Aug. 30, 2016 Hannah Wulkan
To address the shortage of pre-K options in Long Island City, Bright Horizons, a Massachusetts-based early education company, has opened an early childhood preschool center at 42-09 28th Street.
The new center, which is just steps away from the Queensboro Plaza MTA station, opened last month, and offers 104 seats for infants through pre-K.
Bright Horizons uses what’s referred to as “The World at Their Fingertips” curriculum, which “aligns our preschool program goals and practices with families’ expectations of educational excellence,” according to Bright Horizons Regional Manager Michelle Picard.
“Our preschool program is filled with investigation, exploration, and discovery, where active and enthusiastic children can refine and expand their skills and knowledge,” she added.
The director of the new Long Island City center, Cidney Bunson, hopes to emphasize the interior design and open spaces that it provides its young students.
“Bright Horizons provides a welcoming environment for children to grow and learn to be happy to come to school,” Brunson said.
The new center has a “Movement Matters Zone,” allowing children to get daily exercise and to “establish positive attitudes at an early age towards physical activity and its benefits,” she added.
The new facility also provides programs such as art, music and cooking.
“These early days are a time of remarkable growth, when children are experiencing rapid development, learning new skills, and progressing steadily toward physical, linguistic, and social-emotional milestones,” Bright Horizons Regional Manager Michelle Picard said.
She added that working with children through this extremely sensitive time in their lives is “both a privilege that Bright Horizons values, and a responsibility we take seriously.”
The opening of the new Bright Horizons center comes on the heels of a campaign by the Gantry Parent Association (GPA) that successfully led to the addition of universal pre-K seats in the area.
More than a hundred students were wait listed at the PS 78 pre-K program after round-one of applications, although spots have now been found for these children in the area following strong GPA lobbying.
The GPA received almost 1,000 signatures on a petition it launched in May demanding more pre-K seats in the neighborhood.
Since opening the doors of the new Bright Horizons center, “We’ve had a great reception from the community, and are even more excited to work with a lot of the buildings and companies in Long Island City,” Brunson noted.
Brunson said since the center opened a month ago, things are “So far, so good.” She added, “The teachers were very prepped to get the ball rolling, and we’re happy to invite the families in, the children are adjusting very well, and we’re just happy to have some smiling faces in here.”
On a personal note she told the LIC Post, “I’m very happy to be a part of Bright Horizons. I was born and raised in Queens, so it is exciting for me to be a part of this in my hometown, and I hope we will be here for many years.”
Bright Horizons in Long Island City is currently enrolling new students. For more information visit the website at:
http://child-care-preschool.brighthorizons.com/ny/longislandcity/licity/
Note: Bright Horizons is an advertiser with the LIC Post.
Featured Events
21 Comments
LIC This: I will take you up on your offer! Mother has been very busy and she’s walking a little crooked, but I booked you for next Tuesday. Please take care of that fake MRLIC for me as soon as possible!
MRLIC; I can help you with your problem. If you can just book me for one of your Mother’s bodywork sessions for free, I will take care of this joker for you. Us LIC’ers (I say “Lickers”) need to look out for each other!
The FAKE MRLIC wrote he September 5, 2016 post to Frank. He is really being stupid.
The FAKE MRLC wrote the September 5, 10:53 am post to Frank also.
See how easy it is. Anyone can post as another. No password needed. This JOKER figured it out and is hurting me and everyone.
The real MRLIC here posting as OAR.
To Frank, OAR & LIC Resident. The FAKE MRLIC hijacked my handle MRLIC. He seems to be named Harry Simmons. His last 2 FAKE posts said suck it loser to LIC resident and what he said to OAR. Anyone can copy and post under another’s handle. I have proved this before to another poster. My net post will be under OAR just to show you. WATCH and READ.
I like what OAR said. I don’t want to hear anything new, about development, or those HIPSTERs and 1%ers INVADING this neighborhood. The only things I want to hear about is bowling, union halls, and affordable housing. BOO EVERYTHING ELSE!!!!
Why aren’t these post being blocked? Enough already!!! I would like to read what people who live in the neighborhood have to say, whether I agree with them or not. Why isn’t the administrator of this blog doing something about this? It has become tiresome and childish, grow up. There are many people who live in this neighborhood, some for a long time, pre high-rises, who do not like all the changes that have occurred. That doesn’t give others the right to mock their opinions of what is being built in the neighborhood.
Agree. I’m visiting LIC Post much less because wading through the childish comments is a waste of time.
Suck it, loser… get out of the way of progress, you are wasting space.
Similarly, those old timers have no right to mock new arrivals as “from Ohio”, hipsters, rude, 1%ers, or any of the other insults hurled around here. To be entirely honest, I see the newcomers as eminently better behaved on these fora than the most vocal old timers. Change happens. Get over it.
I agree with you Frank, you be my favorite negro.
Quiero más pistas de bolos.
another FAKE post from The FAKE MRLIC on August 31, 6:18 am. I wish he would just post as (Harry Simmons) MRLIC instead of having people believe he is me.
I cannot tolerate this teasing of my husband anymore! You people get him angry with your bowling comments that he just won’t stop talking about it. All I hear is “The fake mrlic…..” or ” I’ll expose that…” from the moment I wake every day. Please leave my Harry alone, he already spends too much time bowling and hanging out with exotic dancers and it would be nice that the 10 minutes he spends with me isn’t talking about the fake mrlic.
This is the real MRLIC and all the posts prior to this one are FAKE and inline with my beliefs. The FAKE MRLIC really gets me, just maybe we are separated brothers from a young age.
Now Harry Simmons (MRLIC) is caalling his own MRLIC posts FAKE. I did not write the MRLIC post at 3:38 pm. He is calling his own posts FAKE. Can you believe this guy???????????????
The JOKER is at it again with his post August 30, 2016 3:38pm. It isn’t that I don’t like educated people, we need more meat sticks in society to pick up dog poop and pay $3,500 for studio apartments.
The JOKER is at it again with his post August 30, 2016 2:08pm. We don’t need another 1%er luxury nursery school. I learned everything I needed to know in the street and behind bowling alleys.
Once again, I’ve said this several times…. We need no stop investing monies to educating small children. We need stupid people in this world to clean my apartment, mow my lawn and give me my sponge bath. Educating non-whites just complicates society.