Two different businesses charged with caring for Austin youth have gone out of business this year under shady circumstances. Both times, those businesses were run by Dolores Hillyer. First, there was the Texas Academy of Excellence, a charter school whose biggest claim to fame is that it’s the first one in Texas to file for bankruptcy. Now, there’s the Capital City Creative School-Capitol Complex, a daycare for state workers which shut down abruptly last week.

As a parent who has one child in daycare and another in a charter school, this pattern concerns me. We’re trusting that the people running those businesses have the best interests of our children and our families at heart and we’re trusting that they are competent enough to run their business. I don’t know how this woman keeps getting in a position of trust with the track record that she’s had over the past year (and even before that according to the Statesman story on the charter school). Since she already had control of the daycare when the charter school shenanigans came to light, I can understand how this might have been missed until now. I wonder if any parents at the daycare had suspicions once the charter school story broke earlier this year?

Bottom line: If you’re a parent in Austin, you’d do well to check out who’s running your daycare or charter school. If you hear the name Dolores Hillyer, run. Run very far away.