Sara Seiden Leaving Day Nursery

It is 3:00 p.m., the end of the day at the Roosevelt Island Day Nursery. Sara Seiden, the director, is in the hallway, chatting with parents, interrupting herself now and then to urge a child to put on his or her coat on an unusually cold May afternoon.

The hallway is full of children's voices as they greet their arriving parents. Amid the happy clamor, a visitor is struck by the variety of languages the children are speaking. A world map in the hallway has pins showing the countries the Day Nursery's children or their parents are from. In addition to the US, the countries include (to name just a few) Croatia, France, Japan, Mexico, Morocco, Serbia, Thailand, Uzbekistan, and Vietnam.

Sara opens her class lists. "In Room A we have seven out of 13 children who speak at least two languages. In Room C, 11 out of 17 children are bilingual. Our children can say 'good morning' in many languages." Parents of Day Nursery pupils underscore this. Marie-Pierre, who is French Belgian, says that her two daughters, Serena and Maïa, often say ohayo (good morning in Japanese). Masako, who is Japanese, says that her son, Taiyo, greets her in Spanish with buenos días. "The children sing songs in foreign languages, including a French song, which my daughters now sing with an English accent," laughs Marie-Pierre. The Roosevelt Island Day Nursery is as international as the Island it calls home.

"Roosevelt Island has a wonderful community," Sara says. "Children come from all over the world and they endlessly enrich the environment by their different cultures." At the same time, the children quickly find common ground in the English language. "Many of the children born abroad don't speak English on their first day here, but after a few months with English exposure they understand a lot," Sara says. "After one year they are completely fluent in English."

Sara has a master's degree from Teacher's College, Columbia University, and says she always wanted to be a teacher. At first she taught music and art, but when her younger son was born she started thinking about working in pre-school, and decided to do so when he entered pre-school. "I like working with children of this age," Sara says. "If children like pre-school, then they'll like school. We help them to develop the skills that will be needed for the formal learning of reading, writing, math, science, and social studies".

Before coming to the Day Nursery, Sara managed her own pre-school in Forest Hills, Queens, and ran a daycare center with Kingsborough Community College. She decided to work for the Day Nursery because "Roosevelt Island is a very open community. There are many people in New York City who come from other countries and speak several languages, but not everywhere do you find people who are as friendly as on Roosevelt Island. Parents here make friends and they become a support system for each other. They arrange baby playdates for their children. They help each other."

The Day Nursery was organized in 1975 by a group of Roosevelt Island parents. It is run by a Parent Board of Directors and it was incorporated as a not-for-profit corporation in 1979. That was the year Sara joined the Day Nursery. She was the fifth director in four years. "I have been here for 26 years, so I guess I was the director it needed," Sara says, smiling.

However, after 26 years as director, she is leaving. She will step down after classes end in June. "Oh, I do love this job. I do love children and their parents. I do love Roosevelt Island," Sara says with emotion. "But this job requires a lot of time, and now I want to spend time with my family, with my three grandchildren. I also want to play my piano." However, Sara will not sever all relations with the Day Nursery. She will remain as a consultant. The new director will be Diana Carr, who has been assistant director for five years and a head teacher for more than 10 years.

Sara praises the Day Nursery's teachers. "Most of the teachers have been with us for a very long time," she says. All head teachers at the Day Nursery have master's degrees and are certified by New York State in Early Childhood Education. "Many people think it is easy to work with little kids, but it is not true," says Sara. "Little children are not just little adults. They are very special, and our teachers understand them, so they relate to children on their own level. Children are also each very different. Some are energetic, some are shy, so teachers need to pay attention to that."

In 2004 the Day Nursery received accreditation from the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC). "This accreditation is a relatively new requirement, which has raised the standards for early childhood education centers," explains Sara. Parents agree that the standards at the Day Nursery are high. "Some of the graduates have gone to Harvard and Yale, which is very important for us parents to know. I call the Day Nursery a school, not a daycare center. The teachers are good, and open-minded," says Marie-Pierre. "The classes are very well organized," says Masako.

Sara says the Day Nursery's goal is to help children grow emotionally, socially, and intellectually. At the Day Nursery, she says, "children learn to cooperate and get along with other children and adults."

The Day Nursery offers programs for children from two and a half to five years old. There is a special program for two-and-a-half-year-olds, introduction to preschool, in which they come to the Day Nursery with their mothers. Overall, there are now 52 children in full- and part-time programs at the Day Nursery.

"The local public school [on Roosevelt Island] also has pre-kindergarten programs, but it is half-time (two and a half hours)," Sara says. "We offer a full-time program (seven hours)." The public school, however, has pulled some children away from the Day Nursery. There used to be about 100 children there, but when the public school started its own pre-kindergarten program in 2000, the number of four-year-old children dropped. "There are families with nonworking mothers, whose children don't need to attend longer programs, so two and a half hours is enough for them. The pre-kindergarten program at the public school is free." Sara expects more children to come to the Day Nursery when the new Southtown buildings are completed and occupied.

Sara walks with a visitor into Room A, the classroom for three-year-olds. A big window offers a view of the Manhattan side of the river. Like the rest of the Day Nursery, the room is bright and sunny.

One wall has a display of baby clothes. "There was a special occasion for that," Sara explains. "Our children brought their baby clothes and talked about what they can do now compared with what they could do when they were babies. They were very proud of how much they can do now." She picks up a photo album titled "My favorite book." It features pictures of children "reading" their favorite books. "Of course, three-year-olds don't know how to read yet," Sara says. "They just re-tell stories from their favorite books, but they know the stories so well that it looks like they are really reading." All children have "jobs." "One child, for example, feeds animals" - there is an aquarium and a hamster cage in the room - "another helps set the table, another collects library books, and so on. This helps children to be responsible for themselves and their room." In this class, children also work on puzzles and materials that help develop language and mathematical skills.

After graduating from the Day Nursery, many children will go to kindergarten. Getting into a good kindergarten can be difficult, so the Day Nursery not only prepares children to meet the requirements, but it also helps parents find the right kindergarten for their children. Marie-Pierre is one of the parents who is grateful to Sara for her help in what Marie-Pierre calls this "very stressful" process. "Sara knows many directors of kindergartens. She also knows my daughter and what she really needs, so she helped me to choose the right kindergarten for my daughter."

Sara has also worked hard to help raise money for scholarships. "The Day Nursery is private and we try to make tuition as affordable as possible," Sara says. "Providing scholarships to lower- and middle-income families has always been one of our main concerns. There is a mixed-income community on the Island, and we want to help those who can't afford to send their children to the Day Nursery without financial assistance."

In addition to scholarship programs, assistance for children from low-income families can be obtained from the New York City Agency for Child Development (ACD), which provides vouchers that parents can use to pay for their children's tuition in any pre-school they like. "Unfortunately, there is a long waiting list to get this voucher and some parents don't get them," Sara says with a sigh. Twenty-five percent of the Day Nursery's children receive financial aid in terms of grants or vouchers.

To raise money for scholarships, the Parent Board that runs the school stages fundraising events as well as direct appeals to all residents, family of alumni, and Roosevelt Island merchants. Sara has been so active in fundraising that the Parent Board created a scholarship fund in her name. "I am flattered about that," she says.

Recently the Day Nursery sent letters to parents of Day Nursery alumni informing them that Sara is leaving as director and asking them to make contributions to the Sara Seiden Scholarship Fund. In their replies, many parents wrote about what their children are doing now and what the Day Nursery has meant to them.

Sara delights in the news about the children and their accomplishments. She shows a stack of letters. "This one is from the mother of a boy who could not say goodbye to his mother without crying. He now goes to sleep-away camp. This letter is from the mother of a girl who used to be extremely shy. She is now in the third grade and is a very good artist."

Sometimes Sara unexpectedly meets her grown-up graduates. "There was an exhibition at the local art gallery of local children's painting and drawing. I was delighted to know that the art teacher at the public school is David Klaw, who was at the Day Nursery," Sara smiles.

It is clear that Sara would much rather talk about the Day Nursery, and especially the children, than about her own achievements in making it what it is. This seems due in part to modesty, and in part to the fact that the Day Nursery has, for 26 years, been a labor of love for her. So a last question to Sara is about the Day Nursery: What are her hopes for its future?

"I hope the school will continue to serve the community and to thrive," she says, "and that new families who are coming to the Island will find a happy home for their young children."