CHARLESTON, W.Va. — The state’s Public Employees Day Care Center in Charleston, which was supposed to shutdown Sept. 2, will remain open for another two months.
The state Department of Administration received a letter this week from Kanawha County Schools stating the school system will operate the building until Dec. 2 or until they are unable to operate due to lack of students or staff.
“We want the children and the parents and the staff to breathe a little bit easier now that we have a little bit more time,” said Diane Holley-Brown, spokesperson for the DOA.
Parents received a notice on Wednesday that the day care, which sits on the city’s East End, would close in a few weeks. Those families — some who have both parents with full time jobs — would be affected by the closure as they scrambled to find other day care centers in the area, which are at full capacity.
Holley-Brown said now they have more time to look for a new operator and prepare for the transition.
“We’re reaching out, but we have a lot of day care providers that are reaching out to us saying that they may be interested, so we are very hopefully and confident that we’ll have a new administrator for the day care center,” she said.
The DOA is basically like “the landlord” of the day care center, Holley-Brown said, so they want to make sure there is still a future for the building.
“We definitely have a commitment to continue to use that building as a day care center for public employees,” she said.
The school system pays its staff to run the day care, develop its programs and buy materials, but the letter stated the school board was losing money and needed to shutdown.