GOFFSTOWN, NH ᠆ Merri-Loo Community Preschool was established as a private, nonprofit preschool program in 1971. The school consists of a Board of Directors made up of parents of enrolled children, a director, teachers, and parent volunteers. From the beginning, Merri-Loo has worked on a cooperative preschool model. Parents are given the opportunity to take on jobs at the school in exchange for reduced tuition.
Now, more than 50 years later, Merri-Loo continues to be a resource for the Goffstown community at large with the same community-based foundation that it was built on. Each year, alumni return with their own children in hand to enroll them for a new school year.
Merri-Loo is run by co-directors Heidi Bourque and Lorraine Cottle. Bourque is currently serving as head teacher for all classes. The staff at Merri-Loo continues to practice COVID-19 precautions with half capacity classrooms, socially-distanced drop-off and pick-up, and increased sanitation inside the school. As of April 5 they have returned to a fully-open schedule – Monday, Wednesday, and Friday 9 a.m.-1 p.m. for Pre K, and Tuesday and Thursday 8:30 to 11:30 a.m. for Nursery.
Merri-Loo Community Preschool operates under a philosophy that focuses on six different areas of development, including gross motor skills, fine motor skills, speech and language skills, self-help skills, social and emotional skills and cognitive skills. Cottle has spent the last two decades of her career as a specialist in early childhood education and supports the hands-on, individualized approach that focuses on each child’s developmental strengths and needs. Children are encouraged to explore through free play, targeted lessons, and hands-on curricular activities.
Prior to the pandemic ᠆ and hopefully moving forward ᠆ parents will continue to participate through volunteering in the classroom and sharing their knowledge and expertise, as well as attending celebrations and events.
“Our belief is that children develop in a continuum. While there’s a predictable continuum of development from birth all the way to geriatric, as professionals, we know that children don’t always follow that continuum in the same ways that their peers do. So our goal is to provide them with opportunities in all those different areas in order for them to move from where they are now, to the next step in that development,” says Cottle.
Regarding the curriculum for children, Bourque says that Merri-Loo contains many elements that one would expect in any early childhood education setting such as a playhouse, science center, math center, writing center, art center and small muscle center. Bourque and Cottle emphasize the value of a Nursery and pre-K experience which they believe will significantly improve a child’s readiness in cognitive ability and soft skills as they prepare to enter Kindergarten and the school years to follow. According to a 2012 regression analysis completed by child and family policy expert Julia Isaacs, children who attend a preschool program at age 4 are 9 percent more likely to be school-ready than other children.
For parents and members of the Board, Merri-Loo’s community-based approach and fundraising efforts are a vital part of keeping the school’s doors open in the future. While COVID-19 has shifted how annual fundraising events are held, President of the Board and Merri-Loo parent, Kimberley Fasano has plans for safely continuing to fundraise. The annual silent auction is now being planned online for April of 2021 and a socially-distanced Super Science Spectacular event is in the works where families can go on a scavenger hunt for teacher-prepared science kits. Updates on these fundraisers can be found on their Facebook page.
“I have found my Goffstown friends in the Merri-Loo community and my kids have found their friends in Merri-Loo too. The parents from my son’s class are already planning that graduation reunion picture. So it’s definitely a community” says Fasano.
To help fill the fundraising gap created by COVID 19 and keep Merri-Loo’s doors opened, a GoFundMe has been established for donations to the school. Online shoppers can support Merri-Loo by using Amazon Smiles in which Amazon will donate 0.5 percent of every purchase to the school.
Merri-Loo allows open enrollment for children with the current school year ending in late May and the upcoming school year beginning during the first week in September. Parents interested in enrolling their children in a program at Merri-Loo can contact the school by visiting http://www.merriloo.org, calling (603) 497-3350, or leaving a message on the school’s Facebook page.
