Letter to Editor: Greenwich Needs a 'Pre-school Innovation Lab'

To the editor,

If the Board of Education is going to cram all of its Title 1 students--giving them no school choice--into its three low performing schools then the Town of Greenwich should be required to provide an outstanding, top-notch, dynamic, cutting-edge, outdoor-rich preschool environment for the same cost ($1,048 a year) it charges non-resident teachers’ children who are lucky to get into the current lottery-driven program.

Citizens like Mr. Robert Kalinski and Mrs. Sharon Kalinski would be the advisors of this public preschool along with Ms. Deanna Novak, Samantha Lusher, Dawn Fortunato, Leslie Yager and Mary Basso.

This “preschool innovation lab” should be the top preschool--hands down--in our Town and State, the crown jewel of early childhood education’s best practices. This preschool would recruit expert leaders in the field of ESL, family literacy, a strong home-school cooperative model.

In three to five years, we would see the eventual closing of the achievement gap in Greenwich. But, the Town’s preschool must be the best of the best and only admit children and siblings of children “stuck” in New Lebanon, Hamilton Avenue and Julian Curtiss. Bank of America and Pepsi could kick off support with a donation of $500,000 by January 1, 2016. American companies want diversity.

The preschool teachers of this program will have to be the best and brightest, no $10.00 an hour workers, no short-cuts, no teaching assistants who would rather sit around and gab. These are our future ambassadors, our Town’s greatest treasure.

I am not sure where it should be located other than Central Greenwich.

I have looked at the Greenwich Public Library. I see too much empty space there. Most of the second floor of the Greenwich Public Library is poorly utilized. I also believe that the first floor is not serving Greenwich residents first and foremost. I have told them my concern that there is practically no outreach by trained youth librarians to these public schools, not to mention a branch library in the Title 1 school neighborhoods. But, this, of course, is what happens when you hire leadership and staff that live in Westchester, NY not from Greenwich.

A truly five star library never tires of reaching out in the most innovative ways to the children in the community who read at less than the 49% percentile level. I have seen staff at Bryam Library frown at kids for being too noisy ten too many times. A loft is never a good idea for a children’s room in a public library! Somebody needs to remind them that they are not an art gallery but a public library within 1,000 feet from a Title 1 school.

The Greenwich Public Library seems to be hyper-focused on providing 50 free Internet stations to adults visiting the library from around the tri-state area.

While yes, it is neat to imagine the Town’s public preschool for Title 1 students and their siblings near or in the Greenwich Public Library, a lack of outdoor space is likely too much of an impediment, not to mention security.

Children, to thrive, especially, children who live in cramped apartments or Greenwich’s public housing or Hamilton Avenue’s two-and-three family homes must have a rich, nature-based campus a la Whitby campus. Yes, this is what is good enough for these kids!

When the Board of Education truly commits to providing Greenwich’s Title 1 families with an outstanding Pre-K3 through transitional Kindergarten education; when the Greenwich Public Library decides to put kids first before Candy Crush access, we will then become a five star town, worthy of a front page spread in Fairfield Magazine.

Jodi Weisz, MLIS

Greenwich