Dear Parents,
Please read the below article in
The New York Times about the
potential closing of The Little Room preschool.
The Little Room is
part of Brooklyn Heights Montessori school and is one of
the best
preschool programs in the country for children with special
needs.
My nephew Sam has attended The Little Room for the past year and
a
half. While he will phase out of it at the end of the school year,
I
still feel it is important to help Brooklyn Heights Montessori see
the
value and need for this program.
The care and attention that Sam
has received while a student of The
Little Room has been exceptional and the
strides he has made with
their help, life-changing. Few programs like this
exist in our
communities and they are vitally important to the families that
use them.
Brooklyn Heights Montessori included no families from The
Little Room
in their task force to explore the program’s future. The families
of
students have been mobilizing to work with the school to implement
an
approach that will keep the program running but the school has yet
to
decide if they will indeed keep The Little Room open.
Please, if
you feel strongly about this, if you support local families
with children
with special needs and certainly if you are a Brooklyn
Heights Montessori
family that sees the value of keeping this program
part of your school,
contact the school and let them know. The Board
of Trustees is meeting this
Tuesday, December 16th to vote on the
future of The Little Room:
Send emails to:
Chair
of the Board of Trustees Helene Banks
hbanks(at)cahill(dot)com
Head of
Brooklyn Heights Montessori Dane Peters
dpeters(at)bhmsny(dot)org
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/14/education/14preschool.html
This is an amazing program, that has been around for nearly 40 years. The
changes that I have seen in my child and in
other children there have been nothing short of
miraculous. The teachers and therapists at this school are of the highest
caliber, and are among the most kind, caring, dedicated people that I have
ever known. For those who have tried to access special education services
in Brooklyn and the New York City area, you may be aware of how hard it
is to find services and how few services are available for our kids.
Yet these early preschool years are so important in helping our children catch
up developmentally, and can have a lifelong impact! This program provides
evaluations and related services such as speech therapy, occupational therapy,
physical therapy, and counseling for many children throughout Brooklyn, not just
for the preschoolers who attend the program. So the unnecessary closing of
this program would affect many children in the New York area who need the help
the most.
private school, and that they have the option to kick us out if they choose
to. We are asking as a community that they at least give us some
time, at least till the end of summer 2010, to make a transition, save the
program, and find a new site or sponsoring agency. There is great interest
in saving this program and other agencies that are interested, if they will
just give us the time as opposed to simply destroying the program. Please,
if you care about saving services for children, support the children of
Brooklyn as Jody suggested, by sending an email to:
hbanks AT cahill DOT
com
Head of Brooklyn Heights Montessori Dane Peters
dpeters AT bhmsny DOT
org
on widely, and to other Brooklyn parent lists if you are on them.