Liz Bedford and Kayla Schaefer, preschool teachers at Clipper Kiddies Christian Preschool in Amboy, went about their day as usual April 20.

But when their last little student left the building that afternoon, the two sat down amid the toys, drawings and trappings of the preschool classrooms and let emotion take over.

“When we hit April 20 on the calendar and we realized we were a month from graduation, after the kids left that day, we cried. We just cried,” Bedford said.

That’s because on May 20, 18 students will participate in the final graduation ceremony at Clipper Kiddies Christian Preschool, Amboy’s only private preschool.

The preschool will officially close in June.

The decision to close the preschool has not been an easy one for the preschool board nor for the board of the Immanuel Lutheran Church in Amboy, which owns the preschool. But dwindling enrollment and shrinking finances forced the school’s board of directors to make the decision to close.

“It was basically a financial decision. We don’t have enough students anymore to cover our expenses,” said Kathy Kessel, the treasurer for the preschool.

Preschool board president Sandy Mahar agreed.

“The church council has been talking about it for a few years. We are barely surviving as a church. The school had to be self-sufficient. We provide the building, but we can’t provide additional finances for it,” Mahar said.

Kessel and Mahar have been part of the preschool since before it was Clipper Kiddies. A preschool has existed at the Immanuel Lutheran Church, in some form, for over 50 years.

Kayla Schaefer was one of the “kids in the corner,” a member of the early preschool that took place in a corner of the church’s large fellowship hall. The corner was rented from the church by three local women, Janet Mool, Cindy Streit and Kathy Miller, who operated a preschool there.

“On Fridays, Janet would gather up all of the materials she had out for the week and move everything back into the corner because we use the hall on Sunday,” Mahar said.

In 2005, the three decided to sell the preschool and the church board decided to buy it.

“Our pastor at the time thought it would be an excellent thing for the community. So our church bought the school, and we created Clipper Kiddies Christian Preschool,” Kessel said.

Over the years, enrollment flourished, with the school having a maximum of 49 students at its height, plus an extensive waiting list. In fact, for several years, a slot at Clipper Kiddies was in such high demand that parents often started asking in December and January when enrollment would be open.

“It wasn’t just an Amboy thing. It is – it was – something that people knew about all over, due to the quality of the program that they established and maintained here. It had a very good reputation, and it spread,” Bedford said.

In 2024 and 2025, the preschool had students from six different school districts. That was because the preschool offered something else to working parents – convenience.

“Anybody and everybody was welcome. We had kids from Mendota and Dixon. We had kids who lived in another town, like Dixon, but whose parents worked in Amboy, so it was very convenient for them to be in preschool here,” Bedford said.

In 2006, the state of Illinois became the first state in the nation to pass legislation to establish universal, free, voluntary preschool for 3- and 4-year-olds, according to the Illinois State Board of Education. The Preschool for All initiative was expanded in the following years. The program established or expanded public school preschool programs throughout the state. In addition, because it was operated through public school districts, the public school preschool programs have the benefit of offering transportation, something private preschools aren’t able to provide.

“It’s hard to compete with free preschool and transportation,” Bedford said.

Kessel said Clipper Kiddies’ enrollment, and along with it, tuition revenues, have been steadily declining since the introduction of Preschool for All.

“Two years ago, we had a morning class and an afternoon class. We had between 28 and 32 students, but that was only for one year,” Bedford said.

Clipper Kiddies isn’t the only private preschool to close its doors. Four years ago, the preschool did a survey of tuition-based preschools within a 40-minute drive of Amboy. The survey asked standard questions about curriculum, number of students and tuition rates.

“Of the 21 preschools that we talked to then, about two-thirds have closed or are in the process of closing. It’s not just an ‘us’ thing, it’s an all-over-Illinois thing. It’s sad because what the state did to try to bring preschool to more kids is actually going the other way,” Bedford said.

Because the school is owned by the church and expected to be self-supporting, tuition was the largest part of the revenue. Fundraisers that were well supported by the community and the families of students also helped. At this year’s annual pork chop dinner fundraiser, parents who worked the event, students and members of the public who bought tickets for the dinner kept asking Bedford, Schaefer, Kessel and others a heart-wrenching question.

“We had the pork chop fundraiser because there are still bills to pay through the end of the year. People kept asking how much would we have to make at the pork chop dinner to keep the preschool open,” Bedford said.

Kessel said she, Mahar and the other board members who were part of the first days of Clipper Kiddies are not ready to say goodbye.

“This is the saddest thing for me to see the school close,” Kessel said.

Schaefer, who will graduate in December from Northern Illinois University with a bachelor’s degree in early childhood education, will be student teaching this fall at Central School in Amboy. She said she is looking forward to seeing some of her former Clipper Kiddies alumni.

Bedford said she doesn’t know what comes next after Clipper Kiddies. She has been a teacher for 44 years. Right now, like Schaefer and Kessel, Mahar and the others who have invested years in the little preschool at the Lutheran church, the focus is on getting themselves and the children they have devoted so much time and care to through the next week.

“After that, I don’t know what comes next. Ask me in August,” Bedford said.