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After 30 years of providing day care services for local parents, Rene Rhodes will shutter her Little Baler Preschool after Pastor Kevin Townsend and the board of Hollister’s Sunnyslope Christian Center decided not to renew its lease. The preschool will close permanently on May 16, following its graduation ceremony.
“Little Baler Preschool has provided a safe environment and routine that has allowed my daughters to grow and learn,” said parent Alexandria Richey. “My heart breaks for the kids who won’t understand why they can’t go to a school where they are truly cared for and surrounded by their friends.”
The preschool uses six rooms in a church annex. Rhodes has over 90 clients and can accommodate up to 75 children daily. Over the years, Rhodes had made the space her own, including installing air conditioning. She also cleaned the yard behind the building and turned it into a playground.
Rhodes said she thought she had maintained a decent relationship with the church for the last 30 years, and there had been no issue with her negotiating a new lease every five years or so. However, she said the last lease was only for two years, and when she tried to negotiate another renewal, she started to run into problems.
“I was put off for a full year,” she said. “Pastor Kevin was always too busy to take a meeting until last May. He was very dismissive of us. I said, ‘Kevin, I’m here to talk with you about our lease, and he said, ‘Oh yeah, we’re not gonna renew that.’”
Rhodes said she asked Townsend if he understood the impact this would have on her clients and 10 employees. She also asked why she had not been informed earlier and said she didn’t get much of an answer.
“He was kind of curt with me,” she said, “saying I had a good run, and I own a business, and he owns a business. So I started looking into other places.”
Townsend declined to be interviewed for this article, referring BenitoLink to comments in a video posted by KSBW where he said, “Our church has grown five to 10 times. So now we run about 500 a week compared to 50, and we’re out of room. Our children’s ministries have quadrupled, so where we would have five to 10 kids, we have anywhere from 80 to 100 kids who show up.”
Rhodes said she found only two possible locations, but because of the condition of the buildings, she had to eliminate both. She was also faced with a delay of up to two years to accommodate relocating and reopening.
“I would have to get a place licensed,” she said, “and there’s a ton of things you have to have, like 35 square feet per child and so many toilets. And I would have to build another playground.”
Rhodes said she asked for reimbursements for her improvements to the facility and was turned down.
The letter she received, which she made available to BenitoLink, quotes the lease agreement as saying, in part, that she “shall at her own cost and expense keep and maintain all portions of said premises as well as all improvements on said premises and all facilities.”
The letter also addresses Townsend’s refusal to meet with her, saying he had told her each time “why he was unable to do so and it was not his intention to cause [her] any inconvenience.”
“However,” the letter continues, “this would not have changed the trajectory of the decision by the Board of Directors of Sunnyslope Christian Center to end the lease.”
Rhodes notified her employees on Jan. 2 and her clients on Jan. 3 of the preschool’s closure. Richey said when she got the closure notice, she cried because her youngest daughter was losing the opportunity to finish attending the preschool where she had thrived for the past year.
“Unfortunately, the building owners are unwilling to negotiate,” Richey said. “I hope, if they see this, they would be compassionate, thinking about the many little lives that will be affected by their decision.”
Rhodes said she regrets not being able to notify all involved much earlier, but she waited until there was no hope of a more positive resolution with the church.
“We haven’t had a very good ending with them,” she said, “and I feel it was a little unfair that the church didn’t give us enough time. But, even now, the parents are just being wonderful. And I wish so much I could help them.”
Concerned parents have rallied to her side. Several showed up to speak with the KSBW team when it arrived to report on the story, and parent Dorothy Thomas started a petition on change.org, “Urge Sunnyslope Christian to Prolong Little Baler Preschool’s Lease,” has amassed 475 signatures as of Jan. 8.
“This has left us only a few months scrambling to find childcare,” said Veronica Becker, a Little Baler parent. “We have very few all-day licensed day cares in Hollister, and most are close to capacity, aren’t as affordable, and do not have as long of hours as Little Baler.”
Anzar High School Principal Angela Crowley is another parent now looking elsewhere for a place to care for her child. In an open letter to the church’s leadership and board, she said that, as a parent and educator, she’d witnessed firsthand the school’s positive impact on early development and that closing the preschool would negatively impact everyone involved.
“Losing this resource will not only affect the children who attend,” she wrote, “but also create significant hardship for the parents who depend on it. The preschool has become an integral part of our lives, and for many families for multiple generations, it has been a critical part of their daily routine.”
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