RANDOLPH — When a new child care center opened in Randolph last month, Erin Rose was delighted.
Until recently, she and her husband had been taking their 1-year-old son, Ernie, to a child care center about a half-hour away from their Randolph home, where she works remotely in the food and beverage regulatory industry. On days Rose had to do both pickups and drop-offs on her own, it took her two hours a day.
Now, Ernie attends the Orange County Parent Child Center’s Woodlands Campus, a new 10,000-square-foot nonprofit child care center on Route 66 off Interstate 89 in Randolph. Rose’s commute takes fewer than 10 minutes.
“The facility is so great,” Rose said Tuesday morning at the Woodlands Campus after dropping Ernie off for his second day. After his first day, “he came home tired and happy.”
Ernie is one of seven children who attend the Woodlands Campus, which opened on March 18 and currently has capacity for 44 children ranging in age from 6 weeks to 3 years old, Lindsey Trombley, executive director of the Tunbridge-based Orange County Parent Child Center, said in an interview at the Woodlands Campus.
The rooms are wide and airy, with pastel-colored walls and large windows that brought in a fair amount of light, even on a snowy Tuesday. There were tiny wooden play kitchens waiting for children’s imaginations. Picture books such as “I Spy in the Ocean” and “Duck & Goose” sat on a shelf. There were bins for trucks and cubbies for puppets.
“There’s so many opportunities for learning in all areas of the classroom,” Trombley said as she looked around a learning space for 2-year-olds.
The new center has been a years-long joint effort between the Orange County Parent Child Center and the Green Mountain Economic Development Corporation, a White River Junction-based nonprofit organization.
Discussions about a new child care center began around a decade ago when Randolph was working on an economic development plan and community members, including business owners, brought up how a lack of child care could hinder their ability to grow the workforce.
The roughly $9 million project is being funded by a mix of state and federal funding, grants and private donations. The space was previously an office for the engineering firm Dubois and King.
The upper level is complete but the lower level, which will include a commercial kitchen so staff can prepare meals for children, is on pause as the organizations work to raise funding to finish the project.
It will cost roughly $1.5 million to complete the lower level, which is part of the total $9 million project cost, said Erika Hoffman-Kiess, executive director of the Green Mountain Economic Development Corporation.
“We have started fundraising, with submission of Congressional Directed Spending applications to both Senator Sanders and Senator Welch and hope to complete fundraising by the close of 2026 for winter 2027 construction and fall 2027 opening,” Hoffman-Kiess wrote in a Tuesday email.
The Woodlands Campus will be able to accommodate 88 children when the lower floor, which will include three preschool classrooms, is completed, Trombley said.
Currently, the center has open slots for 1- and 2-year-olds, with potential openings for infants.
Families pay anywhere from $50 to $470 per month, depending on how much money they receive through Vermont’s Child Care Financial Assistance Program, which the Legislature expanded when it passed Act 76 in 2023.
As of March 22, families that earn up to 575% of the federal poverty level, or $15,813 per month for a family of four, can qualify for subsidies to reduce the cost of child care.
“If they are not on the subsidy, we highly encourage them to apply,” Trombley said, noting that families are not always aware that they qualify.
The center currently employs three lead teachers and two assistant teachers. There will be 10 teachers on the upper floor once it is fully staffed.
“I’m balancing between hiring and making sure there’s a need,” Trombley said.
Hourly wages for teachers range from roughly $23 for assistant teachers to $28 for lead teachers, who are required to have an associate’s degree. Employees also get health benefits and are reimbursed for professional development opportunities that they pursue.
“It’s our expectation that they continue their education in some capacity,” Trombley said.
Kierstan McConnell, the Woodlands Campus’ early childhood education director, has worked in early childhood education since she was a teenager at Randolph Technical Career Center and operated her own home-based center from 2018 to 2021. She left a role at the Vermont Department for Children and Families to take the job at the Woodlands Campus.
“I really missed the hands-on work with children,” McConnell said in an interview at the center.
She has been working on developing curriculum with the center’s staff. There is a unit on farm animals for 1-year-olds, which includes learning about animals, their names and the sounds they make through art activities and songs, such as the classic “Old MacDonald Had a Farm.”
“I am really excited about the opportunity to build a supportive environment for children, families, and staff here at the Orange County Parent Child Center Woodlands Campus,” McConnell said in a follow-up interview. “I think a child care center is much more than just a place to provide care to children — it’s a community for teachers, children and families, and I am proud to be part of creating that from the ground up.”
That’s something Trombley is excited about as well.
“We are, I think, in a really good position here, in terms of up and running something new and getting the word out,” Trombley said. “Now we just need more kids.”
She said the center’s slow start could be attributed to its hours, which are currently 7:30 a.m. to 4 p.m., parents not needing an “immediate spot” for their children or needing care for children older than 3 years old, which they don’t currently provide. Some families need child care that extends to around 5 p.m., which Trombley hopes to provide in the future.
Families who are interested in applying for spots can visit orangecountypcc.org.
