Church’s long-held preschool and after-school programs to close

Palma Sola Presbyterian Church’s highly regarded preschool and after-school programs, institutions in west Bradenton for more than 50 years, will close permanently on Aug. 4, church officials confirmed Monday.

The decision was made Thursday night in a unanimous vote of the church’s lay leadership, followed by notification of the school staff Friday including about 15 teachers, said The Rev. India Dennis of Palma Sola Presbyterian Church, 6510 Third Ave. W., Bradenton.

Letters went out to parents of about 90 children on Friday, Dennis added.

Dennis came to the church Monday, on her day off, to talk to upset parents like Bradenton’s Callie White, who now has to search for a new Voluntary Pre-Kindergarten Program for her son at a time during the year when preschool and after-school programs are rapidly filling up for next year.

Dennis told White that until Thursday night’s vote, no one was absolutely sure the schools would close. But that didn’t lessen the hurt felt by White.

“I feel anger and betrayal,” White said. “I think they could have put a bug in our ears that a change might be coming. We were blindsided.”

One parent, who wished to remain anonymous, wrote to the Herald: “I am a parent of a child there and I am outraged and saddened by this decision. Many parents feel the same. All of these teachers and students must now find new schools.”

The reason for the closure is that church members, whose ranks have fallen from about 1,000 in the 1980s and early 1990s to 200 today, no longer feel they can or want to handle the intense oversight necessary to run a modern preschool or after-school program, Dennis said.

“We are in a process now of really re-envisioning who we are as a congregation,” Dennis said. “We can’t do the things we once did. We don’t have the people resources, the financial resources. We don’t have the internal capacity to continue to minister at the complexity level of a thousand-member church anymore.”

Members, who are much older on average than members were in the mid-1960s when the schools started, desire to change the church’s outreach mission from preschool and after school to something they feel they are more appropriately gifted for, perhaps tutoring nearby older elementary students at their schools, helping Baby Boomers like themselves adjust to old age or maybe even making a dynamic new commitment to Manatee County’s homeless, Dennis said.

“One of the most difficult callings of a church is to discern God’s will at different stages of a church’s life,” Dennis wrote in the letter to parents.

Dennis and other church members were concerned that had the church decided to close the schools at the end of next year rather than at the end of this year, enrollment for next year may have dropped off sharply, Dennis said.

“We did not have a clue earlier than Thursday that we would close,” Dennis said. “What we knew was that we were beginning to ask questions. We were beginning to talk about the reality that our church no longer has members who are passionate about knowing all the regulations.”

White maintains that the right thing would have been earlier notification.

“They said the congregation is taking a different direction,” White said. “While I can understand and appreciate that, she has a bunch of loyal parents who have been here for years despite the fact that it might have been more expensive than other options. Our children are loved. The class sizes are small. I think this decision could have been made sooner to give parents ample time. I didn’t even look at other VPK programs. I thought it was done. I thought it was off my plate.”

This story was originally published May 1, 2017 at 9:00 PM with the headline "Church’s long-held preschool and after-school programs to close."