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Jewish Community News
News: December 2006
Temple Emanu-El Preschool honored for supporting children
with special needs
Cecily Ruttenberg
On Tuesday morning at Temple Emanu-El Preschool, 11 four-year-old voices belt out Hamotzi from the carpet, where they sit in a circle before their teacher, Dawn Escobedo. After the song, all of the children but one walk to the sink to wash their hands for snack. Four-year-old Lola is lifted to her feet by a young woman, and helped over to the sink; she is then helped to a chair alongside her classmates.
Lola Moorhead is one of nine children with special needs currently attending
Temple Emanu-El Preschool, which has 91 children enrolled. Lola does not
have a formal diagnosis, but has a movement delay whereby she cannot walk
or keep herself safe from falling. Other children at the school have special
needs ranging from autism, to feeding tubes to severe allergies.
While Temple Emanu-El Preschool, launched in 2001, was not designed specifically
for children with special needs, its openness, and willingness to accommodate
all kinds of children, has drawn families whose children have a variety
of special needs. Last month, the preschool was awarded a “Community
Resource of the Year Award,” from the San Andreas Regional Center,
which serves children and adults with special needs.
“We really just try to take in the child,” said Preschool
Director Barbara Smead. “I really treat everyone of them like an
individual, special needs or not.”
In the case of Lola Moorhead, the school has made a few accommodations
that Smead says they were happy to make. For example, children typically
walk up a flight of steps to reach the playground for outside time. Rather
than send Lola alone with an adult up the elevator and through the temple
to reach the playground, Smead decided Lola’s entire class would
go up the elevator together.
“Barbara and Dawn made the decision that the whole class ‘gets’
to take the elevator; it’s all that frame of mind,” said Moorhead.
“From day one, Lola has felt wanted and loved. They’ve really
reached that delicate balance between meeting her special needs and treating
her like the normal kid she is.”
Moorhead did not receive this same reception everywhere. She visited many
preschools before landing at Temple Emanu-El. While few preschools out
and out said ‘no,’ Moorhead said many schools would discourage
her.
“One school told me they had a very structured program and by the
time Lola got up the hall to the bathroom and toileted, she would have
missed 15 minutes of instruction and they would be on to the next thing,”
Moorhead said.
Another school did not have a special license to care for non-ambulatory
kids. (Temple Emanu-El Preschool also did not have this license when Moorhead
first visited, but they quickly applied and obtained the necessary licensing.)
Other schools simply failed to offer an enthusiastic invitation to Moorhead.
When Moorhead finally visited Temple Emanu-El Preschool, she said she
was very warmly welcomed. “From day one, Barbara was fabulous. It
was more about ‘what are we going to do to accommodate you.”
Moorhead, who sits on the board of the San Andreas Regional Center, nominated
the preschool for the Community Resource of the Year Award, and the preschool
won. “They need to know here that what they do on a daily basis
is above and beyond,” said Moorhead.
Parents of typically developing children at Temple Emanu-El Preschool
have been very supportive of the children with special needs. “I
love it for the diversity,” said Jenny Shain, whose three-year-old
son Gabriel attends the preschool. “Lola is not put up as ‘here’s
our special friend,” she’s just a kid.”
The number of children with special health considerations has grown dramatically
in the past decade. Today, one in every six children has some kind of
special health consideration ranging from learning disability to medical
needs to developmental disability, according to Parents Helping Parents,
a local, non-profit agency supporting children and families with special
needs.
For more information about Temple Emanu-El preschool call (408) 293-8660.
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