After 10 Years, a Downtown Day--Care Center Could Soon Be a Reality : Preschool Model for Center City

Nine years ago, Marion Persons was persuaded by the First Presbyterian Church on Date Street to open what figured to be a modest preschool program on the church grounds.

Persons and her partners toured major downtown office buildings and placed fliers on cars in the center city area, hoping to attract clients. But for its first two months, the enrollment at the The City Tree consisted of one child, attending three mornings a week.

“During those early days, we had to do a lot of convincing to sell people on the idea that you could have a good private school program in the downtown area,” Persons recalled recently. “Parents were concerned about security, about the threats that transients posed downtown. And, although they are common in virtually every major city, they couldn’t get used to the idea of having a rooftop playground.”

Persons’ powers of persuasion apparently were quite strong. Today, City Tree boasts a full-capacity enrollment of 180 children, ranging from preschool age to fourth grade, and new students are placed on a waiting list for up to six months before they can join the school. Recently, parents petitioned the school to expand its program to include fifth and six grades.

“I’m absolutely dumbfounded by the way this has grown so quickly,” said Persons, City Tree’s director. “We don’t offer a day-care program per se, but we have more preschoolers (about 80) than any other category, and our waiting list for that program is always long. If our experience is any indication, there is a great need for day care downtown.”

Although City Tree is affiliated with First Presbyterian, Persons said fewer than 10% of its clients are church members (the school is nondenominational, but does teach “Christian values,” Persons said). Virtually all of the clients work downtown, and the great majority are single parents.

“The expansion of our program came directly because of the problem facing latch-key children whose parents work downtown,” she said. (Latch-key children go from school to an empty home, and have a key to let themselves in, and stay there alone until a parent comes home from work.)

Persons maintains downtown is an ideal location for day care and other educational programs. “Being so close to the vibrant areas of the city gives these kids very special opportunities.”

“The field trips are terrific,” she said. “We can walk to Balboa Park, attend the museums and the Junior Theater. We’re close to the bay, with all of the activity it affords. Through the YWCA, we can offer swimming lessons, right here in the neighborhood. And the parents work close enough to walk or take a short drive at lunchtime to see their children. That’s something we really encourage.”

Jane Knopf, who works at a downtown law firm, was on City Tree’s waiting list for one year before she was able to enroll her daughter in the school, but she said her perseverance paid off. Her 9-year-old daughter has been at City Tree for five years.

“I wanted her downtown because I worked there and wanted to be close to her,” Knopf said. “I feel more comfortable having her near me. And if there is a special program at the school I want to attend, I’m usually able to do so--that wouldn’t be the case if she were somewhere else in the city.”

Knopf said the downtown location is “just great. My daughter is able to take advantage of programs at the park and in the museums. That’s the whole reason she’s in this kind of a program--because I don’t have time to do those kind of things for her during the day when I’m working.”

Pete Zacharzuk, whose 6-year-old son attends City Tree, said he has noticed his child “has picked up a special interest in cultural things since he’s been at City Tree, and I credit the field trips for that.

“My wife works downtown, and at first we looked in the Bonita area, close to home,” Zacharzuk said. “But we like the special opportunities downtown gives him.”

Ginger Jones, whose 9-year-old daughter started at City Tree when she was 2, called the school “a godsend for the downtown, working mother. It allows me to be a good parent and do the best possible work at my job as well.”

“I live out at State College, but I wouldn’t want my child that far away,” Jones said. “It’s too far to go in an emergency. But I think I’d want her there regardless of where I worked. Because of the downtown location, my daughter has been exposed to cultural things that I never saw until high school, or after.”

Persons applauds the newly kindled efforts to bring a day-care center strictly for preschoolers to the downtown area but said the new project only scratches the surface of meeting the need in center city. “Eventually, I would hope to see a program opened that offered services well into the evening, at least until 9 p.m.,” she said.

“Lots of young professional people work crazy hours, and it would be nice if day care could cater to their schedules, rather than the other way around,” she said. “And there is a great need for a program with an infirmary. Here, the kids have to be taken out of school when they’re sick. That means a parent has to stay home, too, meaning lost productivity for his employer. If employers take that into consideration, they’ll see day care downtown is a good deal for everyone.”