Capping months of turmoil after its provider shut down operations in July, Boulder’s child care center appears to be close to reopening.
At the City Council meeting Oct. 16, Southwest Montana Youth Partners (SMYP), the non-profit organization created to catalyze child care in the county, announced that it had agreed to terminate its contract with Discovery KidZone, the Montana City-based company that had opened the Boulder center in May.
Discovery KidZone withdrew from Boulder in July, citing low student registration.
Tim Norbeck, SMYP’s vice president, told the Council that SMYP had reached a memorandum of understanding with another care provider, Nature Story Montessori, to take over the Boulder center.
Nature Story Montessori, which also operates centers in Helena and Montana City, has offered child care in Boulder since 2021 in the former fellowship hall of the United Methodist Church. It serves 16 children there and says more are on a waiting list.
Norbeck noted that “a lot of work has been put in to make [the Boulder facility] a functioning entity.” Indeed, SMYP began in 2020 when a citizen group in Boulder self-formed to investigate ways to fill the city’s persistent child-care gap.
SMYP was incorporated in 2022. And that December, a two-room building was purchased and moved to Boulder from north of Helena, with $110,000 in funding from an American Rescue Plan Act grant. Discovery KidZone was approved to operate the new center in September, 2022; it opened the doors on May 2 of this year, but closed just two months later when it couldn’t register enough children.
Rachel Supalla, Discovery Kidzone’s chief executive, wrote: “We are very sad as we were excited about this community partnership.” But “the community of Boulder is small and has other childcare options… As a result, we didn’t see as much of a demand at this time.”
The City Council passed a resolution approving the agreement with Nature Story. Trustees of Boulder Elementary School, which is a partner in the child care venture with the city and SMYP, voted to support the arrangement earlier in the day. And SMYP’s board unanimously approved the tentative deal at its meeting Oct. 18.
Assuming contractual details are worked out, the center now must be relicensed to be operated by Nature’s Story. Jessica Shattuck, Nature Story’s owner, told The Monitor that the child care licensing department of the state’s Department of Health and Human Services was scheduled to inspect the building on Oct. 19. The Discovery KidZone center was licensed to serve up to 28 children; Shattuck said she hoped to pursue licensing to operate with more kids, anticipating possible expansion.
Other approvals will be needed, and Shattuck said she couldn’t predict exactly when the center would reopen. But “I’m still kind of speechless,” Shattuck said, noting that she hadn’t expected the City Council’s rapid vote on the matter. “We thought we’d be moving at a slower pace. We’re extremely excited.”
