City gives reprieve to popular preschool

The Education Department has agreed to provide funding to the Riverdale Nursery School, its director said, after officials initially denied an application for city financing from the school that serves an integrated community of special needs and regular students. 

Susan Smelin, the program director at the Riverdale Nursery School, said the Education Department has approved her school’s bid for city-funded Universal Pre-K program, reversing its initial decision. 

“Staff and parents are really thrilled because they were concerned about the school being able to attract enrollment in the younger grades as well,” she told The Press. “We have gotten a lot of phone calls from families who have had to leave our school because there wasn’t Universal Pre-K… they have called about coming back.”

A number of local politicians appealed to the city on behalf of the Riverdale Nursery School while Smelin and her students awaited a decision from education officials.

“By enrolling the cherished institution into the city’s Pre-K For All program… children, including ones with special needs, will continue to receive the education they deserve and need to excel throughout their childhood,” state Senator Jeffrey Klein said in a statement on Jan. 30. “I’m proud that the private nursery school can now offer a free integrated education for certain students who otherwise may not have been able to afford it.”

Smelin said she thinks the support of Klein and others like Assemblyman Jeffrey Dinowitz and Councilman Andrew Cohen helped convince Education Department officials the city-funded Pre-K program was much-needed at Riverdale Nursery School. 

“The local politicians were great,” she said. “I believe they [education officials] probably listened to what the politicians had to say on our behalf, but they didn’t give an exact reason why they had changed their mind.”

Smelin said the 10-year-old program was founded to serve families with young children whose specific needs cannot be met by other nursery schools. 

Riverdale Nursery School has on-site psychologists and support staff to help integrate its roughly 30 percent of children who have special needs, making it the only school in the area that offers that type of programming, according to Smelin. 

“I believe the DOE saw that we were offering seats to a bit of a different population,” she said. 

Another local school also saw its application for pre-K funding was initially denied this year. 

The Amalgamated Nursery School nearly lost its UPK funding despite offering Pre-K For All as long as it has been available.  In that case, local politicians also swooped in to the school’s aid. 

In both cases the schools were initially told there was not enough demand in the area to justify keeping or opening Universal Pre-K seats there.