Theo Wells-Spackman is a Report for America corps member who reports for VTDigger.
Mount Snow will postpone a plan to reduce its child care offerings to the local community, a spokesperson for the resort’s operator said in a statement Monday. The planned cuts, which were originally slated to take effect in November, will instead move ahead next summer.
The West Dover ski area announced earlier this month that its child care center would transition to an “employee-first” model after years of operating at a financial loss. The cuts would have affected 16 families and an undetermined number of staff, according to a spokesperson for Vail Resorts, the company that has owned and operated Mount Snow since 2019.
Parents and former employees have suggested that a higher number of families could be impacted, and that roughly a dozen staff will be laid off.
On Saturday, affected families and local child care providers met with resort leadership and officials to share concerns and work toward a solution.
“After thoughtful and engaging conversations with the community and coming to further understand their concerns, the team at Mount Snow has decided to extend our community childcare for the 16 impacted families until June 19, 2026, in hopes of better supporting their transition to alternative childcare solutions,” said Samara Sausville, a spokesperson for Vail Resorts, in an email Monday.
Elly Dagg, an affected parent, said she was grateful that Mount Snow responded to public pushback around the decision to limit community child care offerings on short notice. Resort managers called parents individually last Friday to deliver the news that families would have seven additional months to make arrangements before child care changes would be implemented, Dagg said.
The additional time to plan for switching child care providers is particularly important to a single parent with one income, she said.
“I’m glad we have this extra time,” Dagg said. “It now gives us a chance to figure out new care.”
The circumstances prompting Mount Snow’s transition, which will proceed as planned in June 2026, remain contested by employees and community members.
The postponement comes after a recent petition calling on the resort to reverse its decision garnered over 250 signatures, according to Amber Good, an impacted parent who organized the petition.
Good said she is grateful that Mount Snow gave families more time to plan for the changes on the horizon, but that the decision still abdicates the “social responsibility” of maintaining community child care offerings.
Jenn Wood, a former lead teacher at the facility, resigned last week after the cuts were announced. The center’s operational deficit was known among staff members for months but was exacerbated by mismanagement and overstaffing, Woods said.
The 12 staff members affected by the coming layoffs may leave before June due to the uncertainty of their employment, and two other staff members besides Wood have resigned since the announcement, she said.
Sausville referred in an email to state guidelines around child care staffing, and said the center works “according to these mandates.” “Our goal is to retain as many team members as possible and explore opportunities for any impacted employees to apply for other roles at the resort,” she added.
Wood said she is helping one impacted teacher open their own child care center in order to ensure secure employment and offer alternative child care options for families.
Andrea Sumner, director at Kids in the Country child care center, said last week that her local operation may expand if she’s able to hire enough staff.
Mount Snow’s announcement only postpones the inevitable challenge of finding child care in the rural Deerfield Valley, Good said. Parents are working with child care advocates and local representatives to find grants and other resources to fill the looming gap.
“There is no alternative child care … The only thing we can do is create more child care,” Good said. “Eight months is a much more reasonable timeframe than just six weeks, but we still have a lot of work ahead. Parents are stepping up to tackle the childcare shortage that we expect in the valley next summer.”
Rep. Laura Sibilia, I-Dover, helped facilitate Saturday’s meeting. She and Good said some parents were also interested in adopting a co-op model of child care, with help from local providers, to replace the lost slots at Mount Snow.
“Having until June definitely creates more opportunities and possibilities than November,” Sibilia said.
