Urbandale Daycare Closes Without Notice: It’s ‘Like the Twilight Zone’

An Urbandale daycare center that closed without notice blamed a “low quality of work force in Iowa.”

Parents whose children attend Magellan Christian Academy were given only a few hours notice Thursday that the center at 2995 86th St. would close, WHO-TV reported.

It’s “ been like the Twilight Zone, how bad it is up there,” Tom Blitch, one of the owners of the Florida-based day-care provider, told WHO.

Magellan Christian Academy is located in the building formerly occupied by Imagination and Education Station, another daycare that closed suddenly in September 2011 after former workers picketed because they hadn’t been paid.

Magellan Academy, is an award-winning provider of Christian child-care provider based in Florida, opened its first Iowa location last summer. But the parents who found they’d have no place to drop off their children this morning told the TV station that center officials’ behavior is anything but Christian-like.

One parent, Erica Kasischke, said she had paid in advance for two weeks’ care and she “got the notice that we are no longer able to bring our son here” about 15 minutes after receiving invoice.”

She and parents of about 30 other children who regularly attend Magellan are now scrambling to find places for the children before Monday.

The owners reportedly will contact parents about offering refunds.