Why did Tarrant County College day care close? Parent describes incident involving child

Jenny Zheng wants her son's former day care center back open.

The Children's Center Laboratory School, which celebrated 50 years at Tarrant County College Northeast Campus in Hurst this year, closed Oct. 11 with only three days' notice to parents and their toddlers. At an Oct. 17 Tarrant County College Board of Trustees meeting, more than half a dozen parents spoke out about the closure's impact on their kids and day care center employees who they say were given no severance pay.

The closure has hit Zheng particularly hard. She is the mother of a 4-year-old who had a reported incident with a day care staff member on Oct. 4. Now, she's become one of the most outspoken advocates of bringing the center back.

"This is a double whammy for" my son, said Zheng, who on Oct. 16 was passing out fliers at the Northeast campus urging administrators to reopen the center. "He was mistreated by a teacher, even though I believe the teacher had good intentions. ... Now his whole class is gone, his world that he loved so much."

At the TCC board meeting, after parents spoke to board members, TCC Chancellor Elva LeBlanc addressed the audience.

"TCC created and developed the Children's Center specifically to educate and train early childhood professionals. The center was not designed to be nor has it been operating as a typical child care center," said LeBlanc. "We intend to reenvision our approach to early education, evaluate the purpose of a laboratory school and restructure our preparations for early childhood professionals to meet the job demand."

LeBlanc also said that information brought to TCC's attention Oct. 4 identified some issues at the children's center, and because of that information, officials addressed it by closing the center Oct. 11.

Trustees discussed personnel matters related to the day care center during part of the Oct. 17 meeting that was closed to the public. They did not take action or comment on the matter after returning from the closed session.

Reginald Gates, TCC's vice chancellor for communications and external affairs, said in a statement that several administrative leadership staff have been in touch with parents and reimbursed families who paid for October care. Staff also provided parents with a list of child care centers with high ratings, he said.

"Because it is not a childcare facility, the Children's Center Laboratory School is closed two weeks during winter holidays, one week in the spring and two summer months (early June-early August)," Gates said when asked if there was any additional information around the abrupt closure. "Based on the Children's Center annual calendar, parents had to routinely find alternative care options."

On Oct. 8, parents say they were blindsided when, during pickup, top college administrators informed them the center would be closing three days later.

LeBlanc previously called the center "truly a gem in our college and community" in a Sept. 25 press release , which is no longer visible on TCC's website. Two weeks later, in an Oct. 9 letter announcing the school's closure, LeBlanc wrote that information brought to the school's attention made it "clear that some operations (at the center) do not align with the standards of respect, care and professionalism that TCC demands."

Zheng said she was told an Oct. 4 incident involving her son played a role in the center's closure. She saw video footage of the incident and described what happened to the Report.

Her 4-year-old son, who is typically fidgety and who does not like to nap, was moving around his mat and making some noise during nap time. A teacher came and pulled what she describes as a gymnastics mat out from under him.

"He was unfazed. He was just like whatever. You know, he kind of rolled off," Zheng recalled of what she saw in the video.

Then, the teacher held her son's arm and guided him toward her desk, where he could sleep near where she was. Zheng said that she would not characterize the teacher as "grabbing" the child's hand. Zheng said her son had no physical or emotional injuries, and no recollection of the incident. She and her husband do not plan to press charges, but she was "concerned" about what happened.

Zheng said she got an unexpected phone call from Tarrant County College's general counsel's office Oct. 15 after she reached out to LeBlanc about the center's closing. She talked for about an hour with the attorney, she said.

He told her that it's not just the incident with her son, but there's a bigger picture of things that were happening that she doesn't know about. There's too much "liability" for the school, she recalled he said in the conversation. Zheng knows of only two reported incidents at the center, and said she pressed the attorney that, if there were other concerns, then they should have been reported.

A state compliance log with the Texas Health and Human Services Commission documented one self-reported incident on Oct. 5 and another self-reported incident on May 6. For the Oct. 5 incident, no risk level was identified. For the May 6 incident, the log notes a "high" risk level incident , where a "caregiver grabbed a child by his arm as a method of redirection." The last thorough inspection of the facility April 16 found no compliance issue out of 597 standards evaluated. The center has received no administration penalties and no administrative actions.

Gates said an investigation remains ongoing and the college does not have a final report. Senior-level administration, including the college system's chief financial officer, the general counsel's office and northeast campus leadership, have listened to and addressed questions from community members and parents, he said.

Many parents, including Zheng, continue to wonder why their day care closed so fast. It was small, enrolling about 30 students. Some parents fear that the writing may have been on the wall for the Children's Center's closure, pointing to plans to build new child care facilities at two other community college campuses: South and Northwest.

The anticipated price tag for the new day cares is $12.1 million, with both campuses expected to open in 2025. TCC is working with Child Care Associates , one of the largest early childhood nonprofits in the state, to offer services at the two centers.

"It's clear that you've decided to farm out our beloved TCC Children's Center out to a large corporation to manage it for you," said Jennifer Yarber, an educator and parent who had children at the center several years ago. "I assume you think Child Care Associates will come in and clean it all up, but the likelihood is they will be just in our another large day care corporation that hires uneducated, under-qualified day care workers."

In her Oct. 9 letter to daycare parents, LeBlanc wrote that TCC intends to "re-envision our approach to early education," and has already "connected with professionals in the community who stand ready to be our thought partners in evaluating staffing models, teacher qualifications, space use and curriculum."

LeBlanc was one of 16 people appointed in 2022 to a Blue Ribbon Committee on reimagining child care. Child Care Associates partnered with the Fort Worth City Council and Tarrant County in the formation of the committee.

During her Oct. 15 phone call with TCC's attorney, Zheng recalled asking a pointed question.

"You made up your mind (to close the center) before Oct. 4, right?" Zheng asked, referring to the incident involving her son. "And he paused for a while, and he said, 'No, that was the incident that prompted the shutdown.'"

Parents who spoke at the meeting talked about the warmth in the center and the lifelong effects it had on their children. Two of Jeanette Favela's children attended the day care, and she had plans to enroll her third child.

"It goes deeper than just being a day care. (My children) are better little humans now," said Favela, addressing the board while her children were playing around the podium. "They planted a seed in my brain and my kids' hearts, and I'm confident that it's going to keep going,"

Favela hopes that the decision to close the center is not a done deal, and the board will consider reopening it.

Shomial Ahmad is a higher education reporter for the Fort Worth Report, in partnership with Open Campus . at the Fort Worth Report, news decisions are made independently of our board members and financial supporters. Read more about our editorial independence policy here .

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