06/06/2025
📣 Community Update: Leo Augusta Children’s Academy
It is with a heavy but honest heart that we share this update: Leo Augusta Children’s Academy will be closing its doors in the near future. While no final date has been set, we are working closely with staff and families to continue operations through the summer as long as staffing allows and families still need care.
This decision comes after years of passionate effort, tireless work, and deep commitment to meeting the child care needs of Blooming Prairie and surrounding communities.
We believe the community deserves transparency, not just about the outcome, but about the full journey and the many efforts made to remain open.
🏫 ABOUT LEO AUGUSTA CHILDREN’S ACADEMY
• Opened in June 2022 after 15+ months of community planning and construction
• Serves children ages 6 weeks through 6th grade
• 85% of families served reside in Blooming Prairie
• Over 170 children served since opening
• Licensed for 134 daily child care spots; employs 15+ staff
• Parent Aware Accredited, with a focus on high-quality early education
• More than $800,000 in grants secured, most restricted to capital costs (building, HVAC, equipment)
• Tuition rates intentionally kept lower than regional averages to ensure local affordability
⚠️ WHY LACA IS CLOSING
Despite every effort to sustain operations, the challenges proved too large for a rural, standalone nonprofit to solve alone:
1. The Economics Don’t Add Up
• Operating a child care center at required licensing ratios is expensive, especially in rural areas.
• Tuition alone could not support daily operations. Even with increased rates, we operated at a loss.
• LACA ended last fiscal year with a $72K loss and, despite cutting that to $7K this year, we still faced a persistent negative cash flow.
2. We Exhausted Every Avenue for Support
• Over the past two years, we have reached out at the local, county, and state levels to advocate for sustainable child care funding in rural Minnesota.
• We spoke directly with Senator Gene Dornink to share our concerns and request support. While he acknowledged the conversation, no actionable solutions, follow-up, or resource guidance was provided.
• In a follow-up email response regarding Senate File 1897/House File 1336, which would have allocated funding for child care improvements, Senator Dornink cited concerns over state spending priorities and confirmed there were no funds currently proposed for Child Care Improvement Grants.
• Despite repeated efforts to engage elected officials, no public funding or policy support materialized to help sustain LACA.
• If you would like to share your perspective, Senator Dornink can be contacted at:
o 📧 Email: sen.gene.dornink@senate.mn
o 📞 Phone: 651-296-5240
o 📍 Mail: 2109 Minnesota Senate Bldg., St. Paul, MN 55155
o 🔗 Visit his official webpage
• We also contacted county commissioners, city council members, and other state representatives. While several acknowledged the broader child care crisis, no long-term partnership or financial support was offered.
• In contrast, towns like Mapleton and Warren received city or county-backed support and implemented local tax strategies to preserve their child care centers (source). Blooming Prairie has not pursued similar initiatives.
3. Staffing Challenges Reflect Statewide Issues — Not Local Commitment
• Our staff have been the heart of Leo Augusta. From day one, they showed up with dedication, flexibility, and care often going above and beyond in a demanding, underappreciated field.
• Despite offering competitive wages, ongoing training, and advancement opportunities, recruiting and retaining licensed early childhood educators was an ongoing challenge especially in a small, rural community.
• We were not willing to compromise on quality. Our compensation model was designed to reflect the value of our educators and uphold the standard of care we believed families deserve.
• However, Minnesota’s restrictive lead teacher licensing requirements created barriers. Qualified individuals were often unable to meet specific licensure criteria, which limited our hiring pool and left us short-staffed in key roles (source).
4. The Rural Child Care Model Remains Broken
• What we experienced at LACA is not unique. Child care centers across Minnesota—especially in rural communities, are closing due to a broken economic model that underfunds early childhood care while placing unrealistic expectations on families and providers.
• As a licensed center, we are required to maintain strict child-to-staff ratios, offer competitive wages, meet facility standards, and deliver educational programming all while keeping tuition affordable for working families. The current system doesn’t allow those goals to align.
• To be financially sustainable, centers typically need 100+ enrolled children. Despite strong demand when we opened and periods of high enrollment, our current enrollment has declined to around 50 children as of this summer well below the level needed to break even.
• This decline, combined with rising operational costs and limited external funding, has made continued operation financially impossible even with committed staff and families.
• Our closure is not about lack of effort or care. It’s a direct result of a system that does not adequately support the care and education of our youngest community members.
🔍 THE BROADER CONTEXT
What’s happening at Leo Augusta Children’s Academy reflects a much larger issue across Minnesota and the nation. The child care industry is in crisis, and rural communities are among the hardest hit.
• 📉 According to the Center for Rural Policy and Development, Minnesota lost nearly 71,000 family (in-home) child care spaces between 2000 and 2019, with Greater Minnesota experiencing the largest drop. (Source)
• 🧠 Research shows that 80% of brain development occurs by age 3, yet early childhood education receives significantly less public funding than K–12 education, despite being the most critical developmental period. (Source)
• 💸 In 2025, the Minneapolis Fed reported that 42% of child care centers in Minnesota were unsure if they could stay open in the next 1–2 years, citing staffing shortages, declining enrollment, and financial instability as major challenges. (Source)
• 📈 National studies, including work from the University of Pennsylvania’s Center for High Impact Philanthropy, estimate a return on investment of $4 to $9 for every $1 spent on high-quality early childhood programs due to long-term savings in education, social services, and increased earnings. (Source)
These challenges are not a reflection of poor management by individual centers. They represent a widespread, structural issue that requires public investment, policy reform, and stronger community support.
🚫 WHAT THIS IS NOT
• This is not the result of mismanagement.
• This is not due to a lack of effort, passion, or innovation.
• This is not an isolated issue it reflects deeper, long-standing cracks in both state and national systems that continue to undervalue early childhood care and education.
💬 WHAT HAPPENS NEXT
• LACA will remain open as long as staffing levels allow and families need care, with the goal of continuing through summer.
• Families and employees are receiving direct, ongoing communication regarding updates and timelines.
• The Board and leadership team are working to ensure a thoughtful, orderly, and dignified wind-down process, with respect for the children, staff, and families who have made LACA so meaningful.
We are proud of what was built and who we served. We hope this transparency helps provide clarity. We encourage the community to continue advocating for long-term child care reform because children, working families, and our local economy deserve better.
— The Board of Directors
Leo Augusta Children’s Academy
