As many schools closed across the state Thursday, the YMCA of Dane County opened its doors to offer a solution for working parents by providing free child care services.
Three branches across the county opened for free drop-in care while youth centers in smaller communities extended their hours, said Sharon Baldwin, spokesperson for YMCA of Dane County.
“We wanted to help working parents who needed care,” Baldwin said. “Parents were very appreciative of the support we gave them.”
The Madison School District, along with others districts statewide, closed Thursday because of insufficient staffing with a majority of teachers not showing up in order to protest Gov. Scott Walker’s budget repair bill. The district also canceled all after-school programs, district spokesperson Ken Syke said.
As a result, the YMCA’s youth centers opened two hours early Thursday afternoon. The centers, located in Oregon, Mount Horeb and Sun Prairie will once again extend their hours Friday from noon to 6 p.m., according to statement from the YMCA.
“The YMCA is here to meet the needs of our community and we want to be part of the solution,” Carrie Wall, president and CEO of the YMCA of Dane County, said in the statement. “We can provide over 500 students quality programming and the response from parents has been very positive.”
“Wednesday evening a lot of teachers never did call in, they just didn’t come,” Syke said. “Teachers calling in sick are becoming an invalid statistic because many just aren’t giving us warning.”
Syke said the community’s response to the school closings have been both supportive and non-supportive.
If schools are closed again Friday, Baldwin said the three YMCA branches – East, Northeast and West – would offer the same free drop-in care as Thursday.
Parents would have to drop their children off in the morning to register and pick them up by 4:30 p.m., the statement said. A free sack lunch is also included with the program.
The Madison Metropolitan School District will once again close its doors to students for the third consecutive day Friday, a statement on the district’s website said.
The statement said the district had received “many reports” Thursday that there would be significant staff absences Friday because of staff attending the protests.
