Church’s Nursery School Ends Year Amid Bickering

Suspicion and bitterness clouded the last day of class this school year at a church-run nursery school in Sherman Oaks where teachers resigned when told they must profess faith in Jesus Christ to keep their jobs.

Angry parents and officials of the First Presbyterian Church of Sherman Oaks said they would operate separate nursery schools.

Several parents said they were followed as they walked around the Sherman Oaks Presbyterian Nursery School’s grounds Wednesday. They said a church member videotaped them and wrote down the license plate numbers of their cars.

“We felt like everything we were doing was being watched and recorded,” said parent Steve Fisher. “They seemed to be in a siege mentality. . . . I feel like I was just at the fall of Saigon.”

The school’s director and all 13 teachers, five of whom are Jewish, announced their resignations last month after learning of the church’s religious requirement. On Wednesday, parents presented the director, Wendy Cummings, with a plaque.

“What started out as a day of celebrating the end of the year quickly became a day of tension,” said parent Pat Klous. “This guy with the camera, I said, ‘Please don’t photograph me,’ and he wouldn’t listen.”

The Rev. Pamela Powell, the church’s co-pastor, said church members were present for the last day to ensure the childrens’ safety.

“We thought that if anything was going to happen . . . that was of a nature that was a crank . . . we wanted to have enough people at the school” who would be able to notice an unfamiliar person, Powell said.

The church hired a security guard shortly after the controversy began last month, Powell said.

Church officials also wanted to be sure there was no confusion about what items could be removed from the school by the parents and departing teachers, said church spokeswoman Charlene Baldwin.

“We just wanted to take precautions,” Baldwin said. “We wanted to make sure we were aware of what was going on and that what was ours was ours and what was theirs was theirs.”

A church employee said the nursery school’s locks were being changed.

“We were treated as if we were felons,” parent Kathy Fisher said. “They were planning on trouble, and they were guarding for it.”

Parent Laurette McCook said that Wednesday’s events resurrected ill feelings that parents and teachers had tried to set aside. She said her daughter, Becky, 4, “cried a lot today. She didn’t know what was going on.”

Will Open in September

The church announced Wednesday that it plans to resume operating its nursery school in September. Church officials had said earlier that the fall opening was in doubt because of the staff resignations. In converting the facility to a Christian school, the church had told its Jewish teachers they could stay until September, 1989, if they did not become practicing Christians.

Some parents whose children were enrolled at the school filed incorporation papers June 3 to start a new Sherman Oaks Nursery School.

A four-week summer session of the new school is scheduled to begin June 28 at St. Michael and All Angels Church in Studio City.

Parent Robert Porter said the parents’ group is negotiating with three property owners for use of a site for the school’s fall term. One site under consideration is the old Hesby Street School in Encino, closed about eight years ago and turned into offices for the Los Angeles Unified School District, he said. The parents are scheduled to present plans for use of that site to the school board’s Building Committee today.