Sherwood cites economy, state regulations for closing day care - WALB.com, Albany News, Weather, Sports

A church day care center in Albany is giving parents two and a half months to make other arrangements before they close their doors.

Sherwood Day Care is working with parents and their employees to find other day care centers to take not only the children, but the adult workers.

Sherwood provides a safe environment for more than 120 kids while their parents are working. About 31, three year olds will be relocated to their lower school campus and can continue in the day care program. Parents of children younger than three have been notified they'll have to make other arrangement. The church's executive pastor says several factors played in to the decision.

"A lot of families as they're tightening the belt so to speak are making decisions to have family take care of their children so that's resulted in a decrease in enrollment and there's also increased state regulations that have been impacting with training so increased costs and decreased enrollment were a big factor in our decision," said Jim McBride, Sherwood Baptist Church Exec. Pastor.

The church plans to expand its Mother's Morning Out program to five days a week from 9:00 until 1:00 that's currently offered only three days a week as an alternative. The last full day for the program will be December 30th.

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