Felicia Legardy moves her hand back and forth in front of a security camera at her 4,700-square-foot cannabis growing warehouse in Detroit. She’s showing her electricians that the motion detector won’t follow her.
It doesn’t seem to be working, but she needs it to work. It all needs to work – the security cameras, the Co2 burners, the dehumidifiers, the whole enterprise she has spent the last six years jumping through licensing hoops to build with start-up funds from friends and family members.
Why? Because after a 30-year career running a highly-rated and sought after childcare and early learning business out of her home in Detroit’s Brightmoor neighborhood, Legardy’s closing Crystal Swann Child Care at the end of August.
“I cannot afford to stay
open, I have $400 in my account,” said Legardy. “I’ve been operating for 30 years. I don’t have retirement. It would be foolish for me to continue like this going into retirement … I can’t go on like this.”
For years, Legardy’s childcare hasn’t brought in consistent revenue, which is what she’s hoping to find in cannabis. The majority of her families receive state assistance for childcare, but the system is often shoddy and leaves her eating costs since she’s unwilling to turn families away. Even when state funds do come through, she lets the money still owed to her by families slide, because she knows they can’t afford it. Many of her parents work low-wage jobs at grocery stores, restaurants or gigs like DoorDash. Legardy estimates she’s owed around $4,000 in childcare co-pays at the moment.
Legardy acknowledges, too, that she has run her childcare business more with her heart than her head. Her family calls her “broke Oprah,” she said, because of the readiness with which she gives money to parents for their kids’ clothes and shoes, for rent and other bills.
Now, at 60-years-old, around a decade before she hopes to retire, Legardy needs to strike big and quickly build a nest egg. She also wants to be able to leave behind a profitable business and a legacy for her four kids and six grandkids.
Legardy’s upcoming closure will represent just one of many childcares that have closed across the state in the last two and a half years. State data obtained and reviewed by the Detroit Free Press shows close to 2,000 childcare closures took place in Michigan between September 2023 and April 2026. Experts say this high number, while concerning, may be muddied by confounding factors like centers that closed one location but opened another site with a new license.
But there’s no question that the data shows a high churn in the state’s childcare sector, which raises a question that is crucial to working families: Why is Michigan losing childcare sites when there is a backlog of people looking for them?
The reasons are offshoots of one core issue: Childcare is a broken market, experts say. And that’s a national problem, said Keller Anne Ruble, an early childhood policy expert at BridgeCare, an early education technology and software company.
There have been “strong, downward closure trends” since around 2012, Ruble said. The pandemic made a troubled situation worse, leading to sharp upticks of closures in 2020 and 2021. The nation is still struggling to bounce back to the number of providers it had open pre-pandemic. And even as some years have seen gains, the number of providers in the United States is still lower than it was in 2021, Ruble said, with most closures concentrated among home-based childcare providers.
But what else could you expect, she said. Bouncing back isn’t easy for such a tough industry: the majority of childcare businesses run on margins usually less than 1%. Costs to provide high-quality care and education are already high. COVID-19-era stabilization money meant to help with this dried up. On top of that, when parents can’t afford costs like weekly co-pays, they get passed onto providers. This leaves little wiggle room for providers like Legardy to do things like raise wages for employees or save for retirement for themselves. A recent national survey of over 10,000 early educators found that 42% didn’t have retirement savings.
Hard to get the big picture in Michigan
Different analyses have come to different takes on the severity of Michigan’s childcare closure rate – a problem that makes it harder to work toward solutions that help keep centers open.
One analysis of 2023 data from Steven Miller, economist at Michigan State University’s Center for Economic Analysis, found the industry’s turnover rate, which measures businesses opening and closing in the industry, at somewhere between 20% and nearly 40%. The overall rate of business turnover in the United States is around 20%, said Miller, though some of the most volatile industries, including food services, construction and retail trade, have turnover rates upward of 30%.
And a broader look at state data found nearly 2,000 childcares closed within the last around two and a half years, which would put Michigan’s childcare sector turnover rate at 50%, said Miller who reviewed state closure data obtained by the Detroit Free Press.
“That’s a huge number in terms of business turnover,” he said.
But the number is likely flawed because data tracking childcare closures is messy, Miller said. Reporting is spotty. Most businesses in the childcare industry don’t have to regularly report closures to the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics. Instead, data on closures is maintained by the state’s licensing agency, which doesn’t distinguish between permanent closures, location changes and other developments.
“I could surrender my license or forget to file it and suddenly it looks closed,” Miller said.
Also, the state hasn’t historically required childcare providers to share the reason they closed until recently, making it hard to pinpoint the most pressing forces behind closures. Some working in early childhood have asked the state for exit interviews with providers, but that hasn’t come to fruition, said Mary Manners, director at a state childcare hub in northwest Michigan.
With data so inconsistent, the state loses out on information about the health, or lack thereof, of its childcare industry, experts say. Still, a few meaningful conclusions emerge about childcare closures throughout the state.
Data shows that the workforce, especially home-based providers, are retiring, which is consistent with national trends, Ruble said. It also shows providers closing for reasons you don’t want to see in an industry parents rely on, like an inability to find and retain qualified staff or to make their business financially viable, said Gabrielle Pepin, senior economist at the W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research.
In reviewing state data obtained by the Free Press from the last two and half years, Pepin also said rural areas are hardest hit in terms of closures per child. More home-based sites are closing in rural areas, disproportionately impacting those who are already traveling the farthest to get to childcare, she said.
Providers on why they closed their doors
As providers close to find different (often more lucrative) career paths or to retire, low wages and a lack of benefits has slowed the pipeline of those entering early childhood education, leaving behind gaps.
Sometimes, even those who do want to work in childcare can’t afford to, said Ruble, who recently spoke with a woman in South Carolina who took a job at McDonald’s over early education, her preferred career, because it paid better.
And sometimes those who have been working in the industry don’t want to stay. Legardy initially wanted her assistant teacher, Teah Morris-Simmons to take over running Crystal Swann. But Morris-Simmons, 47, said she has worked in early childhood since high school and is burned out.
“I just can’t do it anymore. [Parents] don’t even look at us as an educational place for their kids to come, we’re basically a babysitting service,” Morris-Simmons said.
It’s thankless work that keeps getting piled on as more things become a childcare provider’s job, she said, like potty-training kids without parent help at home or giving up time off because it disrupts parent work schedules or taking care of sick kids who shouldn’t be in childcare in the first place, Morris-Simmons said.
“I know you have to work but this is what you signed up for when you had a kid,” she said.
Add to this the increased responsibility of caring for more kids with behavioral problems and special needs since the COVID-19 pandemic. Morris-Simmons describes tantrums and meltdowns and stresses at home that come back to childcare in the form of scratching or hitting.
All this led Morris-Simmons to turn down Legardy’s offer, using her boss’ exit as an opportunity for her own. She’s done with childcare for the foreseeable future.
“Is it worth the mental health, the physical health, and don’t even talk about the pay. If you don’t really, truly love children, don’t get into this field. You’re back on bills, trying to supply things for your child,” said Morris-Simmons, who has an 8-year-old son. “Some people only get $15 an hour, mine is $22 an hour but it’s still not enough for what you deal with with these children. I just feel like it’s time for me to step away and move into another area.”
But Morris-Simmons, like her boss, feels the weight of a difficult decision.
“It’s sad because our children need us. If we walk away, who's gonna protect them and who’s gonna save them?” she said.
This kind of burnout is widespread, which makes finding and keeping qualified staff hard for providers. That’s why Christine Sheteron closed Christine’s Early Learning Center in May 2025.
To illustrate the point, Sheteron shared that her pregnant daughter came into work when she was in early labor, had difficulty walking and was supposed to be on maternity leave. Another teacher had called in sick so she muscled through to keep the classroom open.
“She is as crazy as I am and said, ‘it’s just labor I’ll come in.’ That perpetuates the burnout knowing you have to show up," Sheteron said.
Sheteron later added in a text: “Early childhood educators historically, are terrible about taking care of their own needs first. They work through the pain of migraines, endometriosis, fibromyalgia and other conditions ... truthfully, they don't want to inconvenience the families they serve.”
It’s not just finding workers, though, that was her issue. It was finding highly qualified and trained educators who could deal with increasing demands, like kids with special needs, she said. But finding the time and money to train educators isn’t easy.
“I could get people to work but I didn’t have people coming with the skillset and I didn’t have time to train them without losing that level of quality,” Sheteron said.
She also felt the angst of potential federal funding cuts, given 92% of her center’s slots were publicly funded. As murmurings of possible Head Start elimination began, Sheteron calculated what it would cost to sustain her center on just private pay slots: $300 per child per week, which wouldn’t be sustainable for her rural community in Centreville, a town in southwest Michigan.
“Everything was just teetering on like if I lose all of these children all at once, I can’t keep anybody on. And I’m having trouble meeting ratios anyway because people are at burnout,” said Sheteron, who noted she’d often have to close classrooms early or for a day because of staffing shortages.
Sheteron decided to close, leaving her town with no licensed childcare and only one licensed preschool, she said.
“Our center had speech therapists, social workers, mental health consultants, social-emotional coaches. We had everybody in there providing services for children. It was really, really sad and heart-wrenching when we knew we couldn’t maintain it anymore,” she said.
There are more recent pressures, too, behind childcare closures, said Kim Marie Desentz, a provider of 35 years in Livonia who retired in June.
“The latest reason we’re closing is because of GSRP. They’ve taken our 4-year-olds away from us,” she said.
GSRP is Michigan’s state-funded pre-K program that became free for all families regardless of income in 2024. Because many parents now have the option of sending their kid to pre-K for free, they’re pulling their kids out of private pay sites like Desentz’s. This can mean a real loss for providers whose program’s financial viability relies on revenue from 4-year-old classrooms.
Desentz lost nine 4-year-olds this school year.
And home-based providers like Desentz are most penalized by the state’s free Pre-K program, given that they can’t open a GSRP classroom at their site, like center-based providers can. The state announced a pilot program in the spring to work with a handful of providers to open GSRP classrooms. But that wasn't enough hope for Desentz.
Sleepless nights
Legardy, dressed in exercise clothes and an apron, sits in the security camera room at her growing warehouse. The apron’s a remnant from the morning spent at Crystal Swann, where she’d made her kids breakfast – a turkey omelette and mixed berries – after leaving a chicken roasting in the oven for Morris-Simmons to take out for their lunch. She left in a hurry to meet her electricians and forgot to take it off.
The warehouse is big, and its sparse furnishings make it feel vast. Plastic tables and metal folding chairs make up much of the decor in the rooms not meant for growing weed. But Legardy found ways to add touches of personality, like the framed butterfly photos and motivational sayings that adorn nearly every wall.
“There are so many reasons to be happy,” reads one. “Turn your worries into prayers,” reads the one hanging in the room where Legardy sits talking about how a lot of people don’t want her to close. This fact weighs on her.
The other day, Legardy said, she hid at her childcare. She left her assistant teacher with the kids while a mom Legardy said was “pissed” at her for closing came in to pick up her daughter.
“I didn’t want to see her,” Legardy said, tears filling her eyes. “When a family is unhappy …” she starts, then stops choking up, unable to finish the sentiment. The mother declined to comment for this article.
Legardy takes credit for the successes of the kids who have passed through her doors.
She just heard from the parent of one of her kids, Emmanuel, who attended a business and engineering program at Howard University this summer. “He can build anything!” she said, beaming with pride, recalling his toddlerhood spent building things with blocks.
But Legardy also takes responsibility for what could happen to them without her childcare.
“I feel like it would be my responsibility if she went somewhere else and it was a bad experience,” referring to the little girl whose mom is upset with Legardy for closing.
But there’s no turning back. Legardy received her final determination letter from the state’s cannabis licensing agency at the end of July. That’s the final piece in the puzzle after six years toiling to start her second act. She still feels tortured about closing, she said. She recently had a bout of sleepless nights spent reconsidering.
“There’s still children out there that need me.”
What parents lose out on
Nikkole Garner, 40, whose four kids were all in care at Crystal Swann and who still go there after school, describes Legardy and the kind of care that families in her community are losing as “irreplaceable.” Legardy goes above and beyond for both her kids and families. From showing up with a car seat at the hospital after Garner went into labor, to making rice water remedies to heal her children' s sores and adjusting her hours to stay open late when Garner took on night shifts, Legardy was there.
“Little problems she’d see that parents have, she’d go in and fix it. Nothing is normal about it. It’s the type of love and experience you don’t regularly get,” said Garner, who often turned to Legardy as a maternal figure in her life.
“Those are some shoes that I don’t think a lot of people are trying to fill,” she continued.
For Legardy, though, it’s worth it – taking care of her kids extends beyond the classroom. It’s about looking out for the whole family’s well-being, she said.
Jacqui Price, 45, credits Legardy with springboarding her children’s educational success.
“I can’t honestly say that as scholars my kids would not be where they’re at if it weren’t for that early foundation. That foundation started with her because I was at work,” she said.
Price also credits Legardy with her own education as a parent. She remembers Legardy putting on classes about issues relevant to her parents' lives, like how to navigate the relationship between a toddler and a newborn.
“Those classes were life-changing,” she said.
All of this adds up not just to a loss of seats once Crystal Swann closes its doors at the end of August. “It’s also a loss of quality and those are two separate things,” said Denise Smith, who has led various early education initiatives in Detroit over the last two decades including the Brightmoor Quality Initiative. That's how Smith knows Legardy. Crystal Swann was part of a cohort of neighborhood providers that received supplemental funding beginning in 2008 through 2023. The Max and Marjorie Fisher Foundation funds were meant to support providers with things they typically can't afford but that boost quality for kids like professional training, educational materials and facility improvements. Legardy credits the funding with allowing her to stay in the field as long as she has.
On the whole, “the things required to run a steady business are not being funded,” Smith said, pointing to low state reimbursement rates for providers like Legardy who accept low-income families on state childcare assistance as an example.
The question then becomes “am I gonna survive by trying to maintain doing this work that is needed or do I make another decision?,” Smith said. “That’s where Felicia is at right now.”
Divine timing
Things seem to work out for Legardy. Like the effort she puts out comes back to her twofold.
After $13,000 worth of dehumidifiers were stolen from her warehouse, her landlord lent her four new ones without pressing her to pay him back anytime soon.
When she was short on cash to pay for her growing site’s expiring land contract, Legardy’s high school friend with whom she’d recently reconnected lent her the money.
And when she felt guilty after a conversation with Smith, who was disappointed that Legardy was leaving childcare to grow cannabis, it was none other than famous comedian Mo'Nique, who showed up in her life to comfort her outside after an Ohio show Legardy attended. She said Mo'Nique gave her a hug and told her a lot of people use cannabis for their anxiety, so she’d be helping people in her new career, too.
“That’s how God gives it to me. I think he does that because of how I help these children,” Legardy said.
Maybe that’s why she’s not worried that the new business won’t work out, even as some speculate that the cannabis gold rush is over in Michigan.
And in the same spirit of divine timing, Legardy feels her decades-long journey in childcare is coming to a symbolic end. After closing, she’ll be going on vacation to Saint Lucia. She was invited by the first childcare parents she ever had, the ones she opened her site with.
She sees the trip as her coming full circle, a sign from God letting her know it’s OK to leave.
Beki San Martin is a fellow at the Detroit Free Press who covers childcare, early childhood education and other issues that affect the lives of children ages 5 and under and their families in metro Detroit and across Michigan. Contact her at rsanmartin@freepress.com.
This fellowship was founded with support from the Bainum Family Foundation. The Free Press retains editorial control of this work.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Beloved childcare founder to close shop, pursues cannabis for retirement
