A Kauai laboratory preschool will close June 1, prompting affected parents to scramble to find another place to enroll their children.
"I’ve called every preschool from Eleele to Hanamaulu," said Krystle Apilado. "All the preschools told me that it isn’t possible to get my son in the school at this point."
Each of the six schools she contacted has a waiting list, she said.
Kauai Community College announced Wednesday that it will close Na Kama Pono, a laboratory preschool that opened more than 20 years ago to provide field experience for students working toward an Associate of Science degree in early childhood education. The administration said the closure was necessary because of recruitment problems after the program coordinator retired in 2010.
The school lacked a coordinator for all of 2011 and most of 2012, which in turn affected reaccreditation.
"During this period, curriculum revisions to keep curriculum current with the needs identified by both community advisors and potential employers in this rapidly changing education field were not made, and adequate preparations for the 2014 renewal of the NAEYC (National Association for the Education of Young Children) accreditation, including staff development, did not occur," the chancellor’s office said in a news release. "The lab school is not able to meet the requirements for reaccreditation."
Helen Cox, KCC chancellor for the past five years, said by phone that shuttering the school was "probably one of the most difficult decisions I had to make as a chancellor." But she said the closure is temporary.
"Our intention is to not stay closed forever," she said. "There is absolutely an intention to reopen."
But there is no target date for that at this point, she said.
Meanwhile, the community college said it has joined with People Attentive to Children (PATCH) Kauai to help parents find other schools.
Fifteen students of KCC’s early childhood program will be able to conduct their fieldwork at other preschools following the closure of Na Kama Pono.
The preschool has a capacity of 20 students, ages 3 to 5, mostly the children of KCC faculty, staff and students. Other kids are accepted if there is room. Two full-time teachers and two aides are employed at the laboratory preschool.
Apilado, 21, of Koloa, who had a 4-year-old son at Na Kama Pono, is studying early childhood education at KCC and works as a teacher’s aide at Na Kama Pono. She took her son out of the preschool Friday and is in search of child care.
She said the administration did not explore enough avenues to keep the preschool open.
"At this point I feel like I’m going to drop out of the program and start up my own day care and use what I learned up to this day and implement it in my day care," said Apilado.
Another parent, Charlene Burgess of Lihue, who has a 3 1⁄2-year-old son, said she is disappointed in the administration’s decision.
"It’s very upsetting," she said, adding that she has placed his name on the waiting list at Lihue Hongwanji Preschool and Ae Kamali‘i Preschool.
The administration said the closure will allow the college to update its curriculum to correlate with trends in early childhood development, address facility improvements and seek reaccreditation.
"We can’t do any of this while we’re running a program and trying to get it reaccredited," said Vice Chancellor James Dire. "We’re disappointed, too. It’s a tough decision to make. We’re thinking about the big picture for the future children in Kauai County."
