Posts Tagged ‘Helene Banks’

Mr. Dane Peters
Ms. Helene Banks
Brooklyn Heights Montessori School
185 Court Street
Brooklyn, NY 11201

Dear Dane and Helene,

I write, once again, to urge you to help our community save The Little Room. As you both know, the services rendered by this very important program reach well beyond the twenty-seven students enrolled. Many families enrolled at Plymouth Church School use the team at The Little Room to conduct evaluations and provide services to their children who are in need of early intervention.

Downtown Brooklyn is bursting with young families. I know that your growth is providing necessary educational space for young children. It does sound, however, that The Little Room is close to finding a new sponsor. It is my hope that BHMS will make every effort to keep The Little Room alive.

Yours sincerely,

Gail Rose
Director, Plymouth Church School
plymouthchurch.org/plymouth_church_school.php

The Little Room is a high quality special needs education program for pre-schoolers located within the Brooklyn Heights Montessori School (BHMS) in Brooklyn, NY. Sadly, the program is being closed by BHMS 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. Please consider signing the following petition asking BHMS to allow The Little Room another year to move to a new sponsor.

cforms contact form by delicious:days

Ms. Helene Banks
Chair, Board of Directors
Brooklyn Heights Montessori School
185 Court Street
Brooklyn, NY 11201

Dear Ms. Banks:

We, the undersigned, are concerned citizens writing to respectfully implore you to consider extending by one year the date by which the Little Room needs to find a new home.

We understand that the Brooklyn Heights Montessori School Board of Trustees has concluded that there is no chance that the Little Room can be saved even if an extension is granted. Many parents, educators, and politicians unaffiliated with the Little Room have stated that they believe that the universally-admired special needs program has a chance of survival if YAI (an organization that already operates seven preschools for special needs children in New York City and is seeking to become the Little Room’s new sponsor) and the Little Room community are allowed more time to overcome the regulatory hurdles.

As State Assemblywoman Joan Millman’s chief of staff Paul Nelson, who has been involved with negotiations with the state, says, “At this point, the ball is really in Brooklyn Heights Montessori’s court.” “We’ve tried to do too much in too short a time and we need another year, and they’ve refused to consider it. We’re going to keep asking them.”

It seems clear to us that if more time is granted to allow navigation of the bureaucratic hurdles then there is at least a chance that the Little Room program can be saved. In order to keep even the small possibility of an acclaimed social service program with widespread support and plaudits alive, we respectfully ask you to grant the Little Room program an additional year to find a new home.

In an economy as harsh as any we’ve ever lived through with budget cuts looming at the federal, state and local levels, we’re hoping that BHMS will agree that we should make every effort to support critical social service initiatives in our community. The program’s value is beyond dispute. Please help make every effort to save it. Thank you for your kind consideration.

The New York Post recently ran a story on the letter written by State Senator Daniel Squadron, Assemblywoman Joan Millman and Councilmembers Steve Levin and Brad Lander which outlined some options on how to help save The Little Room.

The letter suggests two options for saving the school.

One calls for BHMS to extend the deadline for closing Little Room to August 2011. This, the elected officials said, would give YAI Network “ample time to complete all of the necessary paperwork and to identify and properly prepare a new home” for Little Room beginning in September 2011.

The second option is for BHMS to allow YAI to operate Little Room in its current location at the Montessori school next academic year. YAI would rent the space and use the extra time to find a permanent site.

BHMS, however, is not budging. [NYPost.com]

On January 28, 2010, State Sen. Daniel Squadron, Assemblywoman Joan Millman and Councilmembers Steve Levin and Brad Lander wrote the following letter to Helene Banks, Chair of The Board of Trustees of BHMS.

View the PDF version of this letter here.

Ms. Banks:

When the Board of Directors of the Brooklyn Heights Montessori School decided in December 2008 to end its long and mutually beneficial relationship with the highly acclaimed Little Room Program, the Board established a deadline that ultimately proved to be an insufficient amount of time to find a suitable location for the program.

BHMS originally discussed the possibility of transferring the Little Room to YAI’s network of programs last spring. However, it was not until late October that YAI was seriously considered as a possible organization to operate the Little Room. This left YAI only a matter of weeks to locate a space, negotiate a lease and begin a build-out for a September, 2010 opening. YAI Chief Operating Officer Steve Freeman and his team worked tirelessly to accomplish these goals as quickly as possible, but unfortunately the only feasible location proved to be problematic. Specifically, the landlord of this space declined to include a clause within the lease allowing YAI to opt out should they not receive necessary government approvals for the opening of the Little Room. Without this clause, YAI was forced to request that the New York State Education Department (NYSED) depart from its standard protocol and provide a pre-approval of YAI’s Little Room application. Our offices worked hard to obtain this pre-approval, but ultimately NYSED rejected the request.

While we are disappointed by NYSED’s unwillingness to adapt to the circumstances of the Little Room program, this extraordinary request for pre-approval was only made due to challenges specific to this potential space. Given more time, YAI could conduct a wider search and locate a site and a landlord more amenable to the specific requirements of the Little Room. Given how close we are to finding a new home for the Little Room with YAI, an extension of BHMS’ self-imposed termination date for the Little Room is the only possible way to save this exemplary program.

There are two possible options that we would like the Board of Directors to consider: The first option is for BHMS to extend the termination date from August 2010 to August 2011 and operate the Little Room for the next school year. An additional year would provide YAI ample time to complete all of the necessary paperwork and to identify and properly prepare a new home for the Little Room, starting in September 2011.

The second option is for BHMS to allow YAI, beginning in September 2010, to operate the Little Room program in its current location within the BHMS complex. YAI would rent the space for one year as it looks to find a permanent location for the Little Room. This option would also permit YAI to complete the transfer application to NYSED more quickly and with fewer obstacles.

Although the Little Room has many dedicated advocates, at this point its fate rests in the hands of the Board of Directors of BHMS. We hope to have the opportunity to continue working with you to save this vital program.

Thank you for your consideration.

Sincerely,

Daniel Squadron
State Senator
25th District

Joan Millman
Assembly Member
52nd District

Steve Levin
Council Member
33rd District

Brad Lander
Council Member
39th District

There was an article posted on the New York Times City Room Blog yesterday detailing the events surrounding the closure of the Little Room. As Paul Nelson (Assemblywoman Joan Millman’s Chief of Staff) correctly pointed out, we needed another year, and BHMS refused to consider it.

But some parents and elected officials including State Assemblywoman Joan L. Millman and State Senator Daniel L. Squadron, whose districts include Brooklyn Heights, say that the school is not allowing enough time to find a workable space for the Little Room, and is prematurely shutting it down when there are still other options.

“At this point, the ball is really in Brooklyn Heights Montessori’s court,” said Paul Nelson, chief of staff for Ms. Millman. “We’ve tried to do too much in too short a time and we need another year, and they’ve refused to consider it. We’re going to keep asking them.” [NYTimes.com]

Here is the board’s response to our letter of January 11, while they “appreciated our efforts and concern”, their position remains unchanged. From where I stand, this is the final nail in the coffin— it will take something short of a miracle to keep the program alive now.

Dear Little Room Families,

Thank you for your thoughtful letter. It was clearly the product of many hours of work, trying to make sense of a very difficult situation. We appreciate your effort and concern.

First, please know that the letter has been shared with the Board of Trustees, and that the Board has been kept abreast of all the developments you outline. You are correct that the Board was optimistic that a new sponsor would be found, and in fact, The Little Room Transition Task Force did identify two seriously interested, potential sponsors. Unfortunately, the regulatory approvals needed for the second sponsor to move forward have not been forthcoming; and we understand will not be, despite our, their, and counsels’ extensive efforts, and the political outreach of interested elected officials.

As you accurately stated in your letter to us, the regulatory structure sets up a “Catch-22″ for any sponsor. The state requires that a sponsor expend the effort, time, money, and other resources to admit students and ready the space with no preliminary approval, taking the risk that there will be no program for those students and no income to cover the costs. From our close communication with the potential sponsor throughout the process, it became clear that it is a heavy risk for a sponsor to bear and one that can be eliminated only by the State Education Department (SED) granting the pending request for preliminary approval. SED has advised that they believe no such preliminary approval is possible under the existing regulations, and they will not grant the requested exception.

We hope this clarifies for all of you the crux of the problem. The Board has considered the matter fully, and the decision to end BHMS sponsorship of The Little Room in August 2010 remains unchanged.

Thank you again for your continued interest.

Helene Banks, Board Chair
Dane Peters, Head of School

This letter was sent to Dane Peters, the Brooklyn Heights Montessori School headmaster, and Helene Banks, chair of the board of trustees, on Sunday, January 10, 2009. It was co-signed by 33 current and past Little Room families.

It explains the current situation, which is that the Little Room is basically at the end of the line in terms of having all approvals necessary to get a new adopting agency and space ready for the 2010-2011 school year.

There is a potential and very interested adopter for The Little Room, but due to circumstances, the window for them to find a new space has been short; with a bit more time, an appropriate space could be located. A new space for the program would require inordinately fast state approval, or, in the alternative, BHMS could extend its own self-imposed deadline. If neither of these solutions come to fruition, the program will cease to exist next year. As of this writing, we have not yet received a response from the school.

Dear Dane and Helene:

We, the undersigned current and former Little Room parents, are writing to express our deep concern about the future of the Little Room. Specifically, we ask that the BHMS Board reconsider its decision to terminate the Little Room program in August of 2010 and instead allow the Little Room to continue at BHMS for another year.

You will likely respond that the issues regarding the Little Room’s future were extensively debated last winter and that there is no reason to revisit the decision. For a number of reasons, we disagree. In particular, we urge you to consider the following:

1. When the Board made its decision, no Board member believed that his or her vote might be a vote to end the Little Room forever. Indeed, even though a number of elected officials suggested that moving the Little Room would take two years, the Board expressed full confidence that the program would find a new home by the BHMS imposed deadline. Some Board members expressed hope that the Little Room would be able to serve even more students in its theoretical new home. In short, there was nothing but (largely unjustified) optimism from the Board.

Now, however, the situation has changed. The Little Room has been unable to accept students for the 2010-11 school year. If it does not begin to do so in the very near future, it will mean that there can be no program in the next academic year.

The Board members made their decision with confidence that the Little Room would never face extinction. But now extinction is here. Given this new reality, would all Board members now make the same decision they did before? You cannot know unless you ask them.

2. Despite this grim situation, the Little Room has actually made great progress in finding a new sponsor. The YAI Network is, in fact, eager to adopt the program. As State Senator Daniel Squadron and Assembly Member Joan Millman wrote to us, “We were encouraged by YAI’s professionalism and zeal for continuing the Little Room…[Chief Operating Officer Steve] Freeman and his team have demonstrated an incredible commitment to continuing this program.”

Unfortunately, as you are aware, YAI faces a catch-22: it is unable to lay out the money for major renovation of a new space for the Little Room without State Education Department (SED) approval, but SED has been unwilling to approve the facility before it is built out.

What makes this situation even more difficult is the BHMS imposed deadline. Given another year, YAI would have more time to find and renovate suitable space, to work with SED to get the necessary approvals, and to plan an orderly transition for the Little Room. It is unable to do any of this simply because of an artificial deadline imposed by BHMS.

YAI stands ready to achieve the goal that the Board has always claimed to desire. Do Board members want to stop this from happening simply because it cannot be done within the artificial timeline created by BHMS? Again, you cannot know unless you ask them.

3. Throughout this process, both you and other Board members have expressed your love for the Little Room. You have claimed to respect the program and to want to see it thrive for many years to come. We are certain, therefore, that you do not want to see the Little Room end unnecessarily. You have the opportunity to demonstrate your love and respect for the program by giving it the time it needs to complete the process of finding a new home. And in fact, given the situation in which the Little Room finds itself, you are the only ones who can now save it. We respectfully ask you to live by what you so often said and to do the right thing for the program.

We understand that you are eager for the Little Room to move out. Nevertheless, the plans you have for the Little Room’s current space can wait a year. One way or another, BHMS will enjoy many years without the Little Room. But the Little Room has only one chance to survive.

If the Little Room ends, thousands of special needs children will be denied the opportunity to receive an education that can change their lives. Such an outcome is not only completely unnecessary, but also goes against the Montessori philosophy and the school’s expressed commitment to diversity. We are sure this is not what you want your legacy to be.

We are eager to meet with you at your earliest convenience to discuss this situation. We urge you and the Board to reconsider the Little Room’s future at the next scheduled Board meeting. We look forward to hearing from you and discussing how to move forward.

Dane Peters and Helene Banks met with representatives from David Yassky and Yvette Clarke’s office yesterday (January 5) to discuss the impending transition of the Little Room program out of BHMS. Though details from the meeting are scant at this point, apparently the school made a soft commitment to hiring a transition person by January 31, 2009.

Read the full story here.

Time’s Short for Little Room
By Michele De Meglio

The Brooklyn Heights Montessori School will maintain the Little Room program for children with special needs through 2010 – but parents aren’t celebrating.

“I’m not happy. None of us are.,” said Joyce Creidy, whose twin sons are in their second year at Little Room. “It’s unfortunate that they really don’t see future children who this program as being enough.”

Montessori, located at 185 Court Street, agreed to keep the program until August 2010 but next year to accept fewer than in year’s past. The Little would have to find a home before the start of the 2010-2011 school year.
…
[Park Slope Courier]

While this is a good article, I believe there are a few points that require clarification:

1) I’m not sure it’s 100% accurate to say that the Little Room will accept fewer children into the program for the upcoming academic year. There are 19 children aging out of the program this year and I believe it is the intent of the administration at BHMS to have “a full complement of students [next year] to retain the integrity of the program.” (December 17, 2008 email)
2) In the same email, Dane Peters, Head of School at BHMS, informed the community that if a viable alternative location for The Little Room was not found by November 15, 2009, steps would be taken to wind down the program the following summer.
3) Helene Banks, President of the BHMS Board of Trustees, informed the attendees at the public meeting on December 18, 2008 that the Little Room program would consist solely of 4 year olds in the upcoming academic year (2009-2010).

This morning (December 17, 2008) Dane Peters sent a letter to the BHMS community addressing the Board’s recent decision to terminate The Little Room program at the Brooklyn Heights Montessori School in August 2010. There will be a public meeting to discuss this decision on Thursday, December 18 from 7 to 8 pm at BHMS (185 Court Street @ Bergen), all members of the community are encouraged to attend.

Dear Brooklyn Heights Montessori School Community,

The Board of Trustees of the Brooklyn Heights Montessori School met Tuesday, December 16th, to consider the strategic direction of The Little Room Program. The Board has decided that the program will continue at our Court Street home through August 2010, allowing eligible children who entered the program this year to continue. We will seek to admit additional children as appropriate in order to have a full complement of students to retain the integrity of the program.

In addition, the Board will name a Little Room Transition Task Force to determine a new educational institution or other arrangement that would enable the Little Room to continue to provide the same level of exemplary service to children and families it has done for 38 years. In order to provide certainty to families, faculty and staff, if our best efforts have not uncovered a viable alternative by November 15, 2009, we will begin steps to wind down the following summer.

Importantly, the Board has every expectation of success, given the outpouring of support that we have recently witnessed for this excellent program, and the Board’s determination to employ all available resources to find a new home for the Little Room.

I am attaching a letter from Board of Trustees’ President Helene Banks which explains the Board’s decision more fully. I invite you to contact me, as always, if you have questions, and all BHMS community members are welcome to attend our gathering to discuss this important decision tomorrow evening, Thursday, December 18, from 7 to 8 pm, here at the school.

Best regards,
Dane

Visit my blog at http://tinyurl.com/4eyltw

Dane L. Peters
Head of School
Brooklyn Heights Montessori School
185 Court Street
Brooklyn, NY 11201
(718) 858-5100 Ext. 116
(718) 858-0500 fax
www.bhmsny.org