The sign of the Early Learning Center as seen Saturday, May 16.
Photo by Michael Whitney.
EVERETT — For the second time in four years, advocates are fighting the pending closure of the Early Learning Center at Everett Community College.
College leaders announced last week that the center will close June 30 and the staff of about 50 will be laid off July 1.
The center provides 48 early childhood and child care seats for children infants to age 5, according to the labor union representing some of the employees. It is primarily for families at EvCC but has a waitlist of seats open to all.
Opponents of the decision have scheduled a 4 p.m. community rally at the center on June 25 as they seek a way to again save it from the chopping block.
“While we have done our best to keep the center running through a combination of funding sources, the mounting financial pressures on center operations are simply not sustainable for us,” the college’s vice president of instruction, Cathy Leaker, wrote in a statement.
The college estimates the learning center would operate at a $300,000 deficit for the 2025-26 fiscal year, and that the red ink would increase annually.
“The goal is definitely to identify an organization with specialized expertise in early learning and childcare” to lease the center, Leaker said. A state agency which helps administer leases and auctions off government surplus would control the process of who takes over the lease.
“It’s very sad,” said EvCC student Yajaira Avalos, who has two young daughters in the center. “I had plans to study this summer. Now I probably will not be able to do so. I can stop studying, but what about the parents who work?”
Avalos searched hard to find a provider who would accept her children, both of whom have learning challenges. She said the center has become a second home for them.
“They’re patient and provide a high quality of care,” Avalos said through a Spanish interpreter. “It’s cruel. If it was a bad place I could understand.”
The Early Learning Center last year received a level 5 rating — the highest level — from the state Early Achievers Quality Rating and Improvement System.
It is also one of few child-care centers in the county that offers full-day care.
“It’s a child care desert as it is,” said Alejandra Wood, a family support specialist at the center. Wood plans to send her daughter to a facility in Edmonds close to where she lives.
The next closest full-day sites are two- to three-hour drives north to Marysville and Arlington, she said.
College administrators have offered to help EvCC students find new child care, and to interview center staff for jobs on campus.
EvCC administrators first proposed in 2021 to close the center in 2022 and lease it out to the YMCA to use as a day care, but staff and community members protested, causing EvCC to pause.
The college shortly after restarted its plan to close the center, before the Snohomish County government stepped in to intervene, giving $140,000 of its federal money through the American Rescue Plan Act, which was packaged together with $60,000 from a Sound Transit-related fund earmarked to improve educational outcomes for kids.
But the one-time Rescue Act money is expiring, and there is no opportunity to apply for new funding.
It costs more than $2 million a year to operate the Early Learning Center, said Shelby Burke, the college vice president of finance. Grants cover 75 percent of that total.
“This is a really, really hard decision,” Leaker said in an interview. “Ultimately, we really do have to direct the resources to our core mission.”
Center staff and parents were dismayed, saying they were not consulted prior to the announcement.
“It’s felt very calculated,” Wood said. “We weren’t given an opportunity to have a conversation, to problem-solve.”
Wood said there has been friction between the center and school administration.
The first time she met college president Chemene Crawford, for instance, was at the May 7 meeting informing staff of the closure.
“(Crawford) said the college is not in the business of early learning,” Wood said. “But I said, ‘You’re in the business of education. I beg to differ.’ ”
It’s still possible the center could be saved, but the funding would have to be “substantial” and cover projected long-term funding deficits, said Burke, the college’s finance VP.
Kari Bray, a spokeswoman for Snohomish County, said that “…while saddened by the news of the pending closure of this early learning center, (the county) is hopeful that the facility will remain a key early learning cornerstone that continues to foster healthy child development and strong families.”
Leaker also expressed future optimism.
“Given that the property is designed as an Early Learning Center it is both our hope and expectation that the eventual lease would be an early childhood learning and care provider,” Leaker said.
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