KIPS BAY — A new Montessori school is set to open next month in Kips Bay, becoming the neighborhood's first available around-the-clock child care service to cater to the proliferation of shift workers.
The Gold Material Montessori School, which starts classes Feb. 2 for students ages 2 to 6, already has two other locations in the city. Its oldest and most well-established school is in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, where students can learn Russian in addition to the basics like math, writing and geography.
The school’s East Village location opened Oct. 12.
The Kips Bay spot, however, offered the school a chance to do something different. The facility on East 28th Street and Second Avenue is the first in the chain to remain open 24 hours a day and seven days a week.
Varvara Radimushkina, 34, the school's director of admissions, said the school did its homework prior to opening in Kips Bay. There are multiple hospitals nearby, including the VA, Bellevue Hospital and NYU Langone Medical Center. Where there are hospitals, she added, there are nurses working odd hours, and it was a population they believed was underserved.
“This is a huge opportunity for nurses to be able to have child support,” Radimushkina said. “And we see that this need exists.”
Radimushkina said the school will not function like a babysitting service. The New York City Health Department prohibits children from being left at any child care facility for more than 12 hours at a time.
But for nurses and other shift workers who toil at their trades overnight, the option could be a welcome one, Radimushkina added.
For some parents, the allure may be the convenience of the 24/7 option. Others might be drawn by the Montessori education. According to the school, their students routinely score in the 98th and 99th percentile on gifted and talented tests.
The focus in Montessori teaching is on hands-on learning, explained Maksim Kondrukevich, 34, the education director. The children are also grouped by ability, rather than by age, and do not advance until they have mastered the necessary skills.
“It’s very much child-initiated,” Kondrukevich noted. “It’s really each child doing what’s appropriate, what’s necessary for that child for that particular time.”
In addition to offering the odd operating hours, Kondrukevich said the school will provide lessons in a second language. At its location in Brooklyn, Gold Material already teaches students Russian — a choice popular in an area where there is a large Russian community.
At the Kips Bay location, they will survey parents to see what language they would most like their children to learn, Kondrukevich said.
Parents have already begun applying to the Kips Bay location, Radimushkina said. The school plans to host an open house on Jan. 20 at 6 p.m.
