Christian Preschool Closes to Await New License; Parents, Staff Protest

Pat Hawkinson thought it was just a formality when she was asked to reapply for her job as director of a Christian preschool. After all, she had been in charge of Whittwood Baptist Preschool for 18 years and figured the new owners of the school, Morningstar Christian Chapel, would want to keep things running smoothly.

The application made her a little uncomfortable, though. Applicants were asked to agree to the church’s list of 12 “spiritual qualifications,” including regular church attendance, being “born again” and being “joyfully submissive to leadership.”

Hawkinson, a Presbyterian, showed up for a meeting last week, which she assumed was a job interview. Instead, she said Morningstar Pastor Jack Abeelan told her there was a licensing problem and the preschool serving 50 children would be closing. In four days.

“I asked him for two weeks for the parents,” Hawkinson said. “The amount of time for closing was quite unreasonable. . . . They didn’t need to close. This whole thing is so unnecessary . . . and such a hardship on the parents.”

In a letter sent to parents the next day, June 28, a church official said Morningstar Christian Chapel was seeking a new license for the preschool and had been notified by the state that it would be illegal to stay open while the licensing is pending. The preschool closed July 1.

“Our position is we’re not going to operate the church in violation of the law,” said Doug McCulloch, head of Morningstar’s board of directors.

Morningstar bought Whittwood Baptist Church and the preschool on the premises earlier this year, and the change in ownership requires a new license.

Licensing should be completed by this fall, the letter said, but “because we cannot assure that we will have our license prior to the start of the school term in September, we are returning any deposits made for fall registration.”

Though operating without a license is illegal, the state did not order Morningstar to shut down, said Robert Pate, district manager for the San Gabriel Valley community area licensing office of the state Department of Social Services.

“Our intent was not for that school to close,” Pate said. “My understanding is that it’s a well-run school. . . . Our goal is to get them licensed.”

Change of Hands

Pate said preschools are frequently bought and sold, adding that his office notifies two or three schools of licensing violations each month.

“I have never come across this large a facility that automatically went out of business” after being told of such a violation, Pate said.

But McCulloch said the state refused to guarantee Morningstar in writing that the church would not face criminal prosecution for operating the preschool without a license.

“They can twist it any way they want, but they won’t back off their statement that it’s illegal,” McCulloch said.

Hawkinson and some parents whose children attend the preschool believe Morningstar is using the licensing issue as an excuse to get rid of the school’s staff and give the formerly nondenominational preschool an evangelical curriculum.

Of the 11 questions on the revamped preschool job application, seven pertained to religious qualifications for being a teacher. “It was more like a pastoral application than a teaching application,” Hawkinson said.

The preschool’s staff of 12, including Hawkinson, say they will not return to their jobs when the school reopens. “We could not work with somebody who would be this unreasonable to my (preschool) parents,” Hawkinson said.

McCulloch said as a new employer, Morningstar has a right to require the preschool staff to complete job applications.

“We wanted teachers and staff in our Christian preschool to sign a statement of faith that they are Christian teachers,” McCulloch said. “I believe they didn’t like that. . . . If they’re not ‘born-again’ Christians, we’re really not that interested in talking to them.”

The job application “was probably more evangelical in nature than the teachers would prefer,” McCulloch said. But he added that no one questions the right of other religious schools to employ teachers of a particular faith.

“You won’t see too many teachers at a Catholic school who are not Catholic, or many teachers at Brigham Young University who are not Mormons,” he said.

Whittwood Baptist Church operated the preschool for 26 years until the church was sold in January. The preschool’s summer enrollment of 50 children, from 2 1/2 to 7 years old, nearly triples in the fall, Hawkinson said.

The school’s staff worked to “prepare children for kindergarten with a strong Christian background,” she said, but with pupils so young, the teaching was pretty much restricted to Bible stories and singing Christian songs. Children also said prayers before meals.

“You could go to almost any church and go to this school and not be offended by it,” said Paul Craig, whose 5-year-old son attended the school. “They ran it on a Christian basis rather than a sectarian basis.”

Hawkinson said Abeelan wanted to restructure the curriculum.

“They told me they wanted a school that emphasized Christianity first and education second,” Hawkinson said.

When the preschool reopens, McCulloch said the curriculum would be “a little more evangelical oriented. . . . I don’t think there will be major changes. They might do a little more Bible study.”

A similar preschool controversy took place last month at Sherman Oaks Presbyterian Nursery School, where church leaders announced that all school personnel must profess faith in Jesus Christ. Five of the school’s 14 teachers and about half the school’s students are Jewish.

All the teachers resigned, and the church officials said the school may close temporarily if a new staff cannot be hired in time for fall classes.

Angry about the unexpected closing of Morningstar, about 50 sign-carrying parents protested outside Morningstar’s service last Sunday morning. Don Murphy, whose 4-year-old son attended the preschool, said only three of about 400 startled churchgoers stopped to ask about the demonstration.

Murphy decided to send his son to Morningstar after weeks of researching preschools in the area. The Placentia resident said the preschool’s staff was so outstanding that it was worth the 25-minute commute.

Because Morningstar closed, Murphy had to enroll his son in another preschool starting this fall. However, he was unable to find another summer school program for the child.

“I will not send my son back there,” Murphy said. “I cannot tolerate teaching kids to be joyfully submissive to leadership. That’s not why God gave us brains.”

Craig said many parents felt betrayed by the closure.

“When the Morningstar church came in, we were told one condition of the sale was that they would continue operation of the preschool,” Craig said. “They gave us a letter to that effect.”

The preschool was a place where parents volunteered their weekend and evening hours to repaint school rooms and repair playground equipment, he said.

“It was a family place we were all concerned about,” Craig said. “We didn’t just pay a fee and dump our kids.”