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Closing date for Fairfax child care center now in limbo
In a meeting with angry parents and on-site staff Monday night, the Salvation Army Advisory Board for Fairfax County eventually agreed to discuss options to delay the closing of a 29-year-old day care facility on Ox Road in Fairfax.
At this time, the last day of business for the Salvation Army University View Child Care Center is Sept. 30.
It was acknowledged at the meeting that on-site staff and parents had been deliberately left in the dark because the advisory board "realized that if we started talking about [the closing], we'd get people upset," said board member Sandy Winans at the meeting.
The mission of the Salvation Army "is simple – to serve needy people," said board chairman Keith Clark.
Needy families "don't live close enough to this location. ... It's a fact," Clark said.
But the staff report on which the board based its decision contains no hard figures on population, demographics or family incomes of current daycare users. It proposes using the site as a domestic violence center and achieving "better use of the facility to fulfill a need in the county."
One graph on the study shows subsidy trends for the center. The closing would displace "the four out of 77 students that truly need our assistance," the study states.
There are 86 children at the center now, and nearly 40 more children and an influx of cash are needed to make the facility self-sustaining.
The day-care facility has no Web site, is not listed on the county Web site and staffers have been repeatedly told there is no money available for advertising, limiting the chances of an increase in enrollment. For the past eight years the center has been losing money, forcing the Salvation Army to use resources from other programs to keep the center running.
The frustration of parents at the meeting grew when parent James Chu asked the board if the doors could remain open if enough money could be raised.
The answer was no, that since the mission of the center was not being fulfilled, the center would close if it had the funds or not, board members said.
"The worst part was that at the end of a meeting last week," Chu said, a prayer was led by an upper-level manager "asking God for a way to find the funding to keep the center open."
After board chairman Clark left the meeting early, a decision was made by remaining members to discuss, within the next 10 days, a possible extension of the center's closing date to give parents more time to find alternate childcare.
A center staff member and a parent will attend the discussion.
For more on the center, call 703-385-8702.
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