The Wallkill Nursery, a pre-kindergarten school that has operated in the Wallkill hamlet for over 40 years, may close before the end of this school year due to dwindling attendance and funding. The faculty recently created a GoFundMe page hoping to raise enough money to stay open until mid-June, when their classes normally end.

The nursery was established in 1979 within the Wallkill Reformed Church’s building; the faculty were not associated with the church but rented space from it. The school offered classes for three-year-olds and four-year-olds respectively, each comprising two teachers and up to 12 students.

“I taught both the three and the four-year-old classrooms, and we like it because it’s a small community school,” said Wendy Byrne, a teacher who’s worked at the nursery for 17 years. “And we’re a half-day program, so it gives the kids an opportunity to learn but also still keep up their home life schedule, as far as napping and whatnot.”

Throughout the years, many parents in Wallkill enrolled their children in the nursery, some even attending the school when they were younger. Christina Ghiorse, a Wallkill parent, enrolled her son in this year’s four-year-old program and greatly appreciated the learning and socializing opportunities that the teachers provided him.

“It’s his first school and his first friends, so it’s just been a really great experience for him,” Ghiorse said. “With the COVID lockdowns and him being an only child, this is his first experience making friends and being in a structured learning experience. He’s grown so much from it.”

Ghiorse’s husband, Evan, also attended the nursery as a child, where he developed confidence and met lifelong friends.

“It gave him a big head start for school and brought him out of his shell from having been an extremely shy kid,” Ghiorse said about her husband. “He was really thrilled in being able to provide that same small town community school and feel to our son.”

Starting in the fall of 2023, the Wallkill Central School District launched a free, universal pre-k program and registered a handful of students via a lottery. The school district originally reached out to the Wallkill Nursery for a collaboration, but the latter was unable to meet the district’s requirements.

“We were approached by them, but there were a lot of things we couldn’t do that we needed in order to be in the UPK program,” said Alexis Farias, the nursery’s director. “Mostly, our facility that we’re in can’t handle the number of students they were looking for us to house.”

With another pre-k program available to Wallkill residents, attendance for the nursery has dropped significantly, going from about 24 students annually to only 12 this school year. The faculty has held a few fundraisers and made several budget cuts to continue their program, including laying off one of their four teachers, and they hope to keep going at least until their current classes finish this June.

“I would love to see the school carry on in the future for our four and three-year-olds. But I would be devastated if the school had to close now before the year’s even over,” Ghiorse said. “These kids would have nowhere to go, they would interrupt their learning, they would not see their friends anymore.”

“Support, whether it’s financial or not, just any kind of support would be really helpful,” she continued, suggesting that residents should share the experiences they had with the school with others in the community.

To donate to the Wallkill Nursery, visit its GoFundMe page at https://gofund.me/027d53e9.