WHAT'S GOING ON NOW:

SPECIAL CITATION

Their Specialty: Special Needs
At West End Day, individualized attention with a goal of mainstreaming

Though it is just yards from the bustle of Broadway, the West End Day School, tucked on calm 71st Street, is a beacon of serenity. A kindergarden to sixth grade school for children who experience learning and social difficulties, West End Day provides a nurturing, supportive environment for those who need it most.

When students enter West End Day, they participate in a collaborative effort with teachers, social workers and parents to isolate what Director Roland Ostrower calls “the general core issue”—essentially, what is troubling or impeding the child.

“We have to get at it with every kid,” Ostrower says. “There’s usually an overlapping of threads that gives you a sense of what the core issue is.”

Once the core issue is determined, the student’s curriculum is individually designed to his or her particular needs. With a patient, caring and qualified faculty comprised of licensed special education teachers, social workers and speech, language, music and occupational therapists, as well as art and physical education teachers,West End Day is well equipped to deal with a wide range of difficulties.

“The individualized curriculums give students the feeling that people really care about them,” says Director of Admissions Nancy Nasr. “We want them to know that we are all interested in their development as positive participants in a group—as good listeners, good learners and good socializers.”

West End Day also ensures that its students get a solid foundation in the core academic subjects of reading,writing and math. There are approximately three students for every teacher in the academic subjects, allowing each child to receive the attention necessary to learn at his or her own pace. There are no grades at West End Day.

But what really sets the school apart is its welcoming atmosphere and the involvement of the students in their own education. As Ostrower puts it, “We’re really allied with the students so that the student sees that you’re not against him because of his quote unquote ‘failings.’ He feels that he has nothing to hide, which goes a long way toward addressing some of the underlying problems that these children struggle with.”

West End Day sets out to create a mainstream-like atmosphere by providing activities like field trips and extremely popular after-school programs.

“We want kids to have all the things that they have at mainstream schools,” says Carrie Catapano, clinical head of the school’s social workers. “We want them to know that they’re really not that much different from other kids.”

The goal of West End Day is to ultimately return children to a mainstream general education school by the time they graduate. On average, they are able to do so within three years, although there is no hard and fast timetable for a child’s progress: it can take as short as one year and as long as seven.

At the heart of the West End Day experience are its social workers. Each child is assigned one social worker who oversees the curriculum and academic and emotional progress. “The social workers are the hub around which the wheel of the school revolves,” Nasr says. “In a sense, the social worker is akin to a primary care physician.”

West End Day traces its lineage back to 1917, when the Godmother’s League of New York opened a day nursery program for children of working mothers. In 1985, after a reexamination of needs,West End Day assumed its present form as a school for children with special needs.

Most students are from Manhattan, but it draws enrollees from all across the area who arrive in small vans.

Although it faces the same spatial scarcity as any school in Manhattan,West End Day does not feel small. Its many nooks and crannies give the impression that the space is larger than it actually is.

But it still maintains an intimate feel, and that is the point. “Everyone knows what’s going on,” Ostrower says. “You don’t have to hide your problems and worries.”

- Greg Hanlon