Why a Long Island day care center is telling parents to take their kids elsewhere

Parents of more than two dozen children, some of whom have special needs, were told not to bring their children back to their Long Island day care with just a few days' notice — creating a logistical nightmare for caregivers.

The KinderCare center in Manhasset pulled the welcome mat from under more than 30 children, according to parents.

"He knows that some of them are staying and I don't know what to tell him...It's not fair to him. He’s asking, 'I don't understand mommy, why can’t I go to school? Why can’t I go see my teachers and my friends?'" said Mimi Cha, whose 4-year-old son attends the day car. "They didn't think about the kids, they didn't think about teachers, parents."

Cha and other parents were alerted late Thursday that as of Monday, KinderCare would no longer care for their kids.

"Just shot us an email and said, your kid has been laid off. She can’t come back," said Hin Tsui, noting that he and his wife had to stay home from work on Monday to care for their 4-year-old.

"There were a million ways they could have done this and they did it in the worst way possible," his wife, Dawn, added. "These are hard decisions placed on parents with no warning and everybody is just scrambling."

KinderCare’s sudden withdrawal of services left parents with a little more than one business day to find new child care arrangements.

So what was the reason behind the abrupt decision? KinderCare pinned the blame on short-staffing. In an email to parents, the company said "reducing our enrollment ensures we have enough teachers on hand to effectively staff our other classrooms."

"Just appalling. Inconsiderate. They didn’t think about kids, the teachers, the parents," Cha said.

On Monday, two cars from the state agency that oversees day care centers were parked outside the center. Parents said the facility has had staffing issues before, but apparently KinderCare didn’t do enough to address the problem.

"Now you guys telling us you didn’t know this was going on means that somewhere, somehow, management failed," said Hin Tsui. "The worst thing we found out is that special needs kids were kicked out. You can’t do that to special needs kids."

Online records indicate that the state cited KinderCare in Nov. 2023 for violating staffing regulations, but those issues were corrected. KinderCare did not respond to a request for comment.

"If they even thought of any solutions, they never presented them to parents for any feedback on where we were willing to be flexible," said Dawn Tsui.