By Tara Bahrampour
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, April 26, 2006

Each winter, when the Valley Drive Preschool in Alexandria holds its annual enrollment open house, it draws the parents of far more toddlers than the school has room for. In recent years, the problem has gotten so bad -- with parents spending the night outside the school to try to snag a slot -- that Tara Casagrande, a parent there, decided to look into opening another preschool in the Del Ray area.

That was a year and a half ago. She still hasn't been able to do it.

"We came to a standstill," said Casagrande, who was joined in her quest by several other mothers. Commercial rentals cost too much to be carried by preschool tuition, Casagrande said, and space in churches, an old mainstay, was scarce. "We went to all the churches in the area, and no one has space."

The mothers hit on a problem plaguing preschool directors in many parts of the Washington area, particularly in built-up communities inside the Capital Beltway.

Preschool waiting lists have long been a fact of life for many parents, but recently, individuals looking to open schools, and long-established chains seeking to expand, say they are finding it increasingly difficult to locate space.

Local officials attribute the crunch to a soaring demand for preschool, fueled in part by immigrant parents who live inside the Beltway, tend to have larger families and have become more aware of the benefits of preschool. Studies have shown that children who attend preschool generally have higher success rates in elementary school and beyond.

Adding to the problem are ever stricter accreditation standards that require more space for preschools. Plus, traditional sites such as churches are often saturated. But the main obstacle has been the steep rise in real estate prices.

"It's very expensive to run a preschool, and there's very little return," said Mimi Carter, who has run early-education programs in the District and is the author of "The Insider's Guide to Quality Childcare in D.C." "You can barely make enough money to pay the teachers."

Although birthrates are rising across the area, the problem is particularly acute close to the District. For example, from 1995 to 2002 (when some of today's 3- and 4-year-olds were born), Alexandria's birthrate shot up 53 percent and Prince William County's, 43 percent. But in the same period, the number of preschools rose 45 percent in Prince William and 24 percent in Alexandria.

Montgomery County is another area with high rents and high density. Pilar Torres, executive director of Centro Familia, a nonprofit early-childhood education organization in Silver Spring, spent six months scouring the county for a place to open a preschool for low-income immigrant families. She said the families she works with have high birthrates and are increasingly aware that preschool is an investment in their children's future.

"But when the family gets that awareness, they turn around and there's no center," she said.

Mark Rosenberg, president of Bethesda-based the Kid's Place Inc., said he started his company in Montgomery 20 years ago but now operates in Prince George's County, where he has four child-care centers, because rents are 50 percent less. "I would love to do another in Montgomery County; we just can't make it work for us," he said.

The problem is less severe outside the Beltway. "Prince William and Loudoun counties are definitely easier," said Rosemary Burton, director of child-care operations for Minnieland, a company with about 90 centers in Virginia. "But further into the city, yeah, it's pretty tough."

She has been unable to find a place for a preschool in the Falls Church area, inside the Beltway, she said, and a potential partner looking for a place in Fairfax County gave up after two years.

Space requirements for licensing and accreditation make the search harder. The National Association for the Education of Young Children, a private organization that accredits preschools, requires 35 square feet of indoor space per child.

Virginia requires 25 square feet per child to license a site, but in 2008 that will rise to 35 for new schools. Maryland requires 35 square feet per child for preschool programs that are not in public schools. There are additional requirements for outdoor space, as well as general safety regulations.

At the same time, demand is growing. Nursery school attendance nationwide rose 66 percent -- to about 5 million 3- and 4-year-olds -- from the mid-1990s to 2003, according to the most recent census figures available. Some states have begun to consider universal preschool: Georgia has it, and Florida is working toward it.

Virginia Gov. Timothy M. Kaine (D) made expanding preschool access central to his campaign last year. In January, he created a council to develop guidelines for universal preschool for 4-year-olds, and he has asked for $10 million to promote public and private preschools.

In Maryland, school districts will be required by 2008 to offer pre-kindergarten classes for 4-year-olds from economically disadvantaged backgrounds. This month, a task force was appointed to make recommendations by 2008 on how to further expand pre-kindergarten education and look into whether the state should offer universal preschool.

In her search through Montgomery, Torres found many churches that had extra space but were wary about sharing it with a preschool.

"They were very, very protective," she said. "There was a feeling that they were going to give up some control, that there would be too many people coming in and out, that there would be safety issues, that Sunday school would be impacted, that they would be invaded by the center. My position is: 'You guys have all this space. You use it maybe three hours a week, and there's this tremendous need. Can we come to some agreement?' "

Torres finally found space in a Kensington church, which will allow Centro Familia to use rooms there if it pays its own utility and other overhead costs.

In Alexandria, City Council member Rob Krupicka (D), who helped Kaine write a preschool policy proposal, has recommended streamlining the permit process for preschools seeking to open in commercial areas.

Even some well-established programs are having a hard time holding onto space they have. Valley Drive, which is housed in a church, could soon close temporarily or permanently.

"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.