DAY-CARE CENTER TO CLOSE; 7-DAY NOTICE UPSETS KIDS' FAMILIES.

Byline: Deborah Sullivan Daily News Staff Writer

Arnold and Phyllis Bresky imagined that their day-care center, Evergreen Generations, would be a trend-setting innovation, offering care for children and senior citizens in a sparkling facility on Old Topanga Canyon Road.

Instead, the financially troubled center is scheduled to close Saturday with just a week's notice, leaving 70 families of tots scrambling to find new day care at the height of the holiday season.

``I don't have any problem with them closing the school for financial reasons,'' said Diana Afterman of Calabasas, mother of two children, 2 and 4, who are enrolled at Evergreen.

``My problem is when they did it: Saturday before Christmas, which gives us three days to look for another school. So we're stuck.''

Parents are rushing to enroll their children elsewhere, Afterman said.

Woodcrest School Inc., which has managed Evergreen for six months, is trying to transfer the students and teachers to its schools in Tarzana and Agoura, according to Andrea Miller, an administrator.

``We're doing whatever we can to place as many teachers as possible, because they're out of jobs, and to place as many children as possible, because these parents need child care,'' Miller said.

Afterman is less optimistic about the post-Evergreen possibilities.

``Most places either are full, or the location is not desirable, or the quality is not up to what we want, or the price is too high,'' she said.

Parents said they also are investigating their legal rights and refund entitlements.

``Any refunds that are due parents certainly will be issued,'' Phyllis Bresky pledged, adding that Woodcrest would handle the refunds.

``I have no information on that,'' Miller said.

Phyllis Bresky said she and her husband informed parents of the closure as soon as they were able. Teachers learned of the closure Thursday, said teacher Lynn Devlin. Parents received letters of notification two days later.

``Our hands were tied legally,'' Phyllis Bresky said. ``We could not do it legally until the attorneys told us that we could notify the parents.''

She would not explain what legal constraints delayed the ability to provide notice. The Breskys' attorney, David Shane, did not return several calls from the Daily News.

It appears the parents had no legal right to earlier notification. State laws and regulations set no standards for notifying parents of a day-care center's closure, said Bob Markell, children's policy manager for the state Department of Social Services Community Care Licensing Division.

The state does, however, require day-care centers to spell out policies for termination of services in their admissions contracts, Markell said.

Evergreen's contract stipulates that parents must provide two weeks notice when withdrawing a child from the program, but no such requirement applies to the school.

Bresky, a Calabasas obstetrician-gynecologist, and his wife, a psychotherapist, opened the school two years ago. They hoped it would be the first of a chain of elder- and child-care centers throughout the country. No senior citizens enrolled, however.

The school became ``a large negative cash flow,'' Phyllis Bresky said, ``and we tried everything to increase enrollment. We even tried to get experts in the field to increase enrollment - by hiring a management company - and they weren't successful either.''

Woodcrest School Inc., which runs several schools in the area, was the management consultant to Evergreen for about six months before receiving notice last week that its contract would not be renewed and that the school would close, said Miller.

Miller said Woodcrest operators asked the Breskys to delay the closure for a month to give parents time to locate other child care, but the couple refused. Woodcrest also unsuccessfully offered to lease the Evergreen facilities, she said.

``As I understand it, the mortgage on the property is so expensive that a lease would be prohibitively expensive,'' said Woodcrest's attorney, Mike Wachtell of Los Angeles.

The parents are worried not only about finding new day care but also about how the abrupt change will affect their children.

``You could give parents three months notice and say `We may possibly, because of financial reasons, need to be closing the doors,' '' said Lorraine Frasco of Calabasas, mother of a 4-year-old boy who was among the first children enrolled when the school opened two year ago. ``That to me would have been the right thing to do, instead of two days before Christmas, when the kids are working on their holiday parties, and now they're not going to have them.''