DOVER-Mount Snow Child Care will transition to an "employee-first" enrollment model in five weeks, prioritizing its services for children of Mount Snow employees and "adjusting" its staff as necessary, according to Mount Snow General Manager Lea Gabrielle Potts. Sixteen non-employee families are left to find alternative care in an area where "no alternatives lie," according to non-employee parent Eamon Duane.
Mount Snow Child Care Manager Katelyn Roske announced the enrollment model shift in an email sent to families earlier this month. The email stated the child care team understood the changes "may present challenges for some families" and pointed parents toward the Vermont Department of Children and Families for assistance in finding alternative child care centers.
Gabrielle Potts said Mount Snow reviewed the area's child care landscape extensively as part of its decision-making process and investigated as many different approaches as possible in an effort to keep the center open for community members.
"The program has never been profit-driven," Gabrielle Potts said. "It's always operated at a loss, but that loss has just become unsustainable. It comes down to the challenges of child care not being our core business as a ski resort, but wanting to keep providing this amenity to our employees."
Mount Snow Director of Skier Services Brian Donovan said non-employee families are still welcome to apply for child care, but will be placed on a waitlist and notified if spaces become available. Gabrielle Potts said she doesn't expect the waitlist to go beyond the 16 families who will leave the program, but the resort will have to "wait and see."
Seasonal employees will remain eligible for Mount Snow Child Care, and the enrollment transition won't impact the service offered to resort guests on weekends or holidays during the season, according to Gabrielle Potts.
Gabrielle Potts said staffing adjustments will be necessary with the change in care, and the number of adjustments is something Mount Snow is "still having to work with our team on." Gabrielle Potts said she's exploring other employment opportunities at the resort for affected child care staff.
Mount Snow Child Care is also finalizing its classroom configurations, which will be based on projected enrollment, mandated staffing ratios, and group size limits, according to Gabrielle Potts.
"Those contribute to an overall operating cost that greatly outpaces the revenue," Gabrielle Potts said. "The more children we care for, the more upside down the business becomes. Rate increases are capped by the state, so that's not an option. As a resort leader, I'm always having to make tough business decisions, and in this case, this was a decision made by us here at the resort to reflect our commitment and our investment in our staff and their families."
Although Gabrielle Potts claimed program staffing and classroom figures remain undetermined, three families who have spoken with the center's employees claim 70% of its staff will be dismissed and given severance packages, including staff who have worked with the center for decades, and the center will shrink to three classrooms.
Non-employee parent Rachel Olstein Kaplan said she had planned to put her 4-year-old son on the waitlist, but anticipates there won't be enough staff or room for her son in the program.
"It felt like you had to peel an onion until you got to the heart of what (Mount Snow Child Care) was really telling us," Olstein Kaplan said. "It took a long time to understand that our kid now had no child care. If you check any child care center from Marlboro to Bennington to Brattleboro to Wilmington to Dover, there are no spots. None."
Olstein Kaplan said she was disgusted and furious with how and when Mount Snow Child Care announced its enrollment model shift, and that the resort is dealing "an incredible blow" to the community. She said a decision like the transition should be made at the end of the school year, and that Mount Snow Child Care should've given options or invited non-employee families into the conversation.
Olstein Kaplan said it's "not realistic" for the center to send families to the Vermont Department of Children and Families in search of alternative care, and the transition will impact the entire valley.
"I've spent summers since I was a child in this area, and when my family was looking for places to live, people said, 'This is a tough place to raise kids. You may want to reconsider it,"' Olstein Kaplan said. "I always hear discussions like, 'How can we get families to move to the valley?' You can't if there's no child care. You can't attract young families. I hear owners of inns or restaurants who say, 'We can't get good staff.' If you don't have child care, you can't attract people to the valley. We love the valley and we want to be here. It's all of our losses."
Olstein Kaplan said some non-employee parents will have to leave their jobs due to the limited child care availability in the area in October or November. Amber Good, a non-employee parent whose children attend Mount Snow Child Care, said she expects to be one of those parents.
"With only six weeks' notice, I have little choice but to leave my job," Good said in an email sent to The Deerfield Valley News. "I work in health care for a nonprofit that already struggles with staffing shortages. My husband is finishing chemotherapy and has been on medical leave, so we've been surviving on one income already. Losing child care could mean living on one income for another year - which we may not be able to manage. This situation represents more than just a child care issue; it's about how corporate decisions impact real families and the fabric of our small community."
Good, who lives in Wilmington, said she spoke with Roske three weeks ago about increasing her children's attendance from four to five days per week with the program, and she now has to search for alternative care.
"As you can imagine, families are devastated," Good said. "Wilmington and the surrounding area have very few child care options. The three facilities I've contacted are either full or have waitlists ranging from 'unknown' to over a year."
Eamon Duane, another non-employee parent, said the alternative care for his child is "completely up in the air at this point."
"We don't know what we're going to do yet," Duane said. "We're just trying to figure it out. Everyone that we go to, like at birthday parties this weekend, we're talking and all trying to put our heads together to figure out what to do. We don't have a path forward yet."
Duane said he was in "utter disbelief and shock" when he received the email, and it's a shame the child care center, which has been in the valley for generations, will no longer be an immediate option for local families.
In a signed letter published on Facebook, Duane said the enrollment model shift is driving a deep wedge between the community and Mount Snow, and has left a huge hole in everyone's heart.
"It's tough because we want Mount Snow to succeed," Duane said. "We want the mountain to do well, because that means everyone in the valley is doing well. While everyone who lives here isn't a direct employee, we're all basically ambassadors for the mountain, and they aren't treating us as such."
Gabrielle Potts said Mount Snow cares deeply about the community and the 16 families who will be affected by the enrollment model shift.
"We have heard from our community, and I personally reached out to those who have contacted me to ensure that their voice was acknowledged," Gabrielle Potts said. "We're really sorry for the disruption that it causes, but I do want people to know that this decision was made with great care and really with the goal of being able to preserve this program for our employees, because they're the heart of our resort, and having a really great experience at this resort drives business to our entire community."
Gabrielle Potts said Mount Snow remains committed to supporting and being part of the community, and emphasized its investment efforts, including programs such as Choose Snow, Adaptive Sports at Mount Snow, the annual Vermont Wine and Harvest Festival held at its base area, and supporting the Rotary Club of the Deerfield Valley.
Olstein Kaplan, who is also uncertain what her child care will look like in five weeks, said she wants to fight for the "little guy" in the transition.
"There are a lot of ways where we fall victim to something larger than ourselves that we feel helpless to control," Olstein Kaplan said. "Something I love about Vermont is feeling like I live in the United States of Vermont, where things feel more local. It's frustrating to feel that we're up against such a big corporation that's only looking at the bottom line and doesn't have any incentive or reason to care about how this kind of action, taken in October, is affecting so many families and children in a very real way."
Olstein Kaplan said she encourages community members to use their voices and write to Vail Resorts and elected state officials about the transition at Mount Snow Child Care.
"I'd love people to speak out and to share their stories so we don't feel powerless or voiceless," Olstein Kaplan said.
Good said there is also a petition opposing the enrollment model shift at form.jotform.com/252798520193161.
A version of this story appeared in The Deerfield Valley News, The Commons' sister newspaper.
This News item by Cearra O'Hearn originally appeared in The Deerfield Valley News and was republished in The Commons with permission.