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After-School Program Replaced by YMCA

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The Kids Care Program, a longtime provider of after-school care for students in the Calabasas area, has been replaced this school year with another organization because Kids Care failed to supply a state-approved child-care license to the Las Virgenes Unified School District.

The Kids Care Program, an on-site care service, had offered after-school and summer activities at three district elementary schools for five years before being asked to vacate the schools in August.

Donald Zimring, the school district’s assistant superintendent of business services, said the program’s contract to lease the Lupin Hill, Bay Laurel and Chaparral elementary school facilities was terminated in October.

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Tony Roberts, executive director of the Kids Club Program, said the split was unfortunate, and that the program had expected to receive a child-care license within weeks of the district’s deadline.

“We were well underway and had finished all the components that you have to go through, but we had to have the leases signed [to be given licensing approval],” Roberts said.

The Kids Care Program did not need a state license before last year because it had been run under the auspices of the city of Calabasas, and was not originally conceived as a day-care facility, although parents began to use it for that purpose, Roberts said.

During the summer, the district entered into an agreement with the West Valley YMCA to set up programs in the schools for this school year. Zimring said the YMCA, which had served only Round Meadow and Lupin Hill schools previously, now has a presence in all four Calabasas elementary schools.

Roberts said his organization would eventually like to return to the schools. “It’s a matter of convenience for the parents and safety for the kids,” he said, adding that schools provide the most playground space in the city.

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