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Official Statement from the Y
On the afternoon of July 5, a bus carrying children from two of our Y Kids Summer Day Camp program sites was involved in a roll-over accident. EMTs immediately responded and assessed all passengers, including children and staff. One child was transported to a local hospital for treatment for minor injuries. All other children were cleared by EMTs and were transported to a nearby staging area where they reunited with families. Y staff remained onsite until all families were reunited by approximately 5:30 p.m. Both camps were cancelled for the remainder of the week.
The safety and security of all children entrusted to our care is our top priority. We know how upsetting this incident is to both the children involved and their families. We will continue to work closely with the Washington State Patrol as they investigate the accident, and we are grateful to the Burlington Police Department for their support in reunifying families. We will use the findings of the investigation to ensure our transportation safety policies are best in class.
Westview Camp Update 7/21/23:
(Sent through Brightwheel) Dear Westview Camp Families,
We’ve been informed by our licensor that our additional classroom will be approved today, and we may serve your children starting next Monday, July 24th. The expanded location is at Centennial Elementary, 3100 Martin Rd, Mount Vernon. We’ve been operating a summer camp out of one side of the portable at the school and will now expand to use both sides of this portable to accommodate more students.
For camp week 5, July 24th to July 25th, we will be adding 10 students from the Westview location. We will assess mid-week to decide how many students may be added for the rest of the summer. This is the first time our Westview and Centennial camp staff will be working together, so we are starting with the addition of a smaller classroom for this first week to ensure high quality care before adding more students.
If your child does need care for week 5, please email Teresa Zumwalt ([email protected]) today so she can fill those open spots in the order she receives your emails. If your child doesn’t need care for next week, but you would like to have your child at Centennial for weeks 6-8, please send a note to Darci Hart through Brightwheel so she can build out that list for Teresa.
Please note that field trips will still be provided for all Centennial Y Kids Summer Day Camp students, but we will not be using a school bus. All field trips will be walkable distance or off established Skagit Transit bus lines.
We know some of you have found other programs for your children this summer as our program has struggled to regain full staffing levels after the accident. We are disappointed we aren’t serving your families as we planned this summer, but we understand the need for consistent childcare to maintain your work schedules.
We appreciate your patience and support while we’ve been working through this process.
Contacts
For questions about the accident/investigation and for all media inquiries, please contact Kat Lohman, Executive Director of Social Impact, [email protected]
For questions about camp and childcare, please contact
- Primary: Teresa Zumwalt, School Age Program Director, [email protected]
- Secondary: Sarah Weems, CFOO, [email protected]
For billing questions, including refunds/credits, please contact
- Primary: Darci Hart, Childcare Bookkeeper, [email protected]
- Secondary: Sarah Weems, CFOO, [email protected]
Frequently Asked Questions
Last updated: 7/21/23
As a childcare program licensed by the Department of Children, Youth & Families (DCYF), our Y Kids Summer Day Camp programs have strict requirements on the experience and education for who is allowed to supervise staff and children in care. Our typical supervisory staff from Westview were impacted by the accident and as of this writing we do not know when all of them will be back yet. To accommodate displaced families, we opened a second classroom at Centennial Elementary where a combination of current Y childcare leadership and returning Westview camp staff may satisfy the licensing requirements for supervision.
Enough staff were cleared and ready to return to Jefferson that we were able to open that location sooner. Given that we do not have adequate supervisory staff who are able to return yet to Westview as of July 21, our work around is to share existing supervisory staff (with the assistance of childcare leadership) from another Y Kids Summer Day Camp location. It took us some time to license the additional classroom, but our state licensor and childcare leadership worked together to complete this process as quickly as they could.
Camp Anderson is the Skagit Y’s direct fee-for-service camp program, meaning that it is not state-licensed care operated from one of our school-age program sites and licensing standards. We are unable to transfer credits or monies between these programs for that reason. Furthermore, every week of Camp Anderson through the 2022 summer schedule already has a waitlist.
Our existing Centennial Elementary site for Y Kids Summer Day Camp had some limited open spots available for the week of July 17-July 21, which is why we offered some of these spots on a first come, first served basis while awaiting licensing clearance on the additional classroom.
