Preschool Space Is at a Premium

"We've been there over 25 years, and they've been hoping beyond all hope that it won't happen," said Maribeth McCarthy, former president of the board at the parent-run cooperative school.

The church is thinking of using the space for adult education, McCarthy said. Even if that doesn't happen, she said, the church plans to remodel, which means the preschool will have to find other space for at least a year.

The Alexandria-based Child and Family Network Centers, which provide free and subsidized preschools for low-income families, have been asked to leave two locations because the nonprofit organizations leasing to them -- Community Lodgings and Tenants and Workers United -- say they need the space for their own programs.

At one of the soon-to-close centers, the organization paid for a playground to be built, an investment that will be lost along with the rented space.

With nine centers in Alexandria and one in Arlington, CFNC serves many immigrants, including those who don't qualify for other programs. The organization, which has about 150 children on a waiting list, has not been able to find new locations. If it doesn't by June, the 32 children at the centers slated to close will have to go back on the waiting list.

"We e-mail everybody. We talk with everybody," said Executive Director Barbara Mason, adding, "It's hard in Arlington as well, very hard, for the same reasons."

On a recent afternoon at a center on Mount Vernon Avenue, one of the two that will close, children called out numbers and colors with a teacher as their mothers looked on.

Morena Parada, a Salvadoran immigrant who is an assistant at the center, said that enrolling her daughter Diana, 4, there has enabled her to work and has taught her daughter to get along with others.

"She's always talking about her routine, and she loves it," she said.

Blanca Ordonez, a Honduran native whose daughter Amy Oliva, 4, attends the school, nodded. "If the school closes," she said, "I'll be very sad -- and her, too."

Staff researcher Bobbye Pratt contributed to this report.