[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 61 (Tuesday, April 17, 2007)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E761]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




       TRIBUTE TO THE LAWRENCE, KANSAS, COMMUNITY NURSERY SCHOOL

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                           HON. DENNIS MOORE

                               of kansas

                    in the house of representatives

                        Tuesday, April 17, 2007

  Mr. MOORE of Kansas. Madam Speaker, the Lawrence, Kansas, Community 
Nursery School [LCNS] was founded in 1948 after a group of mothers 
attended a conference on preschool play offered by the University of 
Kansas Extension School and sponsored by the Lawrence League for the 
Practice of Democracy. They founded the school on three main 
principles--that the school must be: a parent cooperative; integrated, 
both racially and religiously; and low-cost. Today LCNS is the second 
oldest operating parent cooperative preschool in the Nation, and those 
principles remain at the corner of the school.
  On April 17, 1948 the school opened with its first class of 10 
mothers and 14 children. Financial support for the school came from the 
Lawrence League for the Practice of Democracy and the Oread Meeting of 
Friends. The tuition was set at $1.00 per week. In 1951 the Kansas 
State Board of Health licensed the school, and in July of 1952 the 
school was incorporated under Kansas State Law as the Lawrence 
Community Nursery School. The school received its permanent license to 
operate in 1961.
  The school was housed in various churches and schools for its first 6 
years. After at least eight different locations, in the spring of 1955 
the members of the advisory board, the board, and the general 
membership voted to start a 3-year building fund campaign chaired by 
Dr. Helen Gilles, a well known local pediatrician, to raise money to 
buy a permanent home for the nursery school.
  The campaign was a huge success. With support of local businesses, 
members of the cooperative, and the community at large, they were able 
to raise over $2,000 in their building fund by May 1956, more than 2 
years ahead of schedule. In March 1956, Dr. Gilles presented the idea 
of buying the Wesleyan Methodist Church at the comer of 7th and Alabama 
Streets. In August 1956, they put a down payment on the church. In 
September 1956, the board voted to paint the school ``barn red with 
white trim.'' This is how the building remains today, and it has become 
a permanent fixture in the Old West Lawrence neighborhood and the 
greater community as a whole.
  Several months of renovations and sharing the school with the church 
followed. Although the site was used by the school in the fall of 1956, 
the church remained. In the summer of 1957 the church moved out, and 
the Little Red Schoolhouse was the home of the Lawrence Community 
Nursery School. Madam Speaker, I join with the LCNS community and with 
all Lawrencians in celebrating the completion of the 50th school year 
at their permanent home at 645 Alabama Street.




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