On Friday, March 13, 2020, the teachers and preschoolers were looking forward to the following week in which we would be celebrating Saint Patrick’s day, rainbow week and a visit from the O’Grady Irish Dancers as well as the sneaky leprechaun! At the end of the school day on the 13th, the preschool staff was informed that we would be closing for the next two weeks due to the outbreak of COVID-19. It had been a mild winter with no snow days so everyone was looking forward to a “break”, a chance to slow down and reconnect with our families. We all thought after those two weeks, we would be back in school as normal. Who would’ve thought we would be going on seven months since the preschool hallway was filled with laughter, smiles, and joy?

In order to begin planning for the reopening of the preschool for the fall, the preschool board and I worked tirelessly to develop new policies, procedures and actions which would follow the CDC guidelines and would make the preschool safer for staff, children and families. The WCOF Board felt reopening in October would give us plenty of time to get the preschool ready to open our doors.

However, for some of our Circle of Friends community, an October reopening was not feasible. Some families required more immediate and extended childcare, and needed to find other alternatives. Other families did not yet feel comfortable sending their children to any preschool. Still other families were comfortable with the idea of preschool, but weren’t comfortable with the idea of their children wearing masks. In addition, some of the preschool staff were also not able to return to the preschool this fall due to the current COVID-19 situation.

We know how hard it is for our Circle of Friends families to make these decisions about preschool! Unfortunately, together these various factors resulted in low enrollment for our fall session — too low to have a sustainable preschool program at the moment. The preschool board made the hard decision to postpone our reopening, with the hopes that we will be back in our preschool classrooms in January.

As I recently walked down the hallway, I finally took down the rainbow kites, the class pictures of 2019-2020, flipped calendars from March to September, and changed the bulletin board paper in the hallway. This would have been the week the preschool would have been open for the 2020-2021 school year, and it is a bittersweet time.

For now, we wait, pray and continue to prepare for the day that the preschool can open our doors. We know COVID-19 won’t last forever, and we look forward to being together again as the Wesley Circle of Friends Preschool.