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Board approves Learning Labs tuition increase to $600 to sustain childcare services and add days
Summary
The board approved raising Learning Labs tuition from $525 to $600 per month and agreed to add two teacher workdays and extend three early‑dismissal days into full‑day care; district cited expiration of stabilization funds and higher staffing costs.
The Buncombe County Board of Education voted June 30 to raise Learning Labs tuition from $525 to $600 per month and to expand program days to help cover staffing and operational costs.
Dr. Reed told the board that stabilization and COVID relief funds that had supported Learning Labs have run out and staffing ratios and costs increased during the pandemic. "We received a lot of stabilization and COVID relief funds... those funds carried us through a time that we would otherwise have had to raise tuition much earlier," Reed said. The proposed increase is intended primarily to cover staffing costs; the district also will reclassify and adjust the pay level for a vacant director role to a coordinator position.
In exchange for the increase, the district will add two full days of care that coincide with teacher workdays before the school year and convert three early‑dismissal days to full‑day care on Oct. 31, March 27 and June 9. Board members and Reed noted the tuition remains competitive with market rates: Reed said comparable full‑day childcare in the area can approach $1,000 per month.
Board members thanked county commissioners for a recently awarded community impact grant that allowed the district to adopt the lowest of three considered increase levels; Reed said the district received notification a few weeks earlier. Board members noted the last tuition increase was in 2021.
The board approved the tuition increase by voice vote with no opposition.
