Five daycares operating out of a former elementary school in Missoula have moved to or are considering new locations after structural problems with the school’s roof forced them to close earlier this month.
The closure caused varying levels of disruption for families and the daycares, which are part of the Missoula Child Care Advantage network that provides shared services including enrollment and waitlist management, payroll and telehealth. The program, run by the United Way of Missoula County, is working with Missoula County Public Schools and community partners to find short-term alternative locations, said Susan Hay Patrick, the United Way’s executive director.
Where the daycares will ultimately end up is still unclear, but the Missoula Child Care Advantage program will continue regardless of whether the participating providers are all under one roof, Hay Patrick said.
“The model is sound,” she said. “The facility was the problem.”
Missoula County Public Schools leases rooms in Cold Springs School, located south of 39th Street, to the child care providers, as well as other organizations and businesses. In 2024, the daycares moved into renovated classrooms in the building’s west wing.
At the beginning of November, someone reported “visible sagging” of a classroom ceiling to MCPS, which sent an inspection crew that week, according to Jennifer Savage, the school district’s communications specialist. The inspection revealed signs of potential roof collapse due to failing trusses, and the district temporarily closed the west wing Nov. 7, according to a press release. The area remains closed. The district does not have an exact timeline but will investigate further to understand the full scope of the problem, Savage said.
“The district remains committed to the safety of all building occupants and appreciates the community’s patience and understanding as we work through this situation,” said Superintendent Micah Hill in the release.
The west wing is made up of modular buildings purchased by the district in the 1980s from the town of Colstrip, according to MCPS. The remainder of Cold Springs School, which is part of the original masonry construction, remains safe and unaffected by the structural issues.
The district collaborated with Missoula Child Care Advantage to provide alternative locations for child care providers in Cold Springs and at the former Jefferson Elementary School on South Avenue, near the fairgrounds. Missoula Child Care Advantage and the school district refunded the daycares’ November rent and are offering six months of free rent in those buildings, said Gabe Sather-Olson, the United Way’s deputy director.
Three churches also offered the use of their spaces, and one child care program provided temporary spots for children during their regular daycare’s closure, Sather-Olson said. The organization is still pursuing long-term locations for all the providers, she said.
Montessori Plus International, the largest child care provider at Cold Springs, moved to the school’s library space the weekend after the closure, River Yang, the daycare’s director, told Montana Free Press. The closure was “a little shocking because it came out of nowhere,” Yang said.
After a staff meeting, Yang sent a note to families of the daycare’s 28 children explaining the situation and asking who could keep their kids home and who needed child care the following week. Yang then began to focus on finding a solution, she said.
“I felt my sense of responsibility to all the families, children and teachers, so my goal was to find emergency child care for families,” Yang said.
Yang looked at the Cold Springs’ library to see if it would meet basic licensing requirements and reached out to Missoula Child Care Advantage and the local child care licensor with the state about moving in, she said. After receiving approval the following day, parent volunteers helped clean and move over the weekend, Yang said.
“I know people had different experiences and opinions, but from our end, for our community, it has been such a positive experience for us,” she said. “We are thankful for and proud of our great school community, … for all the organizations like MCCA and the licensor, the public school. Everybody seemed to be just so supportive.”
Adel Staggs, owner of Best Atti-Tudes Daycare, said she was closed Monday, Nov. 10, but reopened the following day in an unused classroom in a different part of Cold Springs.
Staggs said her daycare, which serves six children, is normally closed on Fridays, but she received a call Friday evening about the closure and was offered three temporary spaces in Cold Springs — the gym, the library and the cafeteria. Staggs said she planned to set up in the library because the gym smelled bad after the floor was recently resurfaced, and the cafeteria houses the school district’s boxing club. When she visited Cold Springs on Sunday, Staggs said she found the library “completely taken over” with no prior notice or conversation from Missoula Child Care Advantage.
“They said they have been working tirelessly to find solutions, but personally, I don’t feel that’s the case,” she said. “I had to take it upon myself to find a space because I refuse to let someone close me down like that.”
Staggs said other building tenants gave her access to unused classrooms in the unaffected part of the school, and she opened her daycare there last Tuesday. Parents were understanding and supportive of the daycare during the closure but were still “extremely worried,” Staggs said.
“I just made sure to let them know I was going to be open by Tuesday, which calmed them down,” she said. “Being open the rest of the week, they were thankful because they can’t be calling out of work.”
Staggs said some parents were less concerned about the closure than how it was handled and have “serious questions” about roof inspections. She said many people were aware of the ceiling sagging well before the closure and that she had verbally informed Missoula Child Care Advantage’s former coordinator about it.
“I’m glad that if it is that serious they are taking safety precautions. I just wish they took those back then and gave us more wiggle room and a time frame rather than just closing our doors,” Staggs said.
Savage with MCPS stated that the school district addressed the roof problem as soon as it became aware of it.
United Way’s Sather-Olson said child care providers are still deciding on new locations from the “licensable options.” Hay Patrick said licensing regulations and particular requirements for child care providers make it difficult to find adequate spaces quickly. The organization is considering additional ways to support daycares, recognizing that the closure was disruptive to the affected businesses, families and children, she said.
“We understand and empathize, and we’re doing everything we can to fix this situation,” Hay Patrick said.
While the Missoula Child Care Advantage was able to provide classrooms at Cold Springs at a discount to participating businesses, the model is really about the shared services, Hay Patrick said.
“The building was a laboratory to say, ‘Here are businesses that are part of this,’ but you can have a child care in your home and be a member of MCCA and get those services,” she said.
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