FORT WORTH, Texas — It's been a frantic few days for Tarrant County parents Blythe Lane and Jennifer Harris.
"One of the biggest decisions you make as a working parent is where you're going to take your child for childcare," Lane said.
They each received emails late Monday night, saying their children's beloved daycare, the Greenbrier School in southwest Fort Worth, would permanently close just four days later.
"Scrambling," Harris said. "I mean, it's right before the holidays, we're busy enough as it is at work, and then trying to find childcare."
Staff was shocked too. They also found out Monday night. "It hit us like a bomb," one employee said, asking us to not reveal her identity.
"You're just like—what am I going to do? It's four days and Christmas is around the corner, we all had plans."
WFAA spoke with the daycare owner at length on Friday off camera. She said the decision to close Greenbrier was not one she wanted to make at all, but financially, she said, she had no other option.
The owner is a mother of five herself, and said she's been plagued by tax issues and just found out she had to close. Greenbrier has about 50 children and 15 employees. She said she's tried to make things right by offering children spots at her other daycare and making jobs available at the other location to Greenbrier's employees, based on how many Greenbrier children transfer over. So far, she said, 20 have committed to coming.
But staff are wary. "We were not promised any jobs over there," an employee said.
Parents like Lane and Harris are wary, too. "It was just very upsetting. We feel the way it was handled was inappropriate, it was unprofessional," Harris said.
They're now choosing to find new daycare for their little boys; a heavy decision they'll have to somehow make quickly.