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First Lutheran closing day care

The First Lutheran Daycare and Preschool in Havre will be closing its day care by the end of the summer due to an inability to find workers, a church official said this morning.

First Lutheran Church Pastor Tanner Howard said that after 20 years of providing day care services, a shortage of primary care givers has left them with no choice but to close.

“We are closing the day care not because of money, “ he said, “but we cannot get enough primary care givers.”

Primary care givers have specific certifications and meet the state standards, Howard said, and people with those qualifications have not applied.

The day care needs about six of those workers, he said, and that number will dwindle down to three by the end of the summer. The primary reasons for the decrease in workers are threefold, he added.

Some of the primary workers are retiring, others are college students who have earned their degree and are moving on, while some others are teachers who will be teaching in the fall, he said.

Howard said the church has been advertising for those positions for a year, and has been aggressively advertising during the last eight months. Workers have been hired, but it’s been inconsistent, he added.

Tanner said the day care could reopen in the future should the workforce be available.

 

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