September brings the first day of school, a day often anticipated with both excitement and a little anxiety medicine buy clonazepam online and heralded with much fanfare.

This is perhaps most true for the parents of young children just beginning their academic careers. This week, nearly 300 three and four year-olds will bound, skip and toddle their way into an Early Learn, Early Head Start or Head Start classroom with Grand St. Settlement, and we don’t know who is more excited – us, them or their parents! Early childhood education is something we are passionate about at Grand St. Settlement – children who get the attention they need early in life do better in school, are likely to have higher long-term earnings, better social status and a happier life.

We are so pleased and proud to introduce to you Leslie Capello, our new Early Head Start Director. When asked what career accomplishment she is most proud of, Leslie shared that she is proud of the work she has had  the privilege of contributing to in Early Childhood  Education over the past 16 years. “Supporting current teachers and future teachers with higher  education and professional development has been  very rewarding,” Leslie explains “Developing systems for delivering consistent quality programming for children and families has been the outcome of experience, education, and opportunity, and I very much enjoy my chosen career.”  Leslie can still recall the thrill of empowerment she felt as a child pretending to be a grown up and she remembers how much she loved the scaled-down furniture and the over-sized dress-up clothes she never tired of playing with.  When asked about her favorite children’s book, Leslie smiles and laughs. “I absolutely love, and cannot get enough of The Little Mouse, the Red Ripe Strawberry, and the Big Hungry Bear by Don Wood and Audrey Wood.  The illustrations bring the story to life and the perspective is of the reader having a conversation with the mouse. I think it is brilliant.” We are certainly hoping to get to witness at least one read aloud with Leslie and her favorite book this fall.

We would also like to share with you reports from Early Head Start for the past three years. This reading material also brings a story to life: the story of the power of investing in early education.