After the Summit School District closed down its day camps program June 2, parents who relied on the care are using alternatives, but still searching for more.

Parent Terra Long and her husband, Ben, both work in Frisco and relied on the camps for summer and after-school care. After hearing in March the program was scheduled to close, they extended their children's pre-planned trip to her parents house in Minnesota. The two kids, ages 8 and 9, have also spent time with Ben's mother in Wisconsin. Long, who is due to have a baby soon, said they have a babysitter lined up before she goes on maternity leave, which should cover care for the rest of the summer. She doesn't have plans yet for the school year, but figures they'll find something, like shared care with other parents.

“We tend to hope things will work themselves out,” she said.

Karen Harsch's family has also been helping her and her husband with childcare. Her parents live near Moab, Utah, and took the two children for two weeks in June. The kids are also attending numerous camps around Summit County — Keystone Science School Camp, Lake Dillon Theatre Summer Youth Workshop and the Breckenridge Mountain Summer Day Camp at Breckenridge Recreation Center — before they spend two weeks in Vermont with their other grandmother. There was a small amount of time in-between camps where they didn't have care, but Harsch and her husband took turns staying home from work. The couple relied on the school district program for five years, mostly for summer care.

“What's hard is not having it as a backup plan to all the other camps,” Harsch said. “These other programs are more expensive.”

Erin Socks, youth coordinator at the Breck rec center, said the camp has been a lot busier this year compared to last, with both locals and visitors. She has noticed there are more children attending from the towns of Silverthorne, Dillon and Frisco, and using the morning and afternoon transportation the center offers.

Frisco recreation manager Seth Blackmer said the Frisco Fun Club has been full, just like every other year. The all-day camp has a license for 50 children. The wait-list is slightly bigger than last year's, but not significantly, he said. What Blackmer has noticed is an under-utilization of the town's two-hour recreation camps, which tells him parents are looking for full-day programming.

Not financially viable

Day camps at Frisco Elementary, Silverthorne Elementary and Summit Cove Elementary all closed. The program included before-school, after-school and summer care. Camps at Dillon Valley and Upper Blue elementaries closed in the last few years before that.

Julie McCluskie, former spokeswoman for the school district, said in March the schools had seen a 17 percent decline in day camps enrollment since the 2008 school year. She said there were anywhere from 23-53 kids enrolled in the programs at any given school, but on average, only two to seven were showing up for the before-school camp, and five to seven for the after-school. Both programs needed 15 children a day to sustain themselves.

The program was projected to lose about $7,000 this year, based on attendance levels and expenditures like transportation and supplies. It was funded through tuition, charged on a daily basis.

Karen Strakbein, who was the interim superintendent at the time, said the district did begin discussions in April and May with an outside company interested in taking the program over as an independent contractor.

“We were working with them to get them in here this fall; they thought they could do that,” she said. “When they analyzed all of the data, however, they determined it would require a financial commitment by the district.”

Board of Education president Jon Kreamelmeyer said he's only heard from two parents since the program closed.

“It did provide a very nice service to several people,” he said. “It's unfortunate.”

The district — like the whole state — has been hit hard by budget cuts, Kreamelmeyer said. So many things in the district have affected many people, he said, like not rehiring for a position if someone leaves.

“It's really been a struggle for the last three or four years, and we're still not out of the woods yet,” he said.

As for the camp, Kreamelmeyer said he doesn't see anything radically changing at the moment.

“If it involved the school district subsidizing it, I just don't see that happening right now,” he said.

Superintendent Heidi Pace, who started July 1, said it seems like the district made the right decision, based on the financial viability and declining enrollment.