Tuition hike puts preschool on verge of closing

Lolita Harper

A preschool facility that offers discounted care for area parents too

wealthy to qualify for state-subsidized programs may close this week

if it cannot fill its classroom with students whose parents are

willing to pay $175 per month.

At the Newport Harbor High Preschool, children are cared for by

fully qualified teachers and high school students studying child

development. The program, which runs from 8 a.m. to noon weekdays,

caters to stay-at-home moms who want their children in an educational

atmosphere while they grocery shop, clean house, volunteer, etc.

For 25 years, the district-run school has been operated like a

private school by longtime director Wanda Shelton. The school has

always been tuition-based but offered a reduced rate in return for

the educational opportunity afforded to the high school children

interested in child development.

The monthly rate was recently raised from $80 per month to $175 to

cover the cost of hiring a certified teacher, as required by the

district’s employment classification for preschool educators,

officials said.

Many parents, such as Tyna Call, refuse to pay the increase.

“It’s not whistles and bells,” Call said. “It’s high school kids

reading your kids a story, and I am not paying through the nose for

this.”

Lorie Haggard, the district’s director of early childhood

education, said the rate increase was mandated in July to replace a

teacher that had given her notice. Although that teacher was “fully

qualified,” she was not classified as a preschool teacher and worked

for less than the district’s normal pay rate.

To replace her, Hoggard said the district had to remain consistent

with its qualifications for other district-run preschools and hire an

educator with the proper classification.

“The preschool staff is under a contract and, yes, we are required

to be in line with what that contract says,” Hoggard said. The job

listing “needs to be posted as the same position, at the same level

of classification. The instruction of preschool students must remain

the same, no matter the type of instruction going on.”

Shelton said the changes are unnecessary. Her program is not the

same as the other district programs and should not be held to the

same standards. It is the distinctiveness of her school that attracts

its clients. Any effort to make it generic will kill the program.

“It is just fine the way it is,” Shelton said. “I get a lot of

parent referrals and have students in my high school class that used

to be in my preschool class. And, conversely, students from my high

school class who now bring their kids to the preschool.”

Call, one of those former students, sends her first two children

to the Newport Harbor Preschool. Her third will not attend this fall

because of the rate increase, and neither will her friends’ children.

“I have lots of girlfriends that I have told to go to this program

and they come back like, ‘This isn’t cheap,’” Call said. “Now I feel

like a moron.”

If Shelton does not find more parents to fill the space left by

Call’s child and others who have dropped out, the preschool will be

closed.

“Parents who don’t qualify for [subsidized] preschool will have no

preschool,” Shelton said, referring to scarce openings at private

day-care centers in the area.

Call agreed.

“If you don’t have your kids waiting on a list since the time they

were an embryo, you’re not going to get into a respectable school,”

she said.

Prestigious schools such as Westcliff Early Childhood Center and

St. Andrews Presbyterian Church Preschool charge in a week what

parents of Newport Harbor Preschool are being asked to pay monthly

and have long waiting lists. Area preschools that are not as

expensive -- running from $500 to $700 a month -- do not give big

discounts for part-time care because a child who is only there for

three hours a day still counts toward the teacher-to-child ratio. It

makes more sense to either fill that spot with a full-time child or

charge the same rate for the luxury of dropping a child off at the

parent’s discretion.

Jane Garland, public information coordinator for the district,

said the Newport Harbor Preschool still offers an incredible rate

compared with private options.

Tuition has been $80 for 25 years, she said. The increase is

overdue and still affordable, she said. Under the new tuition,

parents are expected to pay less than $45 per week, or $9 a day, or

$2.25 per hour.

Parents who cannot afford that would surely be eligible for the

state-subsidized programs at Whittier, Wilson and Harper schools.

Those who can are more than willing to enroll their children in a

cutting-edge program while contributing to a matchless curriculum for

high school students, officials said.

Hoggard vehemently denied implications that she is trying to shut

down the school and agreed with Call and Shelton that it provides a

wonderful educational setting for all involved.

“I know it is very upsetting and people have a sentimental

attachment, and rightfully so,” Hoggard said. “We just want to make

sure that everything is done correctly and that we get enough

children to run the program in a fiscally responsible manner.

“We can’t continue to run a program in the red,” she said. “It has

to be run in the black. That is our responsibility to the taxpayers

as a school district.”

* LOLITA HARPER writes columns Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays and

covers culture and the arts. She may be reached at (949) 574-4275 or

by e-mail at lolita.harper@latimes.com.