He says it appears the school wants the building to expand programs.
Frederick, Md (KM) Frederick Community College needs to be more open when it comes to why its child care center is closing on May 16th. That’s according to Frederick County Council President Brad Young. “The biggest thing we’re calling for is more transparency in this process,”: he says.
Young and three other elected officials, Delegate Kris Fair, Senator Karen Lewis Young and Frederick City Council President Katie Nash, signed a letter to FCC’s President and Board of Trustees asking for a pause on the upcoming closure of the Children’s Center to allow parents who have kids at the center to find other child care options, and to give the school time to figure out how to keep the center open.
In January, FCC President Annesa Payne Cheek announced the Carl and Norma Miller Children’s Center would close after 30 years. She cited the cost of operating the facility, noting that the center suffered financial losses of $1.3 million between 2020 and 2024. Young put those loses into perspective. “The four years that they put up that they say they lost a $1 million, two of them were right in the middle of COVID, and they knew they couldn’t operate. So we knew that was going to be a loss,” he says.
Young said the children’s center was developed to allow parents, including single parents, attend college and train f o r a better job while care was provided to their children. . Anyone who couldn’t afford child care and college could get some assistance to pay for it. The children’s center was also open to FCC employees and the general public.
President Cheek said after the closure, the center’s building would be renovated into a workforce center, and a location for the Certified Nursing Assistant, Phlebotomy and Dental Programs. But Young says there are other locations where these centers could be located in the city of Frederick. “I know for a fact that Frederick Health has a huge campus out there on Monocacy Crossing that has whole floor that’s empty,” he said. “And I think would want to partnership with the college to develop more medical professionals.”
And Young noted that the closure of the children’s center comes at a time when of fewer day care centers in Frederick County. “COVID, unfortunately, closed a lot od day care centers, and the amount of day care spots in Frederick County, and not nearly sufficient to meet demand. And the cost is astronomical,” he said.
Young says decision to close the child care center is based on more on the future use of the building, and not much to do with the cost of operating the children’s center.
“Again, what I’m hearing is they want to space to provide other programmatic issues they have at the college. and therefore they’ve made the decision that they want to support having a child care center on campus,” he says.
