potrero view

April 2009

Potrero Kids for Daniel Webster Avoids Closure

By Halley Cornell

Last month the doors seemed about to close at Potrero Kids at Daniel Webster (PKDW), the preschool that Potrero Residents Education Fund (PREFund) helped launch just last year.  Mission Neighborhood Centers, Inc. (MNC), with whom PREFund had partnered to manage the preschool’s operations, issued a letter to PKDW parents stating they were shuttering the school this month.  Disagreements between MNC and PREFund over operational issues, including staffing and the liabilities involved in transferring a $166,000 Low Income Investment Fund (LIIF) grant, triggered MNC’s decision to withdraw from the school. But thanks to the swift involvement of PREFund and PKDW parents, the preschool will remain open, with operations managed by PREFund.

“Our lack of experience in managing a mixed fee-based preschool played a key role in what I believe will ultimately be a mutually beneficial agreement to transition the preschool over to our collaborating partners, PREFund,” said MNC executive director, Santiago Ruiz. “We have a common goal and a common bond, and that is essentially to provide what is best for our children. The Potrero Hill parents have spoken, and they have come to the conclusion that the transition to PREFund is the best move.”

PREFund originally approached MNC to lead the preschool because the Center has experience establishing bilingual programs for children, Ruiz said. But disagreements over how the school was being run led to calls for change from Potrero Hill parents.  PREFund had been in the process of determining how to take the school over for months. “Our organization publicly acknowledges that we don’t have the type of infrastructure, resources, or experience required to generate up to the level of expectations that PKDW parents had in place in relationship to the preschool,” Ruiz said. “From a programmatic stance, we’ve done the best we can.”

PREFund member Jennifer Betti said that at a March 12th meeting 94 percent of PKDW parents voted that PREFund should take over the school. The transition, she said, will go forward amicably and with MNC’s help, which will assist PREFund with the school’s operations until as late as July.  PREFund and MNC are continuing to negotiate how best to manage the transition period, but MNC will shift much of its attention to starting Head Start programs, particularly a site on Third street and Evans Avenue scheduled to open in May.

According to Betti, LIIF presented some roadblocks related to transferring grant monies from MNC to PREFund, which doesn’t have the financial collateral to cover the remaining $166,000. With potential liability hanging over its head, MNC was presented with an expensive problem, and potentially a continuing drain on their resources prompting them to send a letter to preschool parents warning of the school’s possible closure. “I think there was a lot of miscommunication around the letter; I think what MNC was trying to say is not that the school closure was a done deal, but that they needed to work with the parents to get a solution.”

But the letter ignited a firestorm among the PKDW parents, who used their well-established email network to send out a plea for assistance to the San Francisco Foundation, LIIF, the Eastern Neighborhoods Public Benefit Trust, the San Francisco Unified School District, First Five, the Children’s Council, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, the Mayor’s Office, the View, as well as a bevy of Potrero Hill residents. According to Betti, the momentum created by the crisis led some stakeholders to speak out in support of PREFund’s ability to handle the grant.

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