The impending closure of the Little Room has brought about several efforts to keep it open long enough for it to find a suitable new home. A petition can be signed at Save the Little Room to ask the Brooklyn Heights Montessori School (BHMS) to keep the Little Room open for the next year, in order to give it more time to find a new sponsor. A letter from Senator Daniel Squadron and Assembly Member Joan Millman to the Chair of BHMS’s Board of Directors urges the Board to take one of two paths: to extend the Little Room’s termination date from August 2010 to August 2011, or to allow YAI (the organization that is currently trying to take over the program in the face of many prohibitive obstacles) to operate the Little Room beginning September 2010 in its current location at BHMS. For more information, read the recent coverage from the New York Times and the Post.
The Little Room fights to stay open
Parents fight to keep the Little Room open
We’ve been covering the fate of the Little Room – the Brooklyn Heights Montessori school program for special needs preschool-aged children – for over a year now, and we last reported that the program would remain part of the school until August 2010, with hopes of it finding a new home. Now in the last half of this school year, parents of Little Room students have written a letter to Dane Peters, the Brooklyn Heights Montessori School Headmaster, and Helene Banks, Chair of the Board of Trustees. The letter explains the current situation, which is that the Little Room is more or less at the end of the line in terms of having all approvals necessary to get a new adopting agency, and a space ready, for September 2010 for the 2010-2011 school year. There is a potential and very interested adopter but there has not been ample time to find a new space, so more time is needed. This additional time requires speedy state approval, or the Brooklyn Heights Montessori School extending their own deadline.
The following letter was signed by 33 past and present Little Room families, and was sent on Sunday evening. Continue Reading →
Little Room to relocate despite Montessori expansion
Back in December 2008, we covered the Brooklyn Heights Montessori School’s decision to remove the Little Room, a program for special needs 3 and 4-year-olds, from its Bergen Street campus. The decision was made to keep the Little room open until August 2010, until it would be moved to join a different organization, which, according to the Brooklyn Paper, will possibly be the League Treatment Center, a center in DUMBO for children and adults with autism and other disabilities.
Brooklyn Paper: The planned expansion into the historic brick firehouse, as well as the takeover of the Little Room’s space, was a grim reminder for parents that the program will only remain in the Montessori School for this coming school year.
Some worry that future students will lose the developmental benefits that come from being around mainstream classes if they’re housed only in a special-education environment.
“It’s very disheartening,” said Joyce Creidy, the mother of twins graduating this summer from the Little Room. “The Little Room is in a nice space in a real school. The League [Treatment Center] is more of an institutionalized setting.”
The Little Room to stay open
The Brooklyn Paper reports that the Brooklyn Heights Montessori School’s Little Room program will stay open through August 2010. In the interim, the school will look for another institution to take over the program, which will not be enrolling any new 3-year-olds next fall. The news brings relief to the worried parents of Little Room students, who discovered the program was in jeopardy last week.
NY1 covers the Brooklyn Heights Montessori School
NY1 interviewed parents outside of the Brooklyn Heights Montessori School on Court Street today, when the decision regarding the Little Room’s future will be determined by its board of trustees. Video of the interviews can be found here. The decision is expected to be announced tomorrow morning.
Fate of Montessori School’s Little Room to be determined on Tuesday
The Sunday Times reports that the future of The Little Room program of the Brooklyn Heights Montessori School will be decided on Tuesday, when the school’s board of trustees votes on whether to move the Little Room (currently located at the intersection of Court and Bergen Streets) or to close it down. The 28-year-old program serves preschool-aged children with speech and language delays. In addition to providing a specialized curriculum to its 27 students, the Little Room offers several therapeutic services and counseling to preschool- and elementary-aged children.
“It’s heartbreaking because there’s nothing else like it around here,” said Kara Bohnenstiel, an artist whose 3-year-old son, Myat Haggart, is one of nine children who had been expected to stay in the program for another year. “I don’t know what we will do if they close it. There’s not going to be time to find another place for one oddball year.”
Dane L. Peters, the head of school, said that the Little Room does not fit in with Brooklyn Heights Montessori’s future plans, and that the school has been filling a gap between the program’s expenses and reimbursements from the state. Tuition for special education students is free.
“It is extremely difficult because there’s an inherent culture in this school to embrace diversity,” Mr. Peters said. “But the trustees have to look to the long-term sustainability of the school, and if the school is to grow and thrive, it sometimes is confronted by challenging decisions.”
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