The Sandcastle Early Learning Center was launched in 1981 by the Sisters of Notre Dame in St. Paul, drawing in some cases multiple generations of the same family to a former convent building on Juno Avenue near Randolph Avenue and West Seventh Street, just behind St. James Church. On Friday, after more than 40 years of offering affordable childcare, the early learning center will close its doors permanently following a failed restructuring and at least seven staff resignations.

The closure was announced on May 1 on Sandcastle’s website, with consultant and interim administrator Oona Myhre attributing its end to the difficulty of providing its core services — “small group sizes and personal attention to each child” — in an era of “critical staffing shortages.”

“While staff maintained compliance with all Department of Human Services (DHS) licensing requirements at all times, the center can no longer sustain operations at the level of care and stability for which it has been known,” she wrote. “Despite the best efforts of our staff and leadership, the center’s operational model is no longer sustainable.”

Becky Gaiovnik, a West Seventh Street neighborhood resident whose 3½-year-old daughter has attended Sandcastle from the age of 4 months, called the sudden closure a “nasty, nasty shock” that has given parents and employees little time to prepare.

Gaiovnik said families were informed by Myhre on April 21 that classroom assignments would be restructured, and then issued their new room assignments with new teachers on April 24, to take effect April 28, “giving the kids less than five days to transition.”

“They hired a consultant and the consultant pushed teachers out by restructuring very suddenly,” said Gaiovnik, noting the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis failed to respond to parents’ questions for weeks. “I don’t think there was any plan to keep Sandcastle open. This was an abrupt change for a lot of families and we’re really disappointed in how the consultant and the church are handling it.”

‘It’s just not profitable’

Some parents and former staff have called closing the long-established center with a week’s notice irresponsible, and they noted most of the staff departures came after the sudden resignation of a longstanding director two years ago, as well as the decision to bring in Myhre and Karl Kornowski as consultants to change the center’s structure coming out of the pandemic.

Efforts to reach Sandcastle administrators for further comment were not successful on Thursday.

However, Kornowski — who worked with the Church of St. Francis de Sales of St. Paul parish until late last year and has been brought back in for the wind-down — said the center provided “staff modeling that was very, very unique. … Honestly, it’s just not profitable. That’s why they were losing over $150,000 per year.”

The Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis installed the Rev. James Adams as parish administrator during the pandemic, and Adams directed staff to boost the center’s Catholic focus, according to parents and staff. He, in turn, contracted Kornowski, who sought to update operations.

“These weren’t high-end business folks operating a for-profit center,” said Kornowski, while noting the early learning site received excellent reviews from rating groups like Parent Aware. “This was started more as a ministry.”

Clashes between management and staff followed.

“Different employees were leaving because of the way things were going,” said Cheryl Schroeder, a bookkeeper and payroll manager for Sandcastle who left her job of seven years in 2023. At the time, there were more than 50 employees on staff.

“It’s been a community daycare for 40-plus years,” Schroeder added. “It’s been there forever. I think it’s just a matter of time before it’s razed. It’s just really sad. It was a great daycare center.”

Future of school, church

While Sandcastle has operated fairly independently of the church for years, it rebranded with more Catholic-forward imagery on its website in recent months. The Awaken Community church moved out of the St. James Church in late February after its lease was not renewed, according to Awaken Community’s website. The St. Paul School of Northern Lights, a K-8 charter school, relocated out of another parish property on Osceola Avenue last June.

A sales representative with Cushman and Wakefield said that without ownership’s approval, he would not confirm if the church and school will be put up for sale by the parish, as parents and staff have speculated.

A spokesman for the Archdiocese said Thursday that each parish is separately incorporated and makes its own decisions about property sales.

Kornowski said the two campuses have been the subject of a strategic plan for months.

“They are a very small parish, and they don’t have a lot of income and they have a lot of land,” Kornowksi said.

Deacon Luis Rubi, the parish business administrator, said in an email Thursday that the parish is “currently in the midst of a strategic planning process to determine the best use of all parish buildings across our two campuses. The recent, unexpected closure of Sandcastle Early Learning Center has significantly complicated this process. … No formal listing has occurred, but several properties are under active evaluation.”

‘A community of love’

In late April, Sandcastle teacher Emily Trudeau posted on Facebook that she was leaving her job of five years on positive terms, referring at the time to a cleaning job she worked on the side. When she arrived at Sandcastle that day, an administrator informed her she would be terminated and escorted from the premises because of her social media post.

Trudeau said she was able to clear up the confusion and keep her job, but she quit anyway. She had recently been demoted from a permanent classroom into a floating position as part of the company-wide scheduling rearrangement that was to take effect April 28. The new schedules, which were not popular with staff, put all teachers on four weekly 10-hour shifts, and segregated kids by classroom depending upon if they were part-time or full-time.

“It’s terrible. We had a community of love. At one point, I could name 30 people who lived within a mile, whether it was staff or children,” said Trudeau, noting Myhre had barely met staff and done little more than a walk-through of the building before announcing the new room assignments. “We had the tightest staff community you could ask for. I miss it. I’ve grieved for a few weeks now.”

In a Facebook community group devoted to West Seventh Street, some former parents and staff said they were moved to tears by the unexpected news of Sandcastle’s closure, which has left them scrambling to find new jobs and alternative daycare options.

“I myself worked at Sandcastle for 12 years and what a great place it WAS,” wrote a former staffer. “This center is filled with amazing teachers, awesome parent involvement and some of the most amazing smart kids that I know and LOVE …

Under pressure

In an era of declining church attendance, Catholic institutions around West Seventh Street have struggled with diminishing membership. Two parishes — St. Francis de Sales and St. James — merged in 2011 to become the Church of St. Francis de Sales of St. Paul. After almost 130 years operating in the West Seventh neighborhood, the St. Francis-St. James United School on Osceola Avenue closed in 2016.

Sandcastle’s shuttering also marks the latest in a wave of childcare center closing across St. Paul and the state as a whole. The industry has been roiled by the national labor shortage and competition from higher-paying entry-level work. Some daycare operators have said they long to pay workers competitive wages with benefits but can’t afford it without pricing themselves out of the market.

Others have bemoaned losing more 4-year-olds — a lucrative client demographic — to the St. Paul Public Schools’ expanded free pre-kindergarten offerings, which switched from half-day to full-day programming in the fall of 2022. The overall number of pre-K seats within the public schools has also grown, as have alternative offerings such as a fee-based, nature-based pre-kindergarten program at St. Anthony Park Elementary School.

For some Sandcastle families, public school offerings will be a timely safety net.

“We have heard from a couple Sandcastle families who have kids who will be entering kindergarten in the fall and will be able to enroll in summer Discovery club, which is a full-day program,” said Erica Wacker, a spokesperson for the St. Paul Public Schools.