who had decried the closure<\/a> of their historic Rosemont campus. <\/p>\nThe Sacramento City Unified School District had targeted Edward Kelley \u2014 one of two sites for the parent participation preschool program \u2014 for closure amid a multimillion-dollar budget crisis. <\/p>\n
Parents and the school\u2019s only teacher on staff, Amanda Chapman, said the decision would deprive families of a rare, affordable childcare option. And, they said, it would put a tragic end to more than 150 years of operations at the schoolhouse.<\/p>\n
But the district reversed course, a change parents say they learned about on Thursday, shortly before the evening\u2019s school board meeting.<\/p>\n
\u201cTonight, more than anything, we want to express our appreciation,\u201d Chapman said in comments to the board. \u201cAppreciation for our community\u2019s advocacy.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cost deficits blamed for closure plan<\/p>\n
Edward Kelley has 15 preschoolers enrolled in a Monday-through-Friday morning class. The program, in which parents volunteer in the classroom alongside Chapman, is meant to be self-sustaining with tuition fees.<\/p>\n
However, the campus had been costing about $144,000 to run and recouping around $45,000, according to district spokesperson Al Goldberg.<\/p>\n
But district officials took Chapman up on her offer to forego her health benefits. That savings, combined with an increase in monthly fees for parents from $301 to $500, is expected to keep the program afloat.<\/p>\n
Savannah Kuchar\u00a0is a reporter covering education. She came to Sacramento to be a part of the Abridged team and contribute to a crucial local news source.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Abridged version: Edward Kelley Preschool will stay open beyond this school year, after Sacramento City Unified School…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":305427,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[121,123,122],"class_list":["post-305426","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sacramento","tag-sacramento","tag-sacramento-headlines","tag-sacramento-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/305426","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=305426"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/305426\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/305427"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=305426"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=305426"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=305426"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}