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Mittineague Methodist Community Preschool - History In 1968 the Mittineague Methodist Church moved into a new building at 800 Amostown Road. The church's Commission of Education began to research the idea of opening a nursery school as an outreach to the community and after investigating the need within the community the education board decided to open a Community Nursery School. With no allotted funds, the commission of education held a public chicken pie supper and raised $116.75 for necessary supplies. With an additional loan from the Church, equipment was purchased, a qualified director and two teachers were hired, the facility was approved by state and town, and a doctor pledged to answer emergency calls. The school opened on October 1, 1968 with 11 three-year-olds and 15 four-year-olds. Eleanor Kidd took on the responsibilities of school Treasurer, paying bills, salaries and taxes. The church provided office supplies, postage, telephone and the services of Dottie Johl as church secretary and Walt Hamlin as custodian. In 1974 the director moved out of state and Lura Crowell was hired as the new director. By this time the school had grown to include two classes of four-year-olds and one of three-year-olds (34 children, 3 teachers and the director who also taught arts and crafts). All of the children attended Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday 9:00am to 11:30am. As the school grew it was necessary to add additional classrooms. Two classrooms were added upstairs with space for the director to have an office. In 1989 Mrs Crowell retired and Betsy Klorer became the director. In the fall of that year the school changed from a three day program a week to a four day. The three year olds came two days a week either Tuesday and Thursday or Wednesday and Friday. The four year olds came Tuesday through Friday. Parents wanted to see more days offered and staff wanted more hours. West Springfield started to offer a full day kindergarten program and to help with that transition the school started to offer an extended day program to the fours till 1:00pm. The extended day started off with one class and then grew to two classes and now about 90% of the children attend the extended day. Parents are still given the option of either 11:30am or 1:00pm. The preschool is a licensed program through the state of Massachusetts that is renewed every two years and in addition it is an accredited program through NAEYC that expires in the year 2013. In the fall of 2008 the preschool celebrated its fortieth year. Over those forty years the preschool has only had three directors which shows great dedication to a school of such fine character. |