Kutztown U. To Close Learning Center: Children’s School to End Next Month, Leaving Parents Scrambling.

By Genevieve Marshall, The Morning Call, Allentown, Pa.

Apr. 25–Kutztown University has decided to close its Early Learning Center next month in a cost-cutting move, to the surprise and dismay of parents who send their children to its Montessori-style preschool and kindergarten classes.

Parents said they heard about the decision from the center’s staff late last week and have yet to receive official notice from the university.

They are banding together to ask university administrators to reconsider their decision, both because of the late notice and the value the center offers to the campus and community.

Those with preschoolers are scrambling to find other programs for their children. Kindergartners will go to their local public kindergarten but most preschools are no longer accepting new students for the fall.

Thirty-four children ages 3 to 5 attend preschool and kindergarten at the Early Learning Center, which is housed within Kutztown’s Richenbach Research and Learning Center.

The center’s history probably dates to the university’s founding, though no one at Kutztown could say for sure Tuesday.

Kutztown, like many of the universities in the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education, once had a primary school where university students received their teacher training. When the primary school closed, the Early Learning Center stayed open.

Students majoring in early education receive credit for more than 4,000 hours of observation hours at the Early Learning Center every year, said Amy O’Brien, an assistant English professor who sends her 3-year-old son to preschool there.

About a third of the children who go to school there have faculty or staff members as parents. Another third are children of students, and a third live in the borough, O’Brien said.

The proximity is great, but the curriculum and low cost are the real benefits, she said. Tuition is $500 a semester for preschool, and the children’s learning is self-directed.

“There are learning stations set up all over the classroom, and the lesson of the day is whatever interests the children,” she said. “They take a topic and run with it.”

O’Brien’s son Jack loves umbrellas. He brings a different one to school every day and draws pictures, always of umbrellas.

“I know, it’s weird,” she said.

One day his teachers asked him to bring his biggest umbrella. They measured it and talked about how umbrellas worked and what they’re used for.

“I am on campus five days a week because Jack is in school,” O’Brien said. “I can relax because I know he loves it and he’s learning something. I have more office hours than I otherwise would, and I can participate on more committees.”

Tara Santoro said she has sent her 5-year-old son Dominic to the center for the past two years because he is learning how to read and write and enjoys the science experiments. She wanted him to go to kindergarten there, as well.

“Wet grass in the morning becomes a lesson on condensation,” said Santoro, who lives in Kutztown. “They don’t sit down all day and do worksheets. Dominic was working on building a robot. How cool is that?”

Regis Bernhardt, dean of the College of Education, said he understands the benefit of having a school as a lab on campus and how upset parents are about the decision to close it.

But it wasn’t an easy decision, nor did it happen overnight, he said.

“The decision caused me a lot of anguish personally,” he said.

Bernhardt first recommended Kutztown close the center in February 2006, but university administrators gave it a one-year reprieve. The final decision came last week.

President Javier Cevallos will send a letter to parents of children who attend the center inviting them to an information session May 8, Bernhardt said.

Because the College of Education’s primary mission is to educate undergraduate and graduate students, the Early Learning Center is considered a “tier 2″ priority, behind expenses such as salaries.

Tuition covers only about a fifth of the school’s expenses, so Kutztown must subsidize it with an additional $120,000 a year, Bernhardt said.

Bernhardt believes that subsidy could be better spent adding two positions to the early childhood education faculty.

In that case, the decision was shortsighted, said O’Brien, who is on a hiring committee. The Early Learning Center is a major selling point for professors with young children, she said.

“I took a candidate to dinner last week, and he and his wife wanted to take a tour of the center and see the playground right outside the door to the school,” she said. “I’m totally in favor of hiring more faculty, but they should have explored other ways to fund the center before saying they’re going to close it. What about raising tuition? What about grants?”

Bernhardt said he considered raising the tuition, but the low cost is what attracts some parents.

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Copyright (c) 2007, The Morning Call, Allentown, Pa.

Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Business News.

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