{UAH} DEMOCRATS ARE SHUTTING DOWN A SCHOOL TO TURN A BUILDING INTO A SANCTUARY CITY Way to go people !!!!!

Preschool in Boulder church shuts down after congregation votes to become sanctuary for immigrants

"It put us out of business," Active Boulder Kids owner says

By John Bear

Staff Writer

The Unitarian Universalist Church of Boulder is located at 5001 Pennsylvania Ave. (Paul Aiken / Staff Photographer)

A preschool that leases space from the Unitarian Universalist Church of Boulder is shutting down at the end of the month after the church congregation voted to become a sanctuary for undocumented immigrants facing deportation.

"It put us out of business," said Active Boulder Kids owner Kristen Argow Heaton.

About 90 percent of the congregation that attended a church meeting on the matter last month voted to move forward with plans to outfit a portion of the building to provide living quarters for an immigrant taking sanctuary.

Argow Heaton said that parents notified the church ahead of the vote that they had safety concerns, and those concerns were not addressed, prompting more than half of the 22 children who attend the preschool to be withdrawn.

"They were not concerned about the person going into sanctuary," she said. "They were concerned about people against the idea of sanctuary doing something to the location. It was more outside concern."

The school is not affiliated with the church but leases space in the building.

Rev. Kelly Dignan disputed the claim that the concerns of the school and parents were not listened to, saying school officials were notified in July of the congregation's plans.

She added that the school had already been discussing whether its location at the church was working for the school's business model and whether it was sustainable for it financially to remain.

"We wish them all the best in their other location," Dignan said. "Our congregation will continue to offer big, courageous love in a world that would have us feel paralyzed by fear."

Argow Heaton added that about six families said they were keeping their kids enrolled at the school regardless of its status as a sanctuary, but she did not have the exact number on Friday.

In a letter to parents, Argow Heaton offered parents the opportunity to move their children to the school's Louisville location but said that keeping the school open had become financially untenable.

The sanctuary program falls under the Metro Denver Sanctuary Coalition, an umbrella organization of which UUCB is a part of, and anyone who takes sanctuary at the church would already be involved in the coalition and be thoroughly vetted beforehand.

Church officials stated previously that the church considers offering sanctuary to be a religious duty that springs from various religious texts but also from moments in American history, such as the Underground Railroad, when slaves who escaped their masters were funneled north, and the modern immigrant sanctuary movement, which has its roots in the 1980s.

Dignan said the church has started work to upgrade security at the building and prepare it for what will currently be one person at a time.

Aaron Simmons currently has one child who attends the school and said that the church placed school administrators in an untenable position because it would be impossible for the business to remain open without students.

Simmons was on the fence on whether to keep his child enrolled at the school but said some parents had concerns about how people taking sanctuary at the church would be vetted.

"That wasn't an issue for me," he said. "My worry, and I felt like no one articulated this, the church is doing civil disobedience and there is nothing legal about it. If that's a risk the church wants to take, that's fine, but they are roping our kids into it. I feel like that was unacceptable."

Church leaders, though, counter that their offering of sanctuary is a legal act.

"We are open and honest with the authorities regarding our activities and intentions and the fact that we feel we are performing our religious duty," Dignan said.

EM

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