North Bay Children’s Center Takes Over Beloved Santa Rosa Preschool Location and Services

Without fail, Rev. Aeryn Seto Johnson hears it around town. When she’s at the bank. When she volunteers at Proctor Terrace Elementary School.

When people find out that Johnson is the new pastor at First Presbyterian Church of Santa Rosa, they immediately begin sharing stories. Not so much about the church, but about Presbyterian Preschool – a part-time preschool that has been run on the church campus on Pacific Avenue for more than six decades.

Memories are rich.

But facing steadily declining enrollment, operations at the preschool were put on pause in the spring of 2025, a move meant to give leaders a chance to evaluate their next moves. But in the end, facing a dramatically different landscape than when the school opened in 1962, it was decided to shutter the preschool.

Church leaders, who for years worked in partnership with preschool leadership, moved to welcome in its stead the North Bay Children’s Center, a growing operation that now rents the space and this month opened a full-day, year-round program to infants through preschool-aged kids.

While acknowledging the changing times that rendered the part-time formula of the preschool untenable for most working families today, many mourned the preschool that for decades grouped kids according to age and focused on play and emotional development. Generations recall the giant spaceship in the playground, the two-way mirror through which parents were invited to watch their children play, the race track for trikes, and the loft.

“It was such an icon and anchor in the community. It’s a huge loss,” Johnson said. “It’s not like you are closing down a business. It’s an emotional loss like you are losing a community member.”

Since 1962, mostly three-, four- and five-year-olds would show up to classrooms and a play yard on the church campus and play, paint, and dress up for a couple of hours a day. It was based on developmentally appropriate play, backers said, and was never meant to be run full-time.

But that formula ran counter to what most of today’s families may not necessarily want, but sorely need: Full-time care that starts with infants and toddlers, runs year-round, and covers holidays and seasonal breaks.

“It is very expensive to live in this area. Parents are working long hours,” said Linda Maloney, a former director at the preschool and a full-time faculty member who teaches child development at Santa Rosa Junior College. “I think that a program like our preschool is just different because it’s not all day, all hours. I think that was part of the struggle.”

Even as enrollment declined, backers of the formula that families flocked to for decades, putting their names on a waiting list to attend, were reluctant to make significant changes. The playbook that made the program unique was, over time, making it harder for families to make work with their schedules.

“I believed in this philosophy of developmental, play-based program and I experienced it first-hand,” said Maloney, who sent three kids through the program. “It was beautiful.”

One of the first key signs that Presbyterian Preschool’s short-day, part-time and play-based model was no longer matching families’ needs was the establishment in 2012 of free Transitional Kindergarten in California. The change required that all incoming kindergartners be five by Sept. 1 instead of Dec. 2. It also established a voluntary – and free – transitional kindergarten program for four-year-olds.

That change cut into enrollment at preschool and daycare programs across the board.

“TK killed us,” said Shannon Mabry, who after 27 years of teaching at the preschool was its longest-running employee. “People can’t afford the luxury of preschool really.”

The numbers bear that out.

The school maxed out at about 75 kids in a variety of age groups and times. By the spring of 2025, it was closer to 20.

“When this program started, it was very much ‘Mom stayed home,'” Mabry said. “We didn’t keep up with the times. This is not daycare. We were a preschool. We were what a preschool should be, it’s before you head off to your next step.”

And at a practical level, the program wasn’t set up for all-day care that catered to younger and younger kids. There were no diaper-changing stations and other facilities geared toward toddlers and infants.

But what it did, it did beautifully, Mabry said.

“I really feel like we honored the children as children and respected where they were developmentally,” she said. “Like anything that ends and when things change, we have to kind of accept it. We knew that it had been a special place and wished that it wasn’t happening, but things do change. Societal changes had led to where we were, but I think parents were sad.”

That lament was echoed in comments on social media about the school’s closure that marked the end of an era for so many families.

“Every day I delivered them to school I felt like I was giving them a special gift!” one read.

“I went to this preschool and so did my son. So grateful for the school and the teachers. Such a loving community,” read another.

“I still have sweet memories of holding the guinea pigs and playing in the dress up area about 5 decades ago. My two children loved Presbyterian Preschool, also,” read one.

I have sweet memories, too.

I attended Presbyterian Preschool almost 50 years ago. I played in the loft and the giant spaceship in the playground that I thought looked like a black hamburger in the sky. My parents watched me play through the two-way mirror. I don’t remember what the real report was back then but family lore holds that the news wasn’t good.

The legendary Shirley Van Stone, a woman who helped launch the school in 1962 and moved up to director before retiring in 1989, was my teacher. And many kids in that 1977 class picture became classmates, soccer teammates and friends for life.

So the news of its closure stings a little bit.

But it should be noted that when it came time to find care for our sons, as much as I loved my childhood experience at Presbyterian Preschool, short days and part-time was never an option for our family.

“As beloved as the preschool was, it just wasn’t going to be able to keep operating in its previous incarnation,” said Johnson, who came into church leadership after the decision was made.

So the new partnership with North Bay Children’s Center that allows for full-day care for younger toddlers through school-age kids is being touted by many as the best balm for the wound of the preschool’s closure.

“As we were having all of these conversations, we said, ‘If we are going to reopen, we needed a robust, full-day program and be able to expand to younger children,” said Kelly Murphy, children’s ministries elder with the Presbyterian Church. “Instead of reinventing everything, we kind of found a partner.”

North Bay Children’s Center, established 38 years ago, is headquartered in Novato but the majority of its locations are in Sonoma County. There are school-based sites in Sonoma, Petaluma, Healdsburg, Rohnert Park and two in Santa Rosa. All target working families. The Presbyterian Church location, now dubbed their Pacific campus, replaces rooms NBCC had previously used within Bellevue Union School District.

When NBCC opened its 20,000-square-foot, $12.5 million facility in Novato in September, it held 14 locations in the North Bay that serve more than 700 children. Eight in 10 of the families served by NBCC receive subsidies on enrollment.

Since 2004, NBCC has run their “Garden of Eatin’” program where infants, toddlers and children participate in a nutrition education program. Every site has a school garden in which children participate in the planting cycle from starters to eating what grows.

“That’s why this is such a great match,” said Susan Gilmore, founder and chief executive officer of NBCC. “We have a play-based, environmental curriculum … they are learning to eat with us. Taste preferences are determined by age 3. It’s going to be sugar, salts and fat or fresh food.”

And like Presbyterian Preschool did for years, NBCC shares a vision of play for kids, Gilmore said.

“It’s social, emotional development those first five years. It’s play-based,” she said. “Children are learning self-regulation and the foundation for the academics which come when they leave.”

On Wednesday morning, a classroom with 11 children used small paint brushes to create laminated cards with images and words representing family members.

“Sister! I have a sister!,” one child said.

It’s a new chapter, backers of the deal agreed.

“I think there is grief that it’s not exactly the way we have done it before, but I do think that everyone felt enthusiasm and joy that it came about,” Murphy said. “My personal feeling is that it’s amazing. I’m so grateful. They came at just the right time.”

Agreed, said Johnson.

“So far, it’s just been rejoicing,” Johnson said. “You hear the sounds of kids playing and laughing. It’s been years. Those sounds haven’t been heard. It’s a blessing.”