One day after informing parents of his hope to remain open, Father Christopher Berean announced that the St. Mary-St. Joseph Early Learning Center in Saugerties had closed.
“Unfortunately, although New York State has granted our request for an extension of the daycare license pending the resolution of the outstanding violations, we will not have the necessary staff to keep the daycare open,” wrote Father Berean in a Friday, August 25 letter to parents of children in the daycare at 25 Cedar Street.
In the past 24 months, the St. Mary-St. Joseph daycare has been inspected by the New York State Office of Children and Family Services (OCFS) nine times, six with no violations cited.
On October 15, 2021, an inspection found substantiation of a complaint that parents and the OCFS were not notified of the presence of a communicable disease while a child was in care at the program. That report shows the issue was corrected.
On April 21, 2023, three violations were found following a complaint, including isolating a child in a closet, darkened area, or any area where the child cannot be seen and supervised by a teacher; issues relating to the provisions specified on the license of a child daycare center with relation to the maximum number and age range of children who may be in the care of the center at any one time, and a regulation requiring the childcare center staff to immediately report to the Statewide Central Register of Child Abuse and Maltreatment by telephone, followed by a written report within 48 hours to the child protective services district of Ulster County. While the first two violations were deemed corrected, the last was not.
Finally, on July 21, 2023, numerous violations relating to staff and volunteers were cited during an application renewal, including missing medical statements on forms provided by the OFCS; the results of Mantoux or other federally approved tuberculin tests for staff and volunteers; proof of staff and volunteers competing a minimum of 30 hours of training every two years, 15 during the person’s first six months at the program; and copies of current staff and volunteer health statements on file available for inspection by the OCFS. It was these unresolved violations that reportedly led to the closure.
“We want to thank the families for putting your trust in our program to care for your children for the past seven years,” wrote Berean. “We did everything we could to keep the daycare open. We sincerely wish we were able to report a better outcome for the families of SMSJ Early Learning Center.”
Berean, referred to colloquially as “Father Chris” (“The kids at St. Mary’s don’t even know I have a last name,” he told Hudson Valley One in a 2017 interview), could not be reached for comment.
In a letter to parents one day earlier, Berean expressed hope that the program could reopen after being found “not in compliance with the archdiocesan requirements and government procedures,” noting that they hoped to be granted a license renewal for the fall which would have allowed the daycare to reopen on Wednesday, September 6. A temporary extension was granted on Friday morning, but hours later Berean notified parents that the program would close instead.
According to the OCFS, the St. Mary-St. Joseph Early Learning Center was first licensed on July 6, 2017, with its registration renewed two years later. The most recent registration period expired on Wednesday, July 5, with the program seeking a renewal that led to the July 23 OCFS inspection.
Run as a year round, non-denominational STEAM-centered program unaffiliated with its religious education program, the early learning center offered daycare for children aged 3-5 and before-and-after-school care for children aged 6-12 who attended Lawrence M. Cahill Elementary School in the Saugerties school district.
Berean’s letters were posted to the St. Mary of the Snow and St. Joseph Facebook page, where some parents commented that they weren’t notified directly of the issues with the program and have to scramble for daycare with the start of the school year right around the corner and other programs full. Others said they worked at the daycare and put the blame for staffing issues and violations on Father Chris. Claims that a Facebook page dedicated to the St. Mary-St. Joseph Early Learning Center was deleted by church officials could not be confirmed as of press time.
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