KENT, Conn.—Parks and Recreation Commission Chairman Rufus P. deRham broke the deadlock over continuing the After School Program at Kent Center School Tuesday night, Feb. 3, when he voted to recommend that $9,722 be included in the department’s 2026-27 budget.
The funding, the amount needed for 540 hours of staff salaries, would not cover supplies and food, leaving open the possibility of affecting other fee programs operated by Parks and Rec or the need for “creative solutions” from other sources.
The Kent Community Fund, a private fund that helps meet the needs of residents faced with extraordinary expenses, is on record as being willing to help meet the costs of the program.
“I will say ‘yes’ because it is a small investment,” deRham said. “It backs up the fact that we want to get the program to work.”
At the same time, Parks and Rec member Claire Love offered to head a five-member subcommittee that will look at possible solutions for the future. The subcommittee will have a member from Parks and Rec, a parent, a community member, and a Kent Center School representative. An invitation will be extended to the Kent Community Nursery School to participate as well.
Announcement last month that the program would be abandoned in favor of staging more special events caused a furore among families with young children. One letter to the department decrying the decision carried 34 signatures, almost six times the number of families that use the service. Other correspondents wrote individual letters urging continuation, citing the need for working parents to have dependable childcare after school.
The group letter expressed concern about the “erosion of services offered through Kent Parks and Recreation that are vital to working families in Kent.”
“Kent is a unique town due to its strong commitment to community,” they argued. “It is this commitment that has drawn many of us to Kent. It sustains our desire to live and raise our families here. One way this commitment has long been exemplified is through the mission and services of the Town of Kent’s Parks and Recreation Department. Camp Kent and the After School Program, in particular, provide essential structural support for working families in Kent.”
In making his budget presentation in January, Parks and Rec Director Matt Frasher reported that only six families are currently using the program, with an average of five children attending daily (registered children do not have to attend every day) over the past three years.
Attendance has dropped precipitously since the pre-Covid years, and he argued that children are aging out and staying home alone or are being diverted to other programs such as sports. Currently, most of the children attending are in the lower grades. The town loses about $20,000 annually on ASP.
He referenced a Christmas holiday event for children at Kent Center School that drew 55 children and suggested that planning more events like that would better benefit the community.
The concerned parents proposed that larger class sizes in the future could affect enrollment in the after-school program, which they see as a more consistent need than special events. They argued in their letter, “This event [the holiday party] took place on a Friday evening, after typical business hours, and Parks and Recreation cancelled the regularly scheduled After School Program the day of, without prior communication, in order to dedicate staffing to this event. While such events are fun for the community to participate in, they do not serve the same purpose as the After School Program. … ”
They fretted that Camp Kent, the summer childcare offering sponsored by Parks and Recreation, could face the same fate as ASP. “We have learned that the number of spots available for Camp Kent for the summer of 2026 has been reduced by at least half, without clear justification or explanation,” they wrote. “This change was communicated only as a restructuring of age groups. There is no transparency regarding why such a significant reduction was necessary … . With the newly proposed group sizes, Camp Kent will not meet the needs of children currently enrolled in Kent Center School, let alone Kent residents who attend private schools and should have equitable access to these community resources.”
Indeed, a lack of communication seemed to be a core issue for the parents. While Frasher reported during the Jan. 13 meeting that he had spoken with the six families currently using ASP about its potential termination, families report that their first awareness of the move came through a Kent Dispatch article.
Ginger Blake, one of the signers of the letter, said, “My concern … [is] that there was no communication,” adding that she wants to be part of any solution that might be forthcoming. Acknowledging that there are many models for childcare that can be pursued, she said she is concerned that Park and Rec’s model seems to be economic.
“We fully anticipate a conversation about how Camp Kent is not viable,” she said. “We have not kept up with the market [for fees]. We want to elevate those concerns and to be real problem solvers, but it is disheartening that we did not get any response at all. Our whole goal was to engage the people involved in those programs in a conversation. The lack of interest in what our needs are was really stark.”
Frasher said that 40 children attended Camp Kent last year and the same number of slots are open in 2026.
Before commission members discussed the issue, deRham stated that Parks and Recreation has not always been “the operating force” behind after-school care in the community and might not always be. “But that does not mean we are shortsighted or acting without giving parents prior announcement. We will be running the program through June—there are seven months for a new configuration to be conceived and put into operation.”
He noted that Kent is the only Region 1 town where a town agency addresses late-afternoon childcare. In neighboring Washington, the program is privately run, but insurance is paid by the town.
Frasher showed a Power Point presentation that discussed the attendance and financial figures for the program, which showed a steady decline since Covid. Since 2016, the minimum wage has risen from about $10 an hour to $16.94. The cost of food and supplies have similarly increased. But it is more than financial losses that concern him.
“There have been several days when we had to cancel it at the last minute because of staffing shortages,” he said. “That is not the best way to run a program.”
deRham added that staffing has been problematical for years. Upon occasion, the director or commission members have been called in to supervise the program.
The parents agreed the program is not sustainable as it is, but said it is more than childcare. Cinda Clark, a new resident, said it offers her daughter exposure to new experiences and friends. “I think it has a broader public value,” she said. “I would be interested in conversations on how to handle it going forward.”
Opinions on the Parks and Recreation Commission were divided, with a vote to provide funding for staff initially failing with three votes for, two against and one abstention. Breaking the stalemate required the chairman’s vote and deRham decided to support a recommendation to the Board of Selectmen that the barebones funding be restored.
