JOLIET – The Franciscan Learning Center, an early development program started in 1979 by the Sisters of St. Francis Mary Immaculate, is closing.
The school administration announced last week to parents that the school will close after the “Sunshine Sunday” end-of-year ceremony June 5.
Sister Carol Jander, a co-director who has been with the program since it started, said it has become the victim of changing times in which working parents of preschool children seek day care programs with different hours and services than the center provides.
“We have been a developmental program, which means we actually did teaching for students ages 3, 4 or 5,” Jander said. “Parents today seem to want day care. They want to drop their children off early and pick them up later in the afternoon. This is not something we have ever done.”
Jander said enrollment in the school has been as high as 84. Currently it is 33.
When registration for the next school year stood at 14 in February, school officials decided to close the doors. The program needs about 40 students to be financially sustainable, Jander said.
The Franciscan Learning Center board made the decision to close at a March 2 meeting and informed parents the next day.
The March 3 letter to parents described the closing as “a very painful decision but a realistic one. We are grateful to all who have been part of the Franciscan family and who have supported the Learning Center with their time, talents and treasures through the years.”
The Franciscan Learning Center opened in August 1979 in a wing of what was then St. Francis Academy, a girls high school also started by the Joliet-based sisters.
When St. Francis merged with Joliet Catholic High School in 1990 to form Joliet Catholic Academy, the Learning Center needed new space.
Parents and other supporters of the Learning Center raised money and even helped construct the building that now houses the program at 1734 Theodore St. on the grounds of the old Guardian Angel orphanage, another program started by the sisters.
The Guardian Angel property was sold two years ago to the University of St. Francis, which will move its nursing college to the site.
Jander said uncertainty about how the USF move will affect the Learning Center might have contributed to declining enrollment.
“I think there are some parents who got a little nervous when they heard the university bought this land,” she said. “We’ve had people talking about it.”
A USF spokeswoman could immediately not be reached Thursday for comment.
Despite the decision to close, Jander said the success of the institution over the course of 37 years has been a positive influence.
“I think we made an impact in the Joliet community,” she said. “We’ve had a lot of children who have been successful after they left us.”