It looks like the Brooklyn Heights Montessori School, located at 185 Court Street, has started construction on it's new expansion wing. Back in 2009 the school purchased an old fire patrol station at 12 Dean Street that had closed down years prior for $1.9 million, according to the cobblehillblog.com The inside looks pretty bare bones right now but a crew was hard at work when we passed by it last week (see pictures above and below). The expansion is said to allow the school 40 to 50 new students and the hopeful estimated opening was to be this year. We'll see though. It seems that there's a lot to be done still. Below is a little history about the firehouse that was printed in the Eagle a couple years back.
“The Brooklyn firehouse was, in fact, one of three remaining fire fighting operations of what was once a large network belonging to the New York Board of Fire Underwriters. Fire Patrol members acted as an auxiliary force in the city for over 200 years…Despite its union’s claim that it saved $80 million worth of assets annually, the consortium of insurance companies that paid for its operation, decided it was too costly to maintain and voted to disband the last three units of the Fire Patrol in 2006."
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Let us not forget that BHMS purchased this building the same year that they kicked out "The Little Room" (an award winning pre school program for children with disabilities) for alleged "budgetary" and "financial" reasons, not even giving the program enough time to find a new home before their expulsion. I hope that the BHMS president and board members sleep well at night knowing that their expensive and luxurious expansion was paid for by expelling disabled pre scholers. Well done BHMS! Way to teach your students diversity, tolerance, empathy and compassion.
ReplyDeleteMG- lets give the BHMS parents a break. Figure 80% of them wanted to get their kids into Packer or St Ann's, and couldn't get them in, so their thin veneer of superiority os wearing thin to begin with, and lets not forget this is a VERY COMPETITIVE world out there, and hey, if I can fork over $30,000 and PRETEND I'm a nice Bkln Hgts liberal, and live in a fantasy land that Head of School Dane and that Evil Chairwoman of the Board are actually decent human beings, rather than people who lied to the Little Room Parents, and somehow justified their tossing out the LR kids, whom they had used to make it appear they were somehow following the Montessori model.. poor Old Maria M must be turning over in her grave...
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately, the BHMS parents were and are complicit in what the Board and Dane did kicking out the Little Room. They could have stopped it, or at least demanded it be handled in a way that would have given the program enough time to find a new home/sponsor so it could have continued. But I believe they were just too scared that their own kids would get kicked out. Inaction like this always comes back to haunt you in some way - perhaps when their own child is "not invited back" next year because of handwriting delays, or a speech problem, or your sister or friend has a child with a learning disability and can't find a school spot for them because all the programs were eliminated, as this one was. What goes around, comes around.
ReplyDeleteVery nice Montessori school this is beneficial for children and these location are beautiful.Montessori Schools
ReplyDeletethanks for posting
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