Editor’s note: This story has been corrected to amend Aimee Bushby‘s name.
Oak Park’s village board authorized a forgivable loan of $246,532 to The Day Nursery, with the hopes that the funds will help keep the 113-year-old institution’s doors open.
In a presentation before the board June 3, leaders of the preschool outlined a dire financial situation left in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. While the preschool projects a budget shortfall of more than $30,000 a month next year, The Day Nursery leaders said that the loan, coupled with an ambitious fundraising campaign, will keep the school open and serving local families.
“Everyone involved in the organization is committed to making the most of this opportunity should the village decide that that is appropriate,” said Scott Dolezal, the new president of The Day Nursery. “When we do something like this and make this kind of request it blows the lid off the struggles that we have been dealing with privately for a long time.”
The board approved the loan unanimously after hearing from school leaders, employees and families. The Day Nursery’s building at 1139 Randolph St., in use since 1925, is also an Oak Park historic landmark.
“The day nursery is so much more than a childcare center, it is a village, it is a heartbeat, it is a place where kids are safe to be exactly who they are and loved for it, it is where we help shape kindness, courage and confidence,” said Aimee Bushby, a teacher at The Day Nursery. “When we lift up spaces like this, we are lifting up everyone and that is the kind of world I want to be part of.”
Trustee Brian Straw was moved to tears by the presentation, saying he was proud to be able to use his vote to help the institution persevere.
“If The Day Nursery were to suddenly stop being able to provide service, it would be a real tragedy,” Straw said. “If this loan is able to allow The Day Nursery to survive, this is an incredibly low price to pay to preserve such an important institution for the long term. I’m grateful for the opportunity to be able to vote yes on this.”
If the preschool closes down, the village would have right of first refusal to purchase The Day Nursery’s 100-year old building or the village could opt to be compensated from the money from the sale of the property, according to village documents.
Oak Park’s Neighborhood Services Director Johnathon Burch said the loan is meant to serve as “a bridge to determine a plan for sustainability in the future” for The Day Nursery.
“We plan on meeting regularly with The Day Nursery staff and the board to understand how they are moving forward with their plan and developing their plan for sustainability,” he said. “This is a bridge to somewhere, we have to figure out where that is going and we have to figure out when those different pieces will come together.”
The Day Nursery primarily serves families whose tuition is subsidized via Illinois’ Child Care Assistance Program. Roughly 85% of Day Nursery’s 66 pupils are part of the CCAP program, and the preschool is one of only two preschools in Oak Park that accepts CCAP funds, Burch said.
Mary Reynolds, executive director of local non-profit The Collaboration for Early Childhood, said The Day Nursery fills a key role in the region supporting low- and moderate-income families.
“We support programs across the economic spectrum, which is increasingly difficult to do in today’s market,” Reynolds said. “The Day Nursery’s current situation reflects those broader pressures. The Day Nursery prioritizes accessibility through sliding scale tuition, acceptance of the state Child Care Assistance Program subsidy and participation in publicly funded programs like Preschool for All and the Prevention Initiative. Programs that center this type of accessibility often face unique financial challenges that creates tension between mission and sustainability. The access they provide is something that our community cannot afford to lose.”
CCAP funding does not cover the full cost of caring for a child, creating a long-term financial challenge for the preschool, aggravated by a drop in enrollment following the pandemic, Burch said.
“One of the challenges with the program is while it provides an important subsidy in order to access childcare and early childhood education, the state reimbursement does not cover the full cost of providing the care,” he said. “It only provides $0.48 on the dollar in order to provide that. That in turn, as you might surmise, given the large size of the enrollment, the sizable portion of the enrollment that makes use of the childcare assistance program has created a long-term challenge for the day nursery on a financial basis.”
The preschool is still serving less enrolled students than it did before the pandemic, and is now serving a higher percentage of subsidized students. Those developments have forced the school to dip into its cash reserves, which have dwindled to around $70,000, Burch said.
Part of the loan agreement requires the preschool to launch a fundraising campaign to get its reserves back to over $100,000, Burch said.
Dolezal said that the loan will stop the bleeding for now, but that the board is still working on developing a long-term plan for sustainable operation.
“I wish I had a perfect answer right now,” he said. “We are working with them on identifying what our needs are, what we need to do specifically and how to do that in the short-term, medium-term and long-term. So, we know this is not just something that we work on for a little bit and put to the side. We understand that as a long-term plan that we need to come up with and enact.”