CORNELIUS, N.C. — A Cornelius daycare suddenly closed Thursday, giving parents little time to prepare for the change.
After four years, Kid City USA shut down, ending the Meck Pre-K program. Now, the staff is packing up all the toys and learning materials in the two classrooms.
Students had only been in class for six weeks when the doors closed.
Mary-Margaret Kantor helps run Meck Pre-K, which partners with dozens of 5-star daycare facilities to host preschool programs.
“We’ve never had anything like this happen before so we were very disturbed and, of course, an immediate rush to find a way to help those parents, find a place for the children to go,” she said.
Dean Devany told Channel 9’s Gina Esposito that his 8-month-old was enrolled at Kid City USA. Two hours after picking their daughter up on Wednesday, Devany and his wife received a message telling them about the closure.
" [My] initial reaction was a lot of anger, and there is no way this is happening," he said.
The next day, his wife went to pick up their daughter’s things and found everything had already been cleaned out.
“She had to go all around the school trying to find our daughter’s stuff, which was 3 or 4 outfits, her sleep sack,” Devany said. “We had diapers that we never recovered.”
Kid City USA told Esposito that the closure was due to a lack of revenue, concerns about covering operational costs of Meck Pre-K classrooms, and recent government cuts to early childhood funding.
Kantor said the center never communicated the financial issues, and said its other centers are thriving.
Though the county funds the program, the centers with Meck Pre-K are responsible for paying the teachers. Now, four teachers are out of the job.
Meck Pre-K told Esposito that they hope to place all 32 students into existing classrooms or a new classroom at one of its other locations.
They are working with N.C. Pre-K staff to see if they have room for families to apply, but many locations have waitlists.
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