The School is led by the Executive Director & Founder, Zuleika Fertullien and is supported by the director, enrollment administrator, office managers, and a deeply committed teaching team. Although our teachers are mandated by the State of New Jersey and New York to maintain a minimum level of training to retain their licenses, our teaching team exceeds those requirements by pursuing other Early Childhood training opportunities. Their zeal is attributed to their personal commitments to excellence and practicability in the classrooms.

And their quest for higher levels of training does not end there. Since BBL considers classroom readiness in all aspects such an integral part of its educational culture, even as it pertains to the well-being of our children, we go the extra mile. For example, in the area of classroom safety, although the state requires that one person per school be trained and certified in Infant/Toddler CPR, our entire staff, whether an administrator, a teacher, or the Executive Director, all are trained and certified.

The quality of our program relies on the value of the training that the staff participates in such as:

• Bank Street College of Education: Math, Literacy, Infant Toddler development
• Infant Institute Conference sponsored by Bank   Street
• NYU Continuing Studies: Child development, Art for Young Children
• The Reggio Emilio Approach sponsored by Reggio Emilio North America
• Museum workshops focused on young children
• Urban League child development workshops
• Museum of Natural History: Displaying nature for children
• Brooklyn Botanical Garden: Nature and its place in the classroom
• The National Association for the Education of Young Children

Each classroom is staffed with a lead teacher, assistant teachers, and teacher aides. The lead teacher creates instructional programs and activities that support differentiated learning, which is a learning approach that takes into consideration each child’s learning style and interest.  And the assistant teachers implement and support the classroom curriculum.

Our team also thrives on communicating with parents about the progress of their child and on not allowing their work demands to prevent parents from being connected and engaged with their child’s progress. As an example, all teachers in the infant classroom through the kindergarten classroom email a weekly update of classrooms activities to each family and teacher parent dialogue is always encouraged