About Us: Our Mission, VISION, AND HISTORY
Mission statement: To provide authentic Montessori education to children in a year-round childcare environment that supports working families and nurtures Montessori values, principles, and practices in all members of the community.
Vision statement: To set the standard for Montessori education for teachers and families by modeling Montessori practices in a childcare setting for children from infancy through early childhood.
MCC is an authentic Montessori community, applauding the individual and diverse gifts of children and adults. Our classrooms are safe and nurturing environments where the child is allowed to explore and discover his or her unique place in the world. Our Montessori teaching enables us to strive to understand the individual needs of each child in our care, including their physical, social, emotional, intellectual, and spiritual needs, while we create an interdependent community to help generate acceptance of each individual as we mutually nurture and support development.
Our environments are aesthetically designed to invite the child to learn with a full heart, mind, and spirit. We work closely with families to support and nurture the healthy development of children. Our teachers are supported and sustained with ongoing Montessori training and professional development in a warm, familial environment that inspires dedication and personal growth.
As a small, family business, we contribute to the local economy by using local resources and drawing employees and business support from the surrounding area.
Offering the highest quality in childcare and educational services appropriate to the needs of the communities we serve, our program is designed to invite the child to learn with a full heart, mind, and spirit and to support and nurture the parents and teachers who surround each child on their important journey from infancy to early childhood.
Our logo exemplifies the ideals of our Center. We are, at our heart, a Montessori Center, supporting the children in our care at each level of their development—infant, toddler, and early childhood—as they reach their potential. We aim to assist them as they grow toward independence, confidence, and self-esteem and to help each develop a lifelong habit of learning, agency, perseverance, curiosity, and collaboration.
It is the light of their natural intelligence that we look to nurture.
HISTORY
The Montessori Children’s Center was opened in 1991 at the invitation of Maureen Ryan-Carr, the Assistant Administrator of Burke Rehabilitation Hospital. Maureen invited Carole Wolfe Korngold, Director and Founder of the Center for Montessori Education|NY (CME|NY), to bring Montessori to the grounds of the hospital in the form of Montessori childcare for the employees of the Burke Rehabilitation Hospital and the surrounding White Plains community. Carole worked to create one of the first full-time Montessori child care centers in the United States, which quickly became a model not only for Montessori but also for excellence in early education. In 2018, we moved to a new location at 220 Westchester Avenue, West Harrison, and thus began a new chapter of serving families in the Westchester area. In 2019, we opened the second floor of the center, expanding to meet the needs of our growing waiting list. We now have 2 infant rooms, 3 toddler rooms, and 2 early childhood teachers for a total of 7 classrooms.
CME|NY has served as a resource for Montessori schools and has provided workshops, consultations, and training to independent, public, and charter schools throughout the United States and Vietnam. At one time, the Center for Montessori Education|NY had 18 additional locations training teachers and school administrators in the Montessori philosophy of education. K.T. Korngold has been CEO since 2011. She brings with her a lifetime of dedication to authentic Montessori principles and practices and a long connection with the programs of CME|NY. K.T. was instrumental in the original design of the Montessori Children’s Center. K.T. is a certified AMS CMTE|NY Infant and Toddler specialist and Montessori administrator, and wrote a column for Tomorrow’s Child entitled “Bringing Montessori Home.” As a child, K.T. was part of the model classroom of the first Montessori education program for Head Start teachers in the United States, a training that Carole initiated in Albany, NY, in 1968.