About

The Little Room is a high quality special needs education program for pre-schoolers located within the Brooklyn Heights Montessori School in Brooklyn, NY. Sadly, the future of the program is in jeopardy and this blog was created by a group of concerned parents who wish to inform the public of its value and insure its ongoing existence.

What is the Little Room?

The Little Room is an award winning education program that serves 27 special needs children in 3 classrooms each year – ranging from those with speech and language delays to those on the autism spectrum. It evaluates many more children from the greater community to determine whether they need “related services” like speech therapy, occupational therapy, and physical therapy, and also provides services to a number of those children. The Little Room program was founded in 1970 by the Brooklyn Heights Montessori School.

Why does the Brooklyn Heights Montessori School want to close the Little Room program?

Precisely why BHMS wants to end its affiliation with the Little Room remains unclear: the school has offered different reasons at different points in time. Parents of children served by the Little Room learned in December 2008 that BHMS was planning to vote on whether to close the program at the end of the 2008-09 school year. Although parents – once they learned of the impending closure vote – were allowed to read (but not have a copy of) a report of a “task force” that had been meeting to discuss the future of the Little Room (the existence of the task force had not previously been made public), that report did not explicitly discuss the immediate closure of the program.

Hasn’t everyone known for a while of BHMS’ plans to close the Little Room in August 2010 if a new sponsor is not found?

After learning in December 2008 of plans to close the Little Room in the summer of 2009, Little Room parents worked quickly together with the help of elected officials and others, and, under pressure, BHMS agreed to allow limited additional time – less than a year – for the Little Room to find a new sponsoring institution and navigate the state regulatory bureaucracy to get approval of the program’s transfer to a new sponsor. Elected officials and others told the school at that time that this would not be enough time, but that was all the time the school was willing to give.

Isn’t the problem that the State Education Department won’t approve the transfer of the Little Room to the new sponsor?

Despite claims from leadership at BHMS that the State Education Department will not approve the transfer of the Little Room to a sponsor that was located in October 2009, elected officials – including Assemblywoman Millman’s office and State Senator Squadron’s office – and others involved in the negotiations process disagree. They think that, with another year at BHMS, differences could be worked out, and the Little Room program could be saved. Recognizing the extraordinary loss to the community that the loss of the Little Room would represent, they are working hard with the State Education Department and the potential new sponsor, YAI, to allow the transfer to happen.

Isn’t the problem with the new sponsor, YAI, and what it is willing to do?

Although YAI expressed an interest in adopting the Little Room early in 2009, BHMS first chose another institution as a potential sponsor, and only returned to YAI in late September 2009 after negotiations with that first potential sponsor fell through. YAI has since been diligently working with the state and elected officials to allow the program to be adopted in a manner that would preserve what makes the program special. This process has only been ongoing since approximately October 2009 and is very much still an active process.

Why does BHMS need the space immediately?

BHMS has not made clear what, precisely, it needs the space for, and why it needs that space starting in September 2010. If the school discussed its needs openly, perhaps all involved could work together to meet those needs and allow the continued existence of a much needed and widely respected program serving special needs children in Brooklyn.

What can I do to help?

You can add your voice to the multitude of voices asking BHMS to give the Little Room another year to negotiate the regulatory process and effectuate the its transfer to a new sponsor. Elected officials have asked to extend the program for another year. Local preschool directors that rely on the program to provide therapies to local students have also asked the school to provide more time. A petition you can sign is available here. You can also speak to parents you know at BHMS and ask them to support efforts to save the Little Room, by signing the petition and by talking directly to the school’s leadership about the need to do everything possible to save this incredible program.

From the BHMS Family Handbook 2009-10:

The Little Room and Related Services

Brief History
The Little Room is the special education program within the Brooklyn Heights Montessori School. The program was established in 1970 when Joyce Rashap, the Educational Director of BHMS, identified a need in the community to serve youngsters with speech and language deficits. Ms. Rashap encouraged the BHMS Board of Trustees to initiate a special education classroom, stating, “We have never wanted to be just another nursery school.” Ms. Rashap believed that the Montessori Method was ideally suited to educate students with different learning styles. Indeed, Dr. Maria Montessori did her first educational work with children with learning disabilities. Initially, our program consisted of one modified Montessori preschool class called “The Little Room.” From the start, The Little Room and Preschool classes participated in mainstreaming activities together.

Over the years our program has grown and diversified, but our primary goal remains the same: to provide an excellent language based program within a modified Montessori classroom. Students in special education and mainstream classes participate together in informal settings (such as the daily playground experience) as well as more structured activities (such as classroom visits and Community Service).

Little Room SEIT/Related Services Program
In 1993, the New York City Board of Education and the New York State Education Department created the Special Education Itinerant Teacher (SEIT)/Related Services Program. The program was created to provide more possibilities for children with special needs to receive support while remaining in a mainstream classroom. The Little Room became one of the first programs in New York City to be awarded New York State and Board of Education approval for provision of these services, and in 1993 we began to serve children within these programs. Our families come from neighboring Brooklyn communities and lower Manhattan. The children we work with range in age from 3 years to young teenagers.

The SEIT/RS Program has always functioned as an extension of our center-based program in its philosophy and approach to working with children and their families. Indeed, many of our providers have worked or still work within The Little Room center-based program as well.

Mainstream Visits
Since its inception, BHMS has made a commitment to mainstreaming activities between The Little Room and Preschool students. Children participate together in informal settings (such as the daily playground experience) as well as more structured activities (such as classroom visits facilitated by a special education teacher and our sing-alongs). Our experience has shown us that mainstreaming supports all children in learning from a more diverse peer group and helps children to develop empathy for others.