The sunshine-yellow exterior of the building on Poor Farm Road, together with its walls of windows and white trim, lend a bright air to the Village Nursery School. Inside or out, there isn’t a dark corner in the place. The distinctive building is now so well identified with the Village Nursery School brand that, at first, it’s jarring to learn that the school is celebrating 60 years as an educational institution.
Erin Keiran, first a student, then a long-time teacher, and now director of the school, explains that the Village Nursery School was founded as a nonsectarian educational institution by parents in the Unitarian Church. The church’s Fellowship Hall, the Finkelpearl house in Shaker Village, and what was then the elementary school each served, in turn, as home base until 1996, when the school built its permanent home. A two-story mural of a tree, leaves inscribed with the names of donors, attests to the massive fundraising campaign undertaken by the school, then under the direction of Jane Venditti, to build the school.
Grit and town support
Records at Town Hall bear witness to the grit of director Venditti, school business manager Kim McCourt, and the building committee in coping with neighborhood opposition and with the complicated engineering work required for the well, septic, and drainage systems. “In the end, it took a vote of Town Meeting to get permission for the public water supply well. The town was very supportive of us,” Venditti said this week.
Today, those asked to reminisce about their children’s preschool experience often mention the sun-filled spaces of the building, but dwell more on the friendships forged there. “The school is a community touchstone,” said Lisa Rosen, whose fourth-grade daughter Sophie attended the school. Rosen, a member of the school’s board, was one of many parents who said the friendships formed in the school’s hallway, where they gathered before and after school, have endured. Sophie acquired the habit of learning there, she said, noting that Sophie can still identify a longhorn beetle at 50 paces.
Board member and parent Erin Baker said the “Meet the Masters” art program and the “Village Nursery School Museum” show tapped her daughter’s love for creating and appreciating art. Visiting the Museum of Fine Arts and painting in the style of Pollock and Monet was fun for her and her children, she said. As to why she has remained on the board beyond her children’s preschool years, Baker says, “That feeling of security and knowing that people care about you—I want to pass that on.”
A seasoned staff
Four of the school’s current staff have been at VNS, as it is known, for more than 10 years. On a recent weekday, this reporter happened to bump into two teachers, Johannah Powell and Gayle Curley.
Powell, an 18-year veteran, sent her sons Steven and Harry to the school, and started teaching there when Harry entered kindergarten. Steven, now an EMT, and Harry, a research biologist, were set on the right path at the school, she said. Curley, 16 years at the school, also had her own children at the school, and has yet to tire of working there. “I love it here and I love the children,” she said.
Anne Marie Rowse, whose daughters Sarah, Rebecca, and Hillary all attended the school, said her daughters—a senior in high school, an aspiring physical therapist, and a teacher— still remember Mrs. Potts. “They loved her. They even loved her name, and in those early days of motherhood, I needed that warm, comforting hug she gave me when I dropped them off,” she said.
In recalling the “all-consuming” experience of working on the Harvard Phone Book, the school’s signature fundraising project, Lucy Wallace still jokes about the time her toddler son signaled the end of a telephoning session, in search of phone book sponsors, at her house. “He just walked right over to the phone and ended the session,” she said.
In the here and now, school director Keiran says her focus is on maintaining the school’s educational philosophy of content-rich, “developmentally appropriate” learning, and on modeling kindness and respect. The fact that “Miss Erin” was at the center of the many fond reminiscences of VNS shared with the Press could be an indication that Keiran is on the right track, and has been for a while.
In Dec. 1953, the nursery school held classes at the Harvard Unitarian Church. From left: Rusty Harris, Betsy Reggio, John Roberts, Dicken Harvey, Reggie Chandler, Kathy Pond, Tim Sturgeois, Wendy Ersler, John Fairbanks, Debbie Ford, Hank Dillon, Eliz Rice. Reflection in the mirror is Vera Kafka, teacher and wife of the Unitarian minister at the time. (Courtesy photo)
