‘You want the best for them:' Bronx parents frustrated preschool set to close in December

Parents are urging that a Bronx preschool set to close in December to be kept open until at least the end of the school year.

News 12 Staff

Oct 13, 2022, 12:20 AM

Updated 571 days ago

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Parents are urging that a Bronx preschool set to close in December to be kept open until at least the end of the school year.
Melissa McDonald says her 3-year-old son Julian is excited to come to the Sheltering Arms Harriet Tubman Early Childhood Education Center every day and that it feels like home for him.
She says she feels blessed he attends their first-choice preschool but doesn't know what to do next year when it closes.
“It's difficult, especially when your children are acclimating over here and you know you want the best for them and now you don't know what's going to happen,” McDonald says.
Parents say they were notified a few weeks ago that the Sheltering Arms Harriet Tubman Early Childhood Education Center was closing at the end of December.
The school told News 12 it’s closing due to lack of funding from New York City government contracts.
The Department of Education says they're doing their best to support schools financially. They say the school told them under enrollment last year hurt them financially.
Sheltering Arms is working with families to help them find another school.
“I'm a working mom, it's convenient for me. I get up, grab my baby…he goes to school, I go to work,” says parent Brittany Medina.
Medina says the location isn't just easy, her son Avion also loves the school. She says he will be crushed to hear he can't return in January.
“He loves the environment being around other kids, he's learning a lot, he's reading a lot,” Medina says.
Parents launched a Change.org petition to call on the DOE to save early childhood centers.
McDonald says she'll keep fighting.
“The DOE has to help us at least for the end of the year, keep these kids in school,” she says.
More than 100 families will be looking for a new school after it closes at the end of the year.


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