West Chester, PA - The Chester County Intermediate Unit (CCIU) and the West Chester Area School District proudly announce the grand opening of the CCIU West Chester Education Service Center on Tuesday, September 29. The facility will serve the entire community and offer an array of educational programs.
September 29 will mark the grand opening of the West Chester Education Center located at 540 East Union Street in West Chester. Members of the community are welcome to visit the facility from 4:30 to 7:30 p.m. for refreshments, a ribbon-cutting ceremony, and tours of the center.
“The ribbon-cutting and open house is a really nice opportunity for us to introduce the facility to the community,” said Dr. Ron Farkas, CCIU Director of Student Services. ”We welcome the community and hope that they welcome us, and learn about the available services.”
Five preschool special education classrooms, the Head Start program, and the Communities Helping Adolescents with Autism Make Progress (CHAAMP) program will operate out of the center. The preschool special education program is for children, aged three to five years old with developmental delays. While the Head Start program is a federally- and community-funded preschool program for economically disadvantaged children and their families. Head Start provides children the opportunity to begin school with the same experiences and learned skills as children from more affluent homes.
The CHAAMP program is an educational program for teens with moderate to severe autism. The program establishes collaboration between the school, families, local businesses and the community. Its goal is to provide adolescents with autism with experiences needed to master the every day living skills necessary for independent adult life.
According to Deborah Hertzfeld-Miller, Head Start supervisor, the new location provides many unique opportunities for all three programs at the West Chester Education Center.
“The saying that, ‘it takes a village to raise a child’ could not be anymore true,” said Hertzfeld-Miller. “The new location allows the children the opportunity to be raised by ‘the village’ in a way that allows us to access the resources the community has to offer.”
For example, according Hertzfeld-Miller, a partnership with the West Chester Senior Center is in the works in which volunteers from the senior center will assist in the preschool classrooms.
For more information or to RSVP for the ribbon-cutting and open house, please call Samandra Bibbo at 484-237-5122 or email at samandrab@cciu.org.
