Putnam Co, NY: Special needs preschool opens

Sept 8, 2025, MidHudson News: Putnam’s early learning center opens

https://midhudsonnews.com/2025/09/08/putnams-early-learning-center-opens 

PATTERSON – After months of planning when realizing Putnam County needed a facility that offered services to families of special needs children, the Putnam Early Learning Center has begun offering services from its Hudson Valley InterArts Building location in Patterson. 

The seven-room facility, operated by the nonprofit Community Based Services in collaboration with the Putnam County Health Department  and the Brewster and Carmel Schools, offers educational and daycare programming for students and their families and is part of the county’s ThinkDIFFERENTLY initiative to encourage public awareness and expanded access to services for children with special needs.

The program opened with 19 students with five additional schoolchildren scheduled to join in the coming weeks.

County Executive Kevin Byrne described the program as a “groundbreaking and collaborative initiative to offer high-quality early learning services in a classroom setting to Putnam County families.”

Previously, many parents were forced to send their children on lengthy bus rides outside the county to access essential programs, exhausting children, stressing worried parents, and charging local taxpayers up to $1 million each year in transportation costs.

“Together, we found a way to effectively reform the mandatory preschool special education model and empower parents with special-needs children for a better, less-expensive service,” Byrne said.

The executive acknowledged the “hard work in championing the re-imagining of educational and early learning services” to Valerie Kurtz, Shanna Seigel, and the county’s new Director of Public Health Rian Rodriquez.

Patterson Town Supervisor Rich Williams noted, “Hosting the Early Learning Center is a point of pride for our community, and we are grateful to see it come to fruition. This is a meaningful investment in our children, our families, and the future of Putnam County.”