Forty families, most based in the Village and Chelsea, have done the unthinkable—sued the nuns who run the Montessori nursery school their kids attend. If the nuns get their way, 55 kids will be without a school, all from families with working moms who can’t afford the cost of today’s private nursery schools. And the Sisters of Saint Francis, based in Syracuse, will be able to sell the two buildings that house the school for $20 to $30 million dollars.
Nazareth Day Nursery was founded by Sisters of Charity, a Catholic Church entity, in 1901. Using a $5,000 donation, the Sisters purchased two townhouses on West 15th Street. On December 1, 1901, Nazareth Nursing was incorporated and the Nursery School opened in February 1902. (See the note at bottom for info on the original charter.) In 1914 a full daycare was added and “offered to self-supporting mothers in need.”
At present, Nazareth has 55 students serviced by 14 lay teachers. It is supervised and controlled by the Sisters of St. Francis, which took over responsibility in 1913. But in early December 2014, parents were told that the school would close in June 2015. No reason was given.
One key feature of the school is its low tuition. It runs from 8:00 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.—a longer period than most schools—and the 2014-2015 school year tuition is $9,850, which is one-third to one-half of what most private and parochial nursery schools charge for a shorter day.
To understand how seriously this closure would affect the parents and children involved, it is important to understand the nature of the nursery school application process. This process usually begins in the fall of the year a child turns one-year-old. Most schools, even ones charging $20,000 per year or more, have limited openings and close their applications out by the end of October, nearly eleven months before the school year starts. Parents generally choose a school with the intention of keeping their child in the same setting until they are ready to move into elementary school. Nazareth actually provides kindergarten classes and had been telling parents that they were considering expanding to offer first grade.
Parents in every grade chose Nazareth because of its reasonable cost and because it is the only Montessori and Catholic nursery school in the Lower West Side of Manhattan. At no time over the past four years was any Nazareth parent told that the school was having financial problems and might close, or that it might close for any other reason.
And all of the parents who are plaintiffs in the suit had been solicited by the Sisters to apply to return to Nazareth for the 2015-2016 school year without being told that they were applying to (and agreeing to attend) a school which was about to close. Since they were unaware, none of the parents applied to have their children attend a different nursery school for the 2015-2016 school year. By January 2015, when the Parent Association’s second request for an extension to keep the school open was denied, it was too late to apply for spaces in other nursery schools.
Last December, Ms. Mogavero, on behalf of the Parents Association, wrote to those in charge—Nazareth Board Chair Frances Acosta, Dr. Dennison, and Sister Roberta Smith, the head of the Sisters of St. Francis—and asked that the closure be put off for at least a year, explaining the adverse impact the late announcement had on the parents, both because of the timing and because of the difficulty in finding an equivalent spiritual and educational replacement. She also asked for information that would better allow the parents to understand what had occurred.
Dr. Dennison replied, agreeing to a meeting in January, but despite repeated requests, provided little additional information to the parents. At the January 6 meeting, Dr. Dennison claimed that the School was losing $100,000, that “the building structure is precarious,” and that low tuition meant little reinvestment.
Despite those claims, the financial state of the corporation running the school appears excellent. The IRS form 990 for 2013 shows their fund balances increased over the prior year and that its program revenue increased from $481,000 to $570,000. Furthermore, the corporation did not carry its real property (those $20 to $30 million dollar buildings) on the return as an asset, probably because over 113 years it had depreciated the negligible sum it paid for them in the first place. Though the officials mentioned structural defects in the buildings, the Department of Buildings website shows no violations and no plans having been filed.
The parents argued with Dennison, who refused to change his mind. At the end, Dennison agreed to go back to “leadership” at the Sisters of St. Francis to see if they would consider a one-year extension.
Despite additional pleas from the Parent’s Association, on January 20, the Sisters of St. Francis refused to reverse their decision. They suggested four other Catholic schools, but the parents involved do not feel the suggested schools are at all comparable. All of them would require extensive travel and none were served by subways. Two were located at or near Avenue B on the Lower East Side. None were Montessori. The only available Montessori schools in Manhattan cost $26,000 per year or more and some only allow children to attend until 3:00 p.m.
It is clear, from the discussions between the parties, that the Sisters plan to close the School, stop providing education to the children of working mothers, sell the property, and transfer the money to the Sisters of St. Francis to use for other purposes—none of which is to educate children of working mothers of nursery school age in New York City.
Public policy here is a critical element. Under Section 1007 of the Not for Profit Corporation Law, a New York State not-for-profit which is dissolving must transfer its assets to a charitable organization which engages “in activities substantially similar to those of the dissolved corporation.” This provision can only be satisfied by the transfer of the Corporation’s assets to another preschool that services poor and middle-income parents in New York City. That is clearly not what defendants have in mind—they intend to transfer the assets to their various ministry projects in Syracuse. These projects may service the poor, but not by running a nursery school, and certainly not by running a nursery school program for children of working mothers in New York City.
Given the timing of the announcement that the School would close, the Nazareth parents are left with few options for their children and many will be forced to find day care in a non-educational and certainly non-Montessori settings.
But the parents are fighting back with the author of this piece as their attorney. A judge has set a preliminary injunction hearing for April 22nd. The judge has also ordered the Nursery School to open its books and minutes to the parents, so they can carry on the fight with full information.
In this day and age when education has become all important, it is shameful for a Catholic order to close the doors of this wonderful school on these kids—children of working moms. These kids need everyone’s prayers.
Arthur Schwartz is the Democratic District Leader for the West, Central and East Village, and President of Advocates for Justice, a public interest law foundation which is representing the Nazareth parents.
Info on Original Charter
On December 1, 1901, Nazareth Nursing was incorporated under the New York Membership Corporation Law (now the Not-for-Profit Corporation Law). The original purposes of the Corporation are as follows:
1. To conduct a nursery for children of self-supporting mothers.
2. To conduct a kindergarten in connection therewith.
3. To do and perform charitable and benevolent acts, such as caring for, maintaining and providing for the education of needy children; to provide for the nursing of the sick poor at their homes, and for the free distribution to them of medicine, food, clothing and other necessaries of life; to hold meetings for the discussion of matters pertaining to the care of the young; and to do and perform generally any act of charity and benevolence towards poor and needy persons.
