Anna Thiele was excited to send her son John to Johnson County Montessori preschool when he was old enough.
Not only had she gone there when she was a child, but she’d also worked there for about six years as a teaching assistant before becoming a public school educator.
On top of that nostalgic connection and memories from her time at the now 60-year-old preschool, Johnson County Montessori offered exactly what she and her husband Josh were looking for their 3-year-old.
“We were very pleased with what we saw going on in the classrooms,” she said. “It’s been such a wonderful place for families.”
But now, the Thiele family and dozens of other families are looking for another childcare option with very little time to sort it out because, after decades of operation, Johnson County Montessori Preschool in Overland Park is closing at the end of the year.
The Thieles said they were saddened and shocked by the news, especially the short timeframe of it all. And, Anna said it feels like an unfortunate ending to a school with a long legacy that’s touched countless people over the years.
The decision to close the school, multiple families have told the Post, left them scrambling to find another childcare solution that works for them.
“We experienced a well-established environment filled with love and kindness and caring and compassion,” said Mariah Ritter, another parent with a child enrolled in the school. “And then the next day, they told us they’re closing the doors.”
She said she feels “blindsided” by the whole thing.
Families were informed on Tuesday, Nov. 18, that the school — owned by the nonprofit GoodLife Innovations — would close its doors effective Dec. 19, giving them a month to find another school or daycare for their children.
They found out in a letter, sent as an attachment on an after-hours alert through the app the school uses to communicate with families.
“It’s never a good time to close a school,” said Mike Strouse, the CEO of GoodLife Innovations. “We’re very sorry about the impact that this had on families. There’s just no good way to end something that you’ve done for 60 years, but we did the best we knew how.”
Johnson County Montessori’s enrollment was low, CEO says
The nonprofit now known as GoodLife first acquired Johnson County Montessori in the 1990s, in part because their administrative offices neighbored the school, still in its old location in downtown Overland Park.
There was also cohesion with the nonprofit’s mission to provide services for individuals with disabilities since the school offered special education programs, Strouse said.
About a decade ago, the nonprofit and the school both moved away from downtown Overland Park, with the school landing at its current campus on 87th Street near South Lake Park.
A few years ago, GoodLife turned its focus toward adults with intellectual disabilities only, ceasing its efforts geared toward children. However, it still maintained ownership of the preschool.
Strouse said in the years since GoodLife stopped working directly with children who have disabilities, the nonprofit has intentionally kept enrollment at Johnson County Montessori low.
At one point, Strouse said GoodLife Innovations had tried to sell the school and previously pondered closing it. Also, shortly before the decision to close the school was announced, GoodLife notified families that the school would be renamed to Johnson County Academy.
“We did everything we could to preserve it,” Strouse said.
But now, with enrollment numbers at their lowest point in the school’s history and the end of the fall semester fast approaching, Strouse said it is time for Johnson County Montessori to close for good.
GoodLife does plan to keep possession of the campus and put it to use in some other way, though Strouse said he wasn’t sure exactly what that purpose would be when he spoke to the Post in early December.
Strouse acknowledged that the transition might be challenging for families with children enrolled at Johnson County Montessori.
“From a family perspective, it’s disruptive, but we tried to keep the disruption as small as possible,” he said. “At the end of the day, our mission is the adult mission, so we wanted to make sure that the resources were aligned with our mission.”
Some families are left in a tough spot looking for childcare
Ritter said her son Ben is going to miss going to Johnson County Montessori. Personally, she’s going to miss how close the preschool is to her younger child’s in-home daycare.
With both her and her husband, Daniel, commuting to their health IT jobs, the convenience factor was big in deciding which preschool to send their son to. But they loved the school too, and really wanted a Montessori program for the independence and learning environment they’re known to foster.
“I was pissed off because we just got our kids somewhere and transitioned to a new place that he loved,” Ritter said. “We were devastated because … our heart fell in love with the place and just seeing our kid thrive.”
The timing was also unfortunate, she said, just before Thanksgiving, followed closely by more winter holidays. She worried about being able to find something in time that meets all her family’s needs, keeps Ben with some of his friends and doesn’t cost too much.
It was with all that in mind, Ritter enrolled her son in another childcare program without getting a chance to tour the place first, feeling desperate to find some place out of fear that Johnson County Montessori would close its doors before her family found anything else.
“It’s been a huge burden and struggle for all of us,” Ritter said, adding that she’s worried that it might be a rough transition for her son. “It just didn’t seem very fair.”
Sarah Andrews, a single mom who has Stage 4 metastatic breast cancer and is living with heart failure, felt pressured to enroll her almost-three-year-old daughter Goldie in a different Montessori school in Mission sight unseen. That’s because she was worried that the few available slots would be taken before she could get in to see it.
The whole thing has given Andrews whiplash, and she describes the announcement of the school’s closure as “incredibly sudden.”
“I had no clue that it was just going to close,” she said. “It just hit me wrong.”
As she continues to deal with her health challenges, Andrews said this situation has only added stress.
And, this isn’t the first time Andrews was put in a position to mad dash to find her daughter another school this year. Earlier in the year, her daughter’s old Spanish-language immersion school had to close up shop after a bunch of the teachers had their work visas revoked when their immigration program was canceled without much warning.
That was “a hard transition,” Andrews said, one she’s not looking forward to repeating as her daughter once again switches schools.
For now, she plans to keep Goldie at Johnson County Montessori until it closes on Dec. 19, taking full advantage of the time they have left with the school they’ve both loved so much.
“We found a parachute that worked out”
Josh Thiele said his family has decided to go a different way and leave Johnson County Montessori early, opting to take their son out after the first week in December. Then, he’ll start at a different Montessori school in Johnson County.
“We found a parachute that worked out,” he said.
But finding a new program felt a bit like a fluke, which involved 15 or so phone calls to daycares and preschools in the 24 hours after the Thieles learned Johnson County Montessori was closing its doors.
Most of the schools they called were already full, had long waitlists, were more expensive or wouldn’t work for them logistically.
So, when they did find something that would work — even if it didn’t check all their boxes — they jumped at it.
It doesn’t change how the Thieles feel about the situation, though.
“I feel pretty sad about it closing because it really was just kind of an anchor for the community,” Anna Thiele said. “The place just meant a lot to a lot of people.”
Keep reading: Johnson County is losing in-home child care providers. What local officials hope to do about it.
