even as the numbers of kids attending have been at full capacity.
Fewer childcare options
Bryson City-based Little Hands Playskool director Heather Edmonds said the closures will likely have a detrimental impact on those seeking childcare in the region.
“There’s not many daycares left,” she said, adding that she thought Little Hands and another local daycare, Lots-A-Tots, were the only ones left in Swain County currently. “That’s a big concern for where all those children are going to go while their parents are working. A lot of daycares are at capacity.”
Little Hands is currently full, and Edmonds said it always has a waiting list. There are sometimes openings at the beginning of a new school year as some children inevitably won’t need the daycare’s services once they enroll in school.
In Edmonds’ opinion, it would have been better if the closed daycare facilities had instead been able to transfer ownership to other entities and stay open.
“It should’ve stayed in-house,” she said. “It would’ve been better for the community if someone could buy the facility, the buildings and get re-licensed, rather than have to build something new from the ground up.”
Concerns expanding
Edmonds also said she was concerned about the funding coming through for the Subsidized Child Care Program for daycares, which was sent out through Southwestern. The program comes from federal money passed through the state’s Department of Health and Human Services and helps low-income families and other eligible people afford child care.
“I don’t know if it’s going to be a slower process or not even a process,” she said. “I don’t know how it’s going to work.”
The press release from Southwestern says the agency will still be doing other things beyond running the childcare centers, including handling the subsidy distributions. Sheila Hoyle, executive director with Southwestern CDC, said the subsidy program would not be affected.
Hoyle also said the subsidy program was something Southwestern CDC was fighting to change, as they believe the rural subsidy from the government is too little, especially compared to more metropolitan areas.
“If you run a daycare in Raleigh, you get about $500 per child, per month,” she said. “That’s the policy we’re struggling with. We think that’s unfair to rural counties.”
She said Rep. Mike Clampitt has promised to help them address the issue.
Daycares at capacity
The issue will ripple out across the region as parents already strapped for cash and time now find themselves with a crunch of locations at which to get childcare. Compounding on that is a lack of available qualified staff at many facilities. That’s the case at Bryson City-based Lots A Tots, where owner Alisha Ogle said they couldn’t find anyone to even apply at all – much less anyone who’s an expert.
“Childcare is a hard job,” she said. “It’s very hands-on. It takes a special person to do it, and no one wants to do it anymore. No one applies, so there’s not even anyone to turn down.”
As she spoke on Tuesday, Oct. 31, the building behind her was bustling with small children at play.
“We’re at full capacity,” she said.
At Cherokee-based Kaleidoscope Dreams, owner Paulette Shoaf said they hope for both more kids to come to the daycare as well as more teachers.
“We didn’t even close during Covid,” Shoaf said. “Hopefully we’ll see some of those kids [from the now-closed daycares]. We’ve had some attendance lost. Hopefully we’ll get some calls and get it back up.”
She said it would also be nice to “get another teacher or two” and open another room or two in the center. That comes after some layoffs in previous years.
“We’ve had to lay off teachers,” she said. “We’re building it back up. We’d like to get more kids. We’ve had to put some of them on a waiting list, and if we get teachers, we can open it up more.”
Shoaf said Kaleidoscope Dreams takes kids from “two to three weeks old” up to around 12 years old.
The daycare has “group time and story time” for younger pre-K aged kids much like an actual pre-K would operate.
Shoaf said those interested in teaching or sending their kids to Kaleidoscope can contact the center at 788-6058.
Southwestern’s solution
Hoyle said they’re working on getting children who were affected by Southwestern’s daycare closures placed in other daycares, saying so far they’ve “been able to place many children.”
Hoyle added that this also had benefits for employees at the closed centers, too. “We’ve linked workers with other daycare centers with vacant jobs.”
It hasn’t been perfect yet. There have been bumps in the road, she said, such as some cases where parents’ work schedules don’t align with the closest daycare service Southwestern has found. But they’re doing their best, she said.
“I’d love to say nobody’s been harmed, but we haven’t been all the way there yet,” she said. “But we’ve had tremendous support from the community. We’ve had trouble getting it all covered, but we’re trying to make it all fit.”