Some Long Island parents received good news days after being told their children could no longer attend their day care — but there was still skepticism among caregivers.
On Feb. 1, the KinderCare center in Manhasset pulled the welcome mat from under more than 30 children, according to parents, telling them that the center would no longer care for their children effective Monday. The day care said that staffing was to blame, saying in an email to parents that "reducing our enrollment ensures we have enough teachers on hand to effectively staff our other classrooms."
Parents said the facility has had staffing issues before, but apparently KinderCare hadn't done enough to address the problem. Online records indicated the state cited KinderCare in Nov. 2023 for violating staffing regulations, but those issues were corrected.
"Now you guys telling us you didn’t know this was going on means that somewhere, somehow, management failed," said dad Hin Tsui, who had to stay home from work Monday along with his wife so they could take care of their 4-year-old. "The worst thing we found out is that special needs kids were kicked out. You can’t do that to special needs kids."
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KinderCare’s sudden withdrawal of services left parents with a little more than one business day to find new child care arrangements. But now, it appears the organization is changing its stance.
On Tuesday, a parent told NBC New York that she received an email from the facility, saying her children and others would be allowed to return on Feb. 26. According to the email from KinderCare, new hires and support staff will soon be in place, in an effort to solve the problem.
The parent said in an email to News 4 that they were not told how things might change at the center, if staff would be receiving higher pay, or if they would see their duties reduced. The mother also said she and other parents would like to be compensated for the disruption in service.
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KinderCare did not respond to previous requests for comment.
