Little Scholars daycare programs to reopen in Calgary as parents wait on refunds and answers

Two Calgary daycare programs shut down by the province last summer over safety concerns are now preparing to reopen after winning an appeal.

Two of three Calgary daycare programs that were shut down last summer by the government due to safety concerns are planning to reopen after a successful appeal of the closures.

The licences of Little Scholars Daycare ECS Ltd., Little Scholars Daycare Inc., and Little Scholars Greenview in northeast and northwest Calgary were revoked by the province on Aug. 12, 2024.

At the time, concerns were cited describing an “imminent danger” to children in the programs.

The closures impacted nearly 300 children and 70 staff.

Little Scholars appealed the cancellations for two programs on Sept. 11, 2024, and a five-day hearing was held by a Citizens Appeal Panel in March 2025.

According to a letter from JSS Barristers on behalf of Little Scholars, the panel rescinded the licence cancellation on two of the programs on June 12, allowing Little Scholars Daycare ECS Ltd. and Little Scholars Daycare Inc. to reopen.

According to the letter, the panel found “there was no imminent danger to the health, safety or well-being of a child, and therefore no legal basis for the licence revocation or closure of these two facilities.”

In the statement, Raj Saini, executive director of Little Scholars, said the decision is a vindication of the quality of child-care programming provided at the centres.

“We have always had a great deal of confidence in the care that our employees provide to children and families in our community, and there was simply no evidence presented otherwise,” he said.

“Our staff are passionate and care deeply about the children in our care and provide excellent service to our families and community.”

At the time, the owners told CTV News they believed the closures were racially motivated.

In the letter, Saini states the appeal process reflects government overreach and “exposed the errors of the licensing officers.”

“We feel our businesses were unjustly targeted, our staff unjustly suffered job loss and many children and their families had their lives disrupted for no valid reason.”

The third program, Little Scholars Greenview, was not part of the hearing, and its licence remains cancelled.

The owners said they’ve attempted to sell its business assets to a third party due to the “mounting financial strain from the prolonged period of the cancellations.”

Susan Cake, with Child Care Now and an associate professor in Child Care Policy at Athabasca University, said the outcome of the appeal leaves more questions than answers.

“I don’t think I’ve seen three daycares shut down and then multiple sites reopen,” she said.

“I don’t think I’ve seen this happen, and I’m not sure if it has even happened before.

“Was the centre not in compliance? Have they shown they are currently or working towards it? It’s not clear if those non-compliances did not exist.”

She questions whether the former non-compliance concerns and inspections will be made available on the province’s child-care lookup tool once the programs reopen.

“I think parents want to know these things,” she said.

“All three sites were under a probationary licence before then, so would we see those, and will those reviews of the non-compliances be put online for parents to see?”

Families waiting on refunds and answers

Little Scholars plans to welcome staff and children back in the coming months, but some parents are still waiting on refunds from last summer.

After the closure, mother Danielle Delano was owed roughly $600 for her two children but said her emails and phone calls to Little Scholars went unanswered.

“Honestly, for us it’s really frustrating,” she said.

“We feel like there has been a total lack of transparency and a lack of accountability.”

Delano filed a formal complaint through the bank to receive some of the money back but said the experience has left a bad taste in her mouth.

“If the owners feel vindicated, then what they need to do is they need to make things right with the parents that they left out in the cold looking for child care,” she said.

“We would really be happy to support them again provided that when this all started last year, they had given us our refunds as promised, and they had given us updates as to what was going on.

“But they just left 300 families in the lurch. We never got a refund; we never got answers from them. We were left in the dark trying to find child care.”

Delano also questions why her review and others from frustrated parents about the company have been removed online.

“I think it’s really important for future families to understand, ‘Hey, this company has had problems, and not necessarily from the caretakers’ point of view because the caretakers were lovely, but from the management of this corporation,’” she said.

Another parent, Ryan Duclos, believes that while Little Scholars has a responsibility to parents, the government is more to blame for leaving Calgarians without answers.

“I never had any issue with them (Little Scholars),” he said.

“The teachers were great. My son (and) all his friends were going there, and so I was disappointed when they shut down and am happy to see them reopening,” he said.

Duclos believes the government should have done more to help parents find daycares in the aftermath and should be more transparent about what exactly led to the issues in the first place.

The Ministry of Jobs, Economy and Trade, which oversees child care in the province, didn’t release the list of non-compliance concerns.

Inspections revealed issues related to the use of physical restraint, confinement or isolation, a lack of child supervision and staffing-to-child ratios.

“It was a gong show, if I’m going to be honest with you,” he said.

“They can’t give us any answers because of privacy. I respect privacy, but you don’t have to mention children’s names, but you can tell us what ‘restraints’ mean and what ‘isolation’ means. We got none of it.

“I just think the whole thing was handled so poorly.”

Parents are also confused as to why the Ministry of Education had given the green light for the Little Scholars preschool program for children with disabilities or delays to operate just four days before the licence for the child-care program at the same facility was revoked by the Ministry of Jobs, Economy and Trade.

“How are they allowed to look after five-year-olds but not four-year-olds?” said Duclos.

“How were their actions so egregious that they can’t be a daycare but can be a kindergarten?”

The province says Alberta Education and Childcare is working with the child-care provider to reinstate their licences.

It says once they’re reinstated, they will not have any special conditions placed on them.

Like all other licensed child-care programs, they will need to comply with provincial legislation and regulations if they choose to reopen.

The province also directed CTV News to the independent Citizen’s Appeal Panel regarding the appeal decision.

CTV News hasn’t heard back.