Holy Name Preschool in Steamboat Springs will suspend its operations effective Friday, Oct. 9 due to recurring staffing issues, Father Grzegorz Cioch told the newspaper on Monday. 

The preschool, which opened in 1978, currently serves 11 children, though it has a licensed capacity for 40. Staff notified families on Tuesday, Sept. 8 that operations would be suspended.

“We are deeply saddened by the need to suspend operations of Holy Name Preschool,” said Cioch, who has been with the preschool for four years. “Despite significant efforts to recruit qualified permanent teachers, we have not been able to establish the staffing needed to operate the preschool sustainably.” 

Cioch said he hopes that this is a suspension versus a permanent closure. Should the preschool be able to establish the “permanent staffing necessary to operate the school responsibly and sustainably,” he said they “would be very happy to explore reopening.” 

“Holy Name remains deeply committed to serving families in our community,” said Cioch. “Through ministries such as Operation Good Shepherd and our religious education and catechesis programs, we will continue supporting families and sharing the love of Christ with the children of our parish and community.” 

Meg Franges, executive director of Routt County’s First Impressions — the county’s Early Childhood Council — warned that the narrowing of locally available early childhood services will only persist unless sustainable solutions are implemented. 

Earlier this year, First Impressions launched Routt Thrive by Five, a branding and public education effort built around the broader early childhood initiative. The effort is currently amid a yearlong public outreach campaign as it works to fill an $8.5 million annual gap in funding to fully support the early childhood system. 

In July, Routt Thrive by Five launched an interactive dashboard on the early childhood crisis. 

“It’s the interconnectedness of the problems that are driving the crisis,” Franges told the newspaper on Monday. “Affordability is one piece of that for families. The workforce is the whole other piece of this. Programs cannot pay what it takes to recruit and retain educators.” 

The sole act of creating more classrooms, she added, does not create the individuals to staff them. 

“That’s why this is so hard to tackle, because there’s not just one solution,” Franges explained. “When one part of the system fails, you see the whole shutdown … for Holy Name specifically, it was a workforce breakdown.” 

The $8.5 million gap that Routt Thrive by Five is trying to fill, she added, is too vast and nuanced for a grant, tuition increases or a one-time capital investment to solve the problem. Instead, a systemwide investment is needed to target all of the issues simultaneously. 

Routt County has lost 151 early childhood spots in the past three years, on top of the 269 spots the county is already short, said Franges. In those three years, six early childcare centers have shut their doors. 

“The hard part about this, too, is that it’s not like we can just invest in one center,” she said. “Let’s say one of these centers that has shut down, found some way to recruit highly qualified teachers and pay them a salary that’s equal to an elementary educator … they’re just going to pull from other centers, and we’re just going to move this problem around.” 

Franges also cautioned that the impacts from the local early childhood crisis are not limited to parents of young children — that ultimately, the ripple effects will change the types of people who live in Routt County. 

“The people who need childcare right now … are the backbone of this economy,” she said. “They’re the ones working in the industries that make Routt County what we love it to be.” 

“We’re already seeing an increased 65-plus population, and that’s fine, but what are we going to do here? Are we going to have restaurants? Are we going to have nurses? Are we going to have operational ski lifts?” said Franges. 

“These are things that require younger people to do the work,” she added. “And so we’ll just have an aging population and a population who are choosing not to have children, and that will dramatically change what our community looks like.”

She noted a declining birth rate and low enrollment numbers in Routt County, and said that while those are not necessarily specific to the county, communities that have increasing birth rates, and higher enrollment numbers, “are the communities that are invested in early childhood.” 

“We are very grateful to longtime local educators Sharon Butler, Mo Crouch, Erin Kissane and everyone who helped us serve families this fall,” Cioch told the newspaper.

“For many years, Holy Name Preschool has had the privilege of providing a loving and caring place for children in our community to learn and grow,” he added. “It has meant a great deal to our parish to be part of so many families’ lives, which makes this decision especially difficult.” 

Cioch said that as of Friday, Sept. 11, all of the families with children at Holy Name Preschool had found alternative childcare. But Franges said that that doesn’t equate to qualified, licensed, permanent care — instead, that often means parents putting together a patchwork of less-than-ideal solutions to meet their needs. 

Routt Thrive by Five is hosting “Powered by Care,” a childcare and workforce summit, from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Monday, Sept. 21 at Colorado Mountain College, where elected officials, entrepreneurs, community partners, parents and advocates will discuss the future of childcare in Routt County, exploring its significance to the local workforce and pathways toward potential lasting solutions.