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Imagine getting an email that your favorite restaurant has decided to close at the end of the month. That鈥檚 sad, but not life-changing news. Now imagine getting an email that your kid鈥檚 child care center is closing down in a few weeks 鈥� or worse, being . That鈥檚 a five-alarm fire. One little-noted consequence of America鈥檚 ongoing decision to like a restaurant is that customers (in this case, young children and their families) often get little to no notice before their world is turned upside down. That should change.

Abrupt closures are the reality for far too many early care and education programs. In recent months, Guidepost Montessori, a network of more than 130 Montessori-inspired child care programs and schools serving children ages birth to 18, more than 16 sites and to financial struggles and an inability to pay rent; in each of these cases, parents and educators have gotten at most a month鈥檚 notice. Some received an email the night before landlords changed the locks.

The short-notice aspect of child care closures is not limited to for-profit chains. Independent, community-based, and nonprofit programs also frequently provide meager notice. In February, Thrive Early Learning Academy, an independent center near San Antonio, Texas with zero warning, with the owner writing that due to staffing challenges, 鈥淚t is with a heavy heart that we announce the temporary closure of Thrive, effective immediately.鈥� Last year, Rockford Day Nursery, a 100-year-old center in Illinois had a , as did in the small South Carolina town of Aynor.

A sudden child care closure can create immense stress for parents and staff. In 2024, Molly Dickens, a stress physiologist, co-authored an with reproductive psychiatrist Lucy Hutner in which the pair recounted the story of Julia Sachdev, a mother of two young children who got an email that her kids’ preschool was closing in a month. They wrote: 鈥溾�業t was so stressful,鈥� reflected Ms. Sachdev. 鈥楾here was this suffocating anxiety that ruled my day. I couldn鈥檛 concentrate on other things. It kept me up at night.鈥欌�� Dickens and Hutner noted the negative effects of chronic stress on parents and children, and also cited research that 鈥� a state of insecure and unreliable child care 鈥� 鈥渉as been linked to negative mental health outcomes for mothers for at least six years afterward.鈥� They underscored that 鈥淯npredictability itself is a source of stress. Even when parents manage to secure care for their children, it can be unreliable, and they never know when it might go away.鈥� 

The reasons for rapid child care closures vary. In some cases, as with Guidepost, it may be financial problems or other business failures. In other cases, as with Thrive Learning Academy, a lack of staffing means the program cannot legally operate. And in others, circumstances may be beyond a program鈥檚 control, as when a landlord .

While it is instructive to compare the closure of child care programs to the closure of public schools, it鈥檚 important to recognize that this is a case where the lack of a public system really rears its head. A public school closure typically involves a months- to years-long process that is and requires a large amount of meetings and discussion. That鈥檚 not the case for most child care programs. The government cannot force a private business or even a nonprofit to stay open indefinitely, and the overwhelming majority of child care programs in the U.S. fall . That doesn鈥檛 mean, however, that there are no public policy tools.

First, it鈥檚 important to note that if a private business that serves a social function is closing, the government often requires reasonable notice. Banks are a good example: The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation legally requires banks to prior to closing a branch. Skilled nursing facilities, too, at least 60 days notice and a plan for relocating residents, as mandated by the Department of Health and Human Services. 

Another challenge is that unlike other industries, there is no rescue mechanism for failing early care and education programs 鈥� but there could be. When systemically important companies are risking closure, the government often steps in. For example, when big financial institutions and car companies were flailing during the 2008 fiscal crisis, the federal government provided a . When a public school district鈥檚 financial situation is dire enough, it typically , meaning the state takes over governing authority in exchange for filling the funding gap, as has happened in districts such as and . In short, if the social impact of a given service failing is significant enough, the compelling public interest for government intervention is well-established.

While a mom-and-pop child care center or even a medium-sized chain like Guidepost Montessori doesn鈥檛 rise to the level of systemic importance as a General Motors, they provide critical support to families and children, and when one of them closes, it . Yet there鈥檚 currently no public recourse whatsoever in child care. There is no established mechanism for Colorado or its cities, for instance, to step in and purchase the shuttering Guidepost facilities at a discount, turning their operations over to a trusted nonprofit or community-based organization. This is an area ripe for policy entrepreneurship 鈥� surely some type of mechanism such as a trust fund or loan fund could be established that would keep the centers鈥� doors open, even if the ownership changes hands.

There are other potential policy actions. While the difference between 30, 60 or 90 days isn鈥檛 massive when you鈥檙e talking about the supply scarcity that marks child care, states requiring a more robust amount of notice to families and staff would at least offer more breathing room to seek alternative arrangements. And if there were more protections in place to ensure that landlords leasing their spaces to child care programs had to give more notice if they planned not to renew 鈥� say 6 months 鈥� that could offer program leaders a more reasonable runway to find a solution. 

Finally, program failures do not happen out of the blue. There are typically early warning signals along the way. If states established 鈥� or improved 鈥� the lines of communication with child care programs and offered guidelines or requirements around how to share these warning signals sooner, there would be more time for states to implement supportive strategies to help struggling providers.

For example, regulations could be put in place to require licensed programs to alert the state when a staffing shortage reaches a critical level in which one or two more departures will drop them below the legal minimum, forcing a closure of classrooms or the entire site. For this issue, states might consider having an 鈥渆mergency pool鈥� of retired directors and educators who could be called on to maintain operations until the situation is resolved. Similarly, large chain programs could be required to share audited financial statements with the state on an annual basis so that the state has a sense of their general financial health and risk of collapse, given the outsize impact of multisite closures. 

There are various levers to pull, but the status quo is untenable and policy change is needed.

Families and child care educators deserve the confidence and peace of mind that the rug is not going to be suddenly pulled out from under them, and young children deserve maximum caregiver stability that promotes their healthy development. We鈥檝e allowed sudden closures to be a fact of life in the U.S. child care system for far too long. That鈥檚 a policy choice; it鈥檚 time to make a different one.

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