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It’s
Easy To Help...
CALL
720.565.3898
New
Horizons
Cooperative Preschool
1825
Upland Avenue
Boulder, CO 80304
303.442.7434
info@nhcp.org
www.nhcp.org
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If
ever in need of the definition of diversity, don’t bother
reaching for a dictionary. Instead, travel to a place founded in
the wake of Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination.
A place where 4-year-old Daniel, new to Boulder from Russia, ended
up speaking more Spanish than English for a time. A place where,
Nicole, the English-speaking, blond daughter of a stay-at-home mom
plays under the cottonwoods while mom cleans up after other monolingual
kids – who just happen to speak a different language.
A
place where Justice has found a home.
While her mom tries to put feelings into words, 4-year-old
Justice slowly, deliberately picks her way over the leaves
and rocks, careful not to drop her bowl of cake.
"The love. The patience and the love around here,"
makes New Horizons Cooperative Preschool special to Jannie
and her daughter Justice, an African-American child with Down
syndrome. |
Click on image for larger picture |
Meanwhile,
3-year-old Crystal – "La reina del cumpleaños,"
or birthday queen, in the words of a
longtime staff member – contemplates a question while turning
her potato chips into Dracula-like fangs.
"Pulcera," Crystal says in Spanish. She likes to make
bracelets, like the one she’s wearing, as she plays and learns
English from classmates and others. Her 24-year-old father, Juan,
sitting in the shade of a pint-sized log cabin with 2-month-old
son Luis Angel, says Crystal is always happy after school.
Happy kids playing and learning, together. That’s what the
school is about, and it shows.
Much like the words on this page, the mix of races, ethnicities,
cultures and incomes is conscious, and has been since 1968. And,
of the 60 kids in three classes at New Horizons, more than 50 percent
receive tuition assistance. Some parents pay as little as $5 each
month; some about half of full tuition, which is about $55 per day.
All parents fulfill various jobs, from carpenter to grant-writer
to snack coordinator, as part of the school’s cooperative
nature. Board members reflect the multicultural and bilingual, English-Spanish,
environment, and kids and parents, alike, seem to thrive in a place
where "people who are different – in any way –
feel comfortable."
"We represent ‘humanness’ in all its forms,"
says Ardie Dickson, the school’s director.
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