> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.richmonder.org/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # YWCA partially reopens Sprout School as parents call for a board investigation into operations - URL: https://www.richmonder.org/ywca-partially-reopens-sprout-school-as-parents-call-for-a-board-investigation-into-operations/ - Published: 2026-10-14T01:41:55.000Z - Updated: 2026-10-14T01:41:55.000Z - Description: YWCA leaders asked for time to develop and implement solutions that would improve all Sprout Schools. - Author: George Copeland Jr. - Tags: Local News, #the-bridge One week after the YWCA’s Sprout School at Second Presbyterian Church closed due to understaffing, the school has reopened its doors, but teachers and parents critical of the organization continue to call on its top leadership to take action addressing what they say are longstanding issues. Families at the preschool, along with concerned community members, sent a letter to the YWCA Board of Directors Monday requesting an investigation into the school’s risks and challenges, as well as setting specific targets and timelines for improvements at the Sprout School. “A child care center does not lose the ability to safely staff its classrooms overnight,” the letter’s 80 signatories wrote, noting the drop from 20 staff, five floaters and trainees across six classrooms in Spring 2024 to 10 full-time staff and one floater for seven rooms last month. “A plan for reopening 2P does not answer how the site reached the point where sudden closure was the only viable option. The Board is in a unique position to answer that question.” The YWCA Board acknowledged the letter in a message to Second Presbyterian parents, where they also stressed the need to allow YWCA leaders the time to develop and implement solutions that would improve all Sprout Schools. “We ask you to give the leadership team a chance to make progress and look to parent communications for continued engagement and updates,” the Board wrote. The 80 signatories have requested confirmation of which requests the Board will undertake by Wednesday, October 28. Striking Second Presbyterian teachers also released a letter on Monday. “We want Sprout to succeed, because the children, families, and dedicated educators who make up this community deserve nothing less,” the teachers wrote. “But reopening classrooms is not the same thing as resolving the problems that led to their closure.” The reopening began Monday with the school’s infant and toddler rooms, while teachers and children in other classrooms have been reassigned to other Sprout School locations throughout Richmond. According to YWCA CEO Rupa Murthy, this “phased reopening” is part of a larger effort to tackle problems at the school, and will include an enrollment pause, except for those already contracted, and hiring additional teachers. “We want to make sure that we’ve got our teachers in our classrooms, we want to make sure our families are re-enrolled in the different schools,” Murthy said, “and we are then looking at enrollment differently.” Parents remained concerned in the days before the reopening, with some worried the school had asked families in need of childcare to bring their children back into the unsafe staffing conditions that led to the closure, based on the information YWCA leaders shared. Murthy notified teachers and families at the school of the temporary closure in an email last week, citing an inability “to consistently staff every classroom at Second Presbyterian Church within state-required ratios, and to ensure a safe and productive learning environment.” The school’s closing followed a daylong teachers' strike last Monday. The strike, which included demonstrations outside the school by some teachers and parents, came after employees requested that the school not enroll any new students in classrooms without a full-time aide. Murthy said demonstrating teachers wouldn’t face any questioning or “adverse reaction” for their actions, but when teachers who participated in the demonstrations will receive their reassignment is unclear. Teachers and parents at the school have criticized YWCA leadership’s failure to resolve issues they said they brought to their attention months before the temporary closing, issues they say added further strain and challenge to their work and lives. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/99/06/99067822-fdfd-42b1-ab19-555c33eefb89/content/images/2026/10/Jacque-Williams-and-Avva-Tarwater.JPG) Teachers Jacque Williams and Avva Tarwater. For lead preschool teacher Avva Tarwater, the decreasing number of teachers and growing classroom sizes forced her to shoulder more and more responsibilities, including assistant teaching and administrative and cleaning work. She and other teachers have also had to share cleaning and food supplies due to a lack of resources. The experience has been very taxing, with Tarwater choosing to stop drinking water during work to avoid bathroom breaks that would leave her classroom unattended. She began sharing her concerns with leadership in March, but said the response to her and others’ requests did nothing to address issues present. “If they worked with us or communicated anything to us, offered any solutions to us about any of the issues we brought to their attention, we wouldn't have been striking,” said Tarwater, who started working at the Fulton school in June last year and transferred to Second Presbyterian months later due to the poor working conditions. Parents have made their own efforts to address the school’s issues as they saw and learned about the toll the school’s conditions had on staff last year, providing teachers with supplies, offering to volunteer, and advocating on their behalf to leadership and the board. Parents have also had to weather the impact of the school’s understaffing, as classrooms have been shifted around or closed to mitigate the effects of teacher shortages, in the process disrupting the lives of parents and children at a critical point in their development. “It was clear that they were just really trying to come up with any kind of system to make it work, regardless of what that meant for the teachers or the children,” said Sarah Scarr, whose son first enrolled at the Second Presbyterian school in September 2024. Teachers and parents said they also experienced communication issues that further complicated attempts to resolve problems at the school, and received unsubstantial or combative responses from YWCA Richmond leadership to their concerns. Murthy acknowledged the communication issues with parents and teachers and said YWCA Richmond was taking steps to address their messaging. “We are actively working on improving those channels of communication,” Murthy said, “and making sure that every voice is heard throughout our Sprout School profile.” Parents and teachers remain disappointed with a school system and organization many of them joined or appreciated due to their stated values of an equitable, trauma-informed approach, values they say have not been reflected in their approach to the school’s issues and management. “I'm incredibly disheartened by this entire process,” said Chloe Haynes, a mother of two sons who enrolled at the school in 2024 and 2025\. “For an organization that is supposed to be doing good, it's been nothing but targeting and retaliation and petty decisions on their end.” Multiple short- and long-term responsibilities may further impact the future of the Sprout Schools, which accounted for 49% of YWCA Richmond’s expenses for the last fiscal year, according to its 2025 Community Impact Report. The schools will need to complete their Virginia Kindergarten Readiness Program assessments for the school year, and are also helping to pilot a new substitute teacher program for the Virginia Department of Education. YWCA Richmond is also planning to establish another Sprout School in Henrico County as part of a new model community, The Heights, which is looking to open in 2027 to serve and support the recovery of domestic abuse survivors and their families. Murthy acknowledged some of these commitments in her email, and said YWCA Richmond is dedicated to continuing its work and sustaining operations. Teachers and parents are skeptical of the organization’s ability to handle these projects and duties, however, given the problems the schools continue to face. “We are set up to fail,” said Tarwater, who said she warned YWCA leadership of the challenges of completing assessments during their meeting. “We’re not given time to even test children, (or) repair our classrooms. “We've been telling them for months, this is not a sustainable model.” Scarr and her husband Greg Randall, meanwhile, have already enrolled their son in a different daycare center, a major change after years enrolled in a school they initially saw as a benefit for their lives and the community. “They’re not listening to us, they’re not respecting us, they’re not listening to the teachers, they’re not creating safe situations for the kids,” said Randall, who noted the negative impact the school’s issues have had on his son’s enthusiasm for daycare. “I'm just left upset and sad that this situation has occurred. I feel like it's really avoidable.”