Anchorage

As an Anchorage preschool faced closure, the parents who run it found a way to save it

When Elaina Strub signed up to be the director of her son's small nonprofit preschool last year, she expected the job would involve office work, like landing a grant for a new playground.

The last thing that Strub, a waitress and former schoolteacher, expected was to be embroiled in a monthslong fight to keep the school open. But she and the parent-run Anchorage Cooperative Preschool were caught up in new regulations aimed at tightening up health and safety standards for Alaska's private preschools.

Now the preschool, with the support of Anchorage child care licensing officials and the church it has leased space from for decades, is tearing down walls and building new ones so it can open for pint-sized pupils in late August. On Thursday, the sound of drilling and hammers filled the preschool at lunchtime. Near the preschool office, Strub stood with a potential new family, pointing out the changes.

"Those are our bathrooms — the walls are coming down," Strub said. "We have to put in a 42-inch wall. There's just all these rules."

Alaska's privately funded preschools have operated with little oversight for years. But about two years ago, that began to change.

Under state law, the Alaska Department of Education and Early Development has had the authority to oversee state- or federally funded preschools. But the law had been loosely interpreted when it came to private preschools. For many years, the department had approved private preschools that met a checklist of conditions. An initial health and safety inspection took place before approval, but the education department didn't conduct follow-up visits.

That startled Anji Gallanos, the early learning administrator for the Department of Education and Early Development, when she started her job four years ago.

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"This is absolutely not safe. This is not going to work," Gallanos recalled thinking in an interview. "We need to go back to reviewing what we should be doing and how we should be doing it."

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Officials reviewed the law and concluded the education department's authority to approve preschools only extended to state- or federally funded schools. Private pre-elementary programs would need to obtain child care licenses.

As many as 100 such programs existed statewide two years ago, Gallanos said. Many were able to obtain the license, she said. As of 2017, fewer than 30 programs await licensing, Gallanos said.

Since 2016, Anchorage's city health department, operating under both state and local regulations, has licensed about 14 private preschool programs, said licensing supervisor Kathy Lynch. Anchorage Cooperative Preschool has been the only program known to run into problems — and that's largely because of the way the program is structured, both Strub and city officials say.

A group of parents started the preschool in 1970. Over the years, it's weathered turnover in families and changes in leadership.

You get to the preschool from the parking lot in front of First Christian Church of Anchorage off LaTouche Street in Midtown. A side gate under a blue archway opens up to a playground with a wooden jungle gym that parents built, and play kitchens and houses. Down a Dr. Seuss-themed staircase and through a door, there's a basement area with freshly painted green and yellow walls and cubbies for children. An art room and a restroom branch off from the main room — leading to potentially unsafe blind spots for children, as inspectors pointed out.

To meet the stricter licensing rules, private preschools have had to make changes to operations, like changing their snack programs to ensure children only eat prepackaged snacks. But a more formidable issue for Anchorage Cooperative surfaced after a March city inspection. For more than a decade, the preschool had operated as a full-day program for up to 20 children, ages 3 to 5.

The preschool's provisional license, approved by the city in December 2016, was for a half-day program, making it eligible to be grandfathered under its old conditions. A full-day program would require a series of renovations, such as placing toilets inside the classroom.

Alerted to the discrepancy by licensing officials, the parents were taken aback. They weren't sure the school could afford the renovations. But a shorter program wouldn't work.

"We will not be able to financially survive a half-day program," said Morgan Alverson, a member of the cooperative's board.

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As more Anchorage parents need full-time care, there's less need for half-day programs, she said.

The preschool was allowed to run its full-day program through the end of the school year. Then, suddenly, the school was looking at an expensive renovation project, or closing.

"Forty-eight years," sighed board member and school parent Maggie McKay, sitting in the office earlier this month. "It's this re-licensing process."

On July 13, licensing officials met with Strub, McKay and Paul Boling, the pastor of First Christian Church, at the city health department. The parents and the pastor wanted licensing officials to give them another year to raise money for a renovation project. The answer was no.

But over the next hour and a half, the officials, the parents and the pastor hashed out a new plan, one that would be far less expensive. The solution involved removing walls near the bathroom and art room and installing a hand-washing sink.

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On Thursday, Boling stood in the bathroom with a hammer, helping out with the renovation himself.

To support the project, the church is taking out a $30,000 loan, putting up its building as collateral. It's a big step for the church, Boling said. The preschool and the church aren't formally related, but the two groups have shared the space for years. Boling said the church strongly supports the preschool's educational mission. Strub said the school plans to pay back the loan through tuition.

Right now, a month of tuition at Anchorage Cooperative Preschool ranges from $150 to $340 for a half-day program, not including a one-time registration fee and a fee for the lunch program. The cost of tuition depends on how much a parent can work in the classroom. Strub said the leaders of the school want to maintain a tradition of keeping prices at the lower end of the scale. As a perk of the new license, the school can now also accept state child care assistance, Strub said.

High turnover among parents and families has meant knowledge has been lost over the years. As a board member for the preschool, Strub remembered hearing about the licensing changes. But it wasn't her problem until she took the job as director.

Already close friends through the school, Strub, McKay and Alverson, the two board members, have become closer trying to resolve the licensing problems. Strub's father ran a day care in Ohio, and she waits tables at night so she can afford the preschool. McKay manages an electric company in the village of Port Alsworth. Alverson takes care of her sister, who has a disability, and also works as a freelance editor.

All of them love the cooperative's reliance on parent volunteers in the classroom and their close relationships with other parents. They've spent many hours this summer trying to keep the school alive. At McKay's son's third birthday party last week, even as kids were running around and yelling "Batman!" in the background, McKay, Strub and Alverson sat together looking over budget documents.

Alverson wants the school to be there when her 6-month-old infant, Adrian, is ready. It's like he was born there, she said; her pregnancy coincided with her volunteer work in the classroom for her older son.

Earlier this week, Strub got the text message: City permitters had approved their engineering plans for the renovation, just in time to open for school. The long hours and stress paid off.

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On Thursday, explaining the construction to the potential new family, Strub was earnest but optimistic.

"The regulations are a lot more strict, and we're having to make a lot of changes," she said. "But we've been around a long time. Sometimes it's not the worst thing to update and improve."

Correction: An earlier version of this story misstated the preschool's tuition rates.

Devin Kelly

Devin Kelly was an ADN staff reporter.

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