Staff and parents say they have concerns about the church\u2019s financial transparency and decision-making process.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt just doesn\u2019t pass the smell test. It just seems so wrong,\u201d parent Tommy Bishop said.<\/p>\n
The preschool had been paying monthly rent to Chamberlayne Baptist Church, which called that location home for decades.<\/p>\n
But in 2021, Chamberlayne Baptist gifted the space debt-free to Bethlehem Baptist Church.<\/p>\n
![\"Bethlehem](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/RFK36XDCKFC2BGZ4N7QILADEYU.jpeg\")
Bethlehem Baptist Church on Wilkinson Road announced Nov. 1 that its preschool would close due to operation costs, giving teachers and families 90 days\u2019 notice.(WWBT)<\/p>\n
After Bethlehem Baptist moved in, the church told the preschool it would be absorbed into its ministry, eliminating rent payments and having the church handle all finances.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have no control over the tuition. The tuition goes straight to the church leadership. Our directors have no control over paying staff. The church pays us, and the families pay the church,\u201d a preschool teacher said.<\/p>\n
Teachers said they offered to cut their pay and programs to ensure students could complete the full school year, but the church declined.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd we were trying our best. We wrote letters. We asked for the congregation to hear our plea, as well. We asked for meetings, all of this, and then we were met with nothing, and just a full shutdown, no,\u201d a teacher said.<\/p>\n
Staff said they requested the church\u2019s financial ledger but were refused. Instead, leadership provided several spreadsheets with contradictory information.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is strictly a ministry of the church. And to that end, at the beginning of this school year, the church\u2019s trustee, or the Trustee Chair, Avis Winston, signed a document<\/a> that\u2019s directed at the Virginia Department of Education, asking for religious exemption for this school for the months of September \u201925 through May of \u201926,\u201d Bishop said.<\/p>\n An attorney for the church said in a statement that the preschool operated at a loss for three years and the church has faced increasing costs associated with maintaining a 63-year-old building, adding that the church \u201cdeeply regrets having to discontinue housing the preschool within the church.\u201d <\/p>\n Read the church\u2019s full statement here<\/a><\/p>\n When asked if families would be refunded for tuition already paid in full, the church declined to comment further. <\/p>\n Parents never signed tuition contracts.<\/p>\n \u201cBut taken as a whole, all of the documents that parents signed, all the payments that they\u2019ve made, all the calendars they received, the important dates list at the beginning of the year goes into May,\u201d said Bishop.<\/p>\n He went on to say that this sudden closure really is making parents scramble as they could not have anticipated this happening mid-year. <\/p>\n \u201cSo no one that\u2019s signing up and paying those registration activities fees, or agreeing to pay monthly tuition fees, or paying their tuition in full was doing that with the impression that all those important dates listed between February and May were just going to be X\u2019d out because the church needed more money,\u201d Bishop said.<\/p>\n Legal analyst Steve Benjamin said the church has a moral obligation to be transparent, even if there is no legal obligation.<\/p>\n \u201cShould parents bring a lawsuit through civil representation, then the discovery process would make those records available to them. So yes, parents can obtain access to all of these financial records, and if they have questions, they certainly should,\u201d Benjamin said.<\/p>\n