With five other sister CUNY institutions and the New York City-based Kennedy Children’s Center (https://www.kenchild.org), the Education Program at LaGuardia Community College received a $200,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Education to develop courses in early childhood special education (ECSE). The partnership, which will be led by Borough of Manhattan Community College, will include Bronx Community College, Kingsborough Community College, Hostos Community College and LaGuardia Community College and aims to increase the number of teachers who are certified to teach early childhood special education classes.

The ECSE associate-degree programs that the community colleges will develop include provisions that allow students to transfer, without losing any credits, to a bachelor’s degree program at Brooklyn College, which prepares early childhood teachers to work with students with disabilities. The partnership also will provide a career pathway for teacher assistants and paraprofessionals currently working in the field, helping to address a critical shortage of ECSE teachers, as well as a scarcity of male teachers in the field.

For more information, contact Prof. Michele De Goeas-Malone, Program Director of Education Program at LaGuardia Community College, at mmalone@lagcc.cuny.edu / 718-482-6050.