National for-profit company takes over Uptown Kids

Uptown Kids child care center at 1108 N. Robberson is now under the management of Michigan-based Childtime Learning Centers, according to Kathy Fritts, who serves as the president of the board of directors of the consortium that formed the center.

Fritts said the board began to seek a national company to assume management of the center last fall because the center was losing money on a monthly basis. Fritts said no money changed hands between Childtime Learning Centers and the consortium board, since the center didn't have anything to sell.

Fritts said the building that houses the center is still owned by City Utilities, which leases it to Childtime Learning Centers.

Fritts said the change in management means the center, which began as a nonprofit operation, is now a for-profit center.

Fritts added that the only other options the board had, besides seeking a national company to assume management, were to either shut the center down or to ask consortium members to offer financial help to keep the center going.

Fritts said the consortium members were mostly unsupportive of doing that. Members include City Utilities, Greene County, the Springfield/Greene County Library, the Springfield News-Leader, Drury University, and Springfield Public Schools.

"Although (the center) has served its goal for the consortium members for many years, I don't think there was a lot of interest in financially bailing them out, and there were many who didn't think that was appropriate, and they suggested we look for companies interested in taking it over," Fritts said.

Fritts said although there were two national companies that expressed interest in taking over the center, Childtime Learning Centers was chosen because it seemed best-suited to meeting the consortium's goal.

"Our goal was to protect the customers, meaning that hopefully the price would stay the same, the level and depth of service would stay the same in other words, they'd still have infant care, they'd still have the full range of service and also to protect the staff," she said. "Childtime's goal...was to retain all of the staff, certainly all who were qualified, and to keep them at their same or better salaries and benefits."

Stephanie Grevillius, director of Uptown Kids, said there has been very little personnel change at the center since Childtime took over management.

She also said tuition has not increased, and she is not aware of any increases planned for the near future at the center.

Fritts said the center should see some overall benefit from the new management.

Childtime Learning Centers "has a national curriculum they use, a recognized curriculum, and they have the strength from a corporate office that we didn't have." Fritts said.

"So, I think over time, the program will be better than it was."

Grevillius agreed. "We are now part of a very large network that deals with children. We have new supplies, we have a lot more accessibility to curriculum, policies and formalized handbooks, media campaigns those kinds of things will be coming down the line for us that we didn't have in the past," she said.

Grevillius added that the center, which offers care for infants through kindergarten age, has kept the same hours of operation, 6:30 a.m.-6:30 p.m. Monday through Friday.

She said some new rooms were recently opened and the center is fairly full right now.

Grevillius added that the center may expand its services in the future, and it's possible that some programs for school-age children will be offered this summer.