Nursery school needs new location by end of school year

Church that has housed it for 44 years wants to grow its services and programs

Kim Mahoney, director of Rockville Community Nursery School, said school officials were told three years ago that the Unitarian Universalist Church of Rockville would not renew the lease in order to utilize the space for church services and activities. Another nursery school is also located at the church.

"It was a long period of time, two years, when we were uncertain what would happen," Mahoney said. "The atmosphere of the school and of the parents was disheartening."

The Rev. Lynn Thomas Strauss, pastor of Unitarian Universalist Church of Rockville, said members of the church are also saddened by the loss.

She said she will miss hearing the sounds of the children playing outside while she writes her sermons.

"It's been a good, long relationship, but we've reached a point where we want to grow the church and that space is needed for the programs," Strauss said. "It is a sad thing and we wish we had enough space to keep both schools here."

Since getting the news the school would have to move, school officials have organized a committee to search for a new space, but the committee has been limited because of high real estate costs and the desire to keep the school in the Rockville area.

"It's really kind of bizarre because we spent two-and-a-half years to try to furiously find a new home for the nursery school," said Janet Pearlman, who serves as co-president of the school and has two children there.

"A lot of places don't want us, don't want to lease us space, and a lot of places, churches, ask us for so much money," Pearlman said. "… We're a [cooperative] nursery school that doesn't make profit."

Mahoney said enrollment has since declined as well.

"Parents wanted to stay with the school because of our philosophy, but people left because of the uncertainty," Mahoney said.

Rockville Community Nursery School was founded in 1964 as a cooperative school for children ages 2 to 4, in which parents play administrative roles and serve as teachers' aides in the classroom.

Co-president Kay Newhouse said she chose the school because of the parental involvement in the classroom that a cooperative nursery school offers.

"I'm an educator by profession … it's important to get to know my child as a student," she said.

She said there has been a long history of cooperative nursery schools, but today there are less of them.

"There's not as many families where one parent has that flexibility," Newhouse said.

The school was supposed to pack up its crayons in June, but when the school still had not found a new location, the church extended its lease another year, albeit at a higher cost, Mahoney said.

The higher rent is causing the nursery school to dip into its savings as the church previously charged it below-market rates, she said.

With the higher rent and dwindling enrollment, the pressure is on to either find a new location by the end of this school year or prepare to close for good.

Many parents are worried about losing the tight-knit community at the school

"It just feels like a community … it's the first community as a mom that I had," Pearlman said.