Sandcastle Abruptly Closes its Doors after 42 Years

Parents and teachers at Sandcastle Early Learning Center were shocked on May 1 to learn that the school, which had been in operation for 42 years, was closing in just over a week. 

About 100 children and 20 staff were forced to say their final farewells on May 9 when the scholl ceased operations.

“We got an email saying they were closing the following Friday. They gave us eight days of notice to find new care,” said Rebecca Gaiovnik, a parent of a 3 and-a-half year-old student at the school. “There was no effort to save the school, fight for the teachers to come back, or to raise money to keep it open a little longer.”

Gaiovnik and her partner Eric DeVoe said the news came as a shock to their and other families in the Sandcastle community. 

“As a large child care provider, this is a tremendous burden on an already overloaded daycare system. Staff with 20-30 years experience gone,” said DeVoe. “My daughter has been part of this community since she was six-months old and has deep connections with the staff and fellow kids.”

In the letter home to parents, Sandcastle said that their model was no longer viable in today’s childcare landscape.

“Sandcastle was long admired for its small classroom sizes and individualized approach to care. Unfortunately, as the early learning industry has evolved, the operational model that once defined Sandcastle became increasingly unsustainable,” their statement read, in part. “In today’s regulatory and financial environment, smaller classes without corresponding funding increases or staffing stability are no longer viable.”

Ongoing Struggles

While the news came as a shock to many in the school community, behind the scenes, school administrators had been working for years to find ways to keep the school afloat.

“Two years ago, the parish engaged an outside consultant to review operations, finances, workflow and licensure compliance;” said Deacon Luis Rubi, the Parish Business Administrator for St. Frances de Sales, which operated the school. “Their report projected annual losses of roughly $150,000 dollars unless significant changes were undertaken.”

Rubi said the changes, first implemented in 2024, included replacing aging systems and facilities while addressing the school’s growing financial debt.

“The initiative looked sound in principle, yet several factors limited success: turnover in key leadership positions, uneven rollout of new classroom schedules and unexpected increases in wages and food costs,” he said.

According to Emily Trudeau, who had been a classroom teacher at Sandcastle since 2018, many of those changes were needed.

“Our play yard was a hazard. Holes, uneven surfaces, screws sticking out of the downspouts, paint peeling,” she said. “All stuff we advocated to get help with.”

However, according to Trudeau, the changes to classroom assignments for both teacher and staff were a difficult transition and implemented in ways inconsistent with their school structure.

“They tried to base it on full-time kids versus part-time kids, rather than age group. Big mess of an idea,” she said. “We were just all blindsided by having our stable classrooms taken away from us and either becoming floats or having entirely new classrooms to work in.”

Financial Strains

Ultimately, the changes to the school came down to money. 

“Sandcastle had long offered very small class sizes. While wonderful for personal attention, that model became unsustainable once enrollment fell below the breakeven point,” Rubi said. “The revised structure still stayed within DHS limits, but the prospect of larger groups contributed to staff unease.”

That unease within the staff led to major turnover, losing a third of their staff since the beginning of the year.

Rubi said they launched a second, last-ditch effort to keep operations stable this March, including removing split-shift coverage, moving to fixed curriculum blocks and automated staffing systems.

“Several staff members declined these changes outright or accepted and later reconsidered and resigned,” he said. “Seven departures in total represented a large portion of our teaching team. Although we still met DHS ratios at the moment we announced closure, continuing operations with critically low staffing was not prudent.”

While all of this was happening behind the scenes of the school, parents were left to speculate about why all these changes were happening.

“A lot of parents got worried and we started posting on the community Facebook pages to try to get some more information,” Gaiovnik said. “There were many rumors going around that there would be a closure. Many of us had emailed the parish and the archdiocese with no response.”

“As a parish community, we found this decision heartbreaking,” Rubi said. “Caring for children is central to our Catholic mission, and education remains a vital ministry. We intended to sustain this mission in a new, viable form, yet the intersection of financial strain and dangerously low staffing left us no responsible choice except closure.”

He said that he hopes to host a gathering in the near future for the wider community to share memories of the school.

Gaiovnik and DeVoe said they were fortunate to find a new school their daughter could start this summer, but it doesn’t make the situation easier.

“My daughter is having a really hard time. I am sure that she will like her new school eventually but she has cried every day in the last week about leaving her friends and her teachers,” Gaiovnik said. “She isn’t old enough to understand exactly what’s going on, so all she knows is that she won’t be with her friends or beloved teachers anymore. She continues to mention how scared she is to go to a new school without her friends and it is heart wrenching.”