Washington Park Preschool closure leaves parents with limited options

Washington Park Preschool closure leaves parents with limited options (WICS)

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (WICS/WRSP) — The only public preschool in Illinois, Washington Park Preschool, is set to close and now local parents are frustrated with the limited options they have when it comes to finding a new preschool to enroll in.

“We’ve been told a couple of days ago where we have to find a new location to be able to go to and a lot of those places have waitlists,” Lacey Siomos said, who has one child currently enrolled and one child scheduled to be enrolled at Washington Park.

It’s those waitlists that are causing parents a headache.

Now with such short notice, some parents don’t know if their child will be accepted by the time school starts.

“We would probably end up keeping our kids at home for the next year,” Siomos said.

One local daycare said they’ve received nearly 16 calls over the last two weeks and now their waitlist is even capped.

Several parents said they specifically chose Washington Park because it’s one of the few places that doesn’t put you on a waitlist.

If these parents don’t make the one-year waitlist, the next best option for many local daycares would be to enroll their kids in 2020.