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Parents Blog, Email, Twitter, Telephone and Rally to Save Lake Forest Preschool
By Matt Coker in A Clockwork Orange, School Daze
Friday, Aug. 14 2009 @ 12:34PM
Click here to see the article online.

​Parents who have mounted a blog/Twitter/old-timey-telephone campaign to save a Lake Forest preschool from closing say their efforts are working. To prove this, they have posted letters from board members who say they are reconsidering plans to shutter the nationally accredited Lakeview Learning Center after a 15-year run.

Parents learned in a letter their children brought home Wednesday that the preschool is planning to close its doors Aug. 28 due to financial reasons. A refund for the parents' deposits accompanied the letter. The campaign aims to force a meeting with the Lake Forest Community Association board of directors, which owns the preschool, in hopes of negotiating a way to keep it open. Pete Deutschman, whose daughter is enrolled at Lakeview Learning Center, has started tweeting and set up a blog to raise awareness about the closure.

"I hope that we can open lines of communications around what has become a very urgent issue to many parents and members as a way of resolving and salvaging an amazingly valuable program to our community," says Deutschman. "Unfortunately, our board president sees this preschool as a liability rather than the asset it truly is."

Email Deutschman here:
savelakeviewpreschool@yahoo.com

The "Save Lakeview" blog is here.

Twitter: @savemypreschool.

Parents have posted the Lake Forest Community Association board's response to the closure here. In fact, the blog includes several letters back and forth between parents and board member. The parents suggest calling LFCA general manager Cynthia Valdes at (949) 837-6100, emailing her here and the board here to voice support for keeping the preschool open.

Teachers, parents and children are scheduled to hold a rally in support of Lakeview Tuesday at the preschool, 22921 Ridge Route Drive, Lake Forest. They also vow to attend the community association's board meeting the next night at 6 p.m.