A wonderful Nursery School
in Our Neighborhood

There is something to be said for doing things the old fashioned way. I have been walking my daughters to preschool at the Ellwanger Barry Nursery School (EBNS) for over two years. It is located in the basement of the South Presbyterian Church, on the corner of Fort Hill Terrace and East Henrietta Road. EBNS has existed, in one form or another, as a cooperative nursery school over the past thirty years.
Being a cooperative means that each family is involved in the existence and function of the school in some way, big or small. We like to think of it as a spectrum of involvement with big and small jobs for all different kinds of family schedules/needs.
	As part of the EBNS parent board, we are having to visit the question: “how does a cooperatively-run school exist and compete in this time with universal pre-kindergarten, an abundance of good pre-schools such as the one at the Strong Museum, and busy working parents?”
We are surviving because of a few key factors. Our community. We are a small school with just twelve children per class. By November, most of the families know one another and the children by first name. When babies are born, meals are arranged; when children are ill, others step in to help in the classroom or with a ride. This is my third year in this community and it has been easy to make connections with other parents. Another reason we can keep our enrollment up is our teacher and the learning environment he has built. His name is Tom Moore; he has worked with children for over 20 years and he has created a beautiful atmosphere of love, socialization, and fun for the children. EBNS is not the type of place where you will find children being drilled in letters and numbers. But, you will observe a number line stretching along an entire wall where the children are counting which day of school it is. I think we are at 117. And you will also observe other things in the classroom like a compost bin, a worm box with corn growing in it, an entire room for imaginary play and another room with a climbing structure, in which the children spend time every day.
	Tom’s philosophy incorporates seasonal activities too; children used a hand mill to grind corn and then bake corn cakes in the fall. And this spring, Tom has tapped two of the maple trees on the school playground, and is boiling sap into syrup.
Do three and four year olds really understand all that? Well, the other night my daughter told me that the moon was “waxing” and “a half crescent.” I asked how she knew, and she replied, “Tom taught me.” The school’s philosophy supports a play-based learning environment. The children are also learning about being a part of their own community, how to listen to one another, help each other, what it means to be compassionate, how to be a friend and why that’s important. For more information about EBNS, enrollment, applications, and contact information, please visit our website: www.ebns.org. We still have a few openings for the 2009-2010 school year. Katie Mousaw Irvington Road

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