Teacher Retires After 18 Years At Newtown Congregational Preschool

By Martha Coville

“I feel guilty getting paid for this job,” said Donna Miklaszewski, a head teacher at the Newtown Congregational Preschool. Ms Miklaszewski plans to retire at the end of this school year, after a long tenure at the preschool. Her love for the town of Newtown, her students, and their families was unmistakable. Ms Miklaszewski has nothing but the highest praise for the school at which she has taught for the last 18 years.

Newtown Congregational Preschool director Cathy Murdy said that she and Ms Miklaszewski agree that preschool instruction should be informed by a developmental, rather than an academic, philosophy. Ms Murdy said the preschool will commemorate Ms Miklaszewski’s retirement at the school’s annual Silent Auction and Cocktail Party on Friday, March 28.

“It’s just such an awesome age group,” Ms Miklaszewski said of the 3- and 4-year-olds enrolled in the school. “I guess it’s just my niche. They’re enthusiastic, they’re warm and compassionate with each other, and they love to learn. They’re just little sponges. They’re very much individuals. Almost more at age 3 than at age 4. At age 4, they start to conform a little more,” she said.

“It’s funny,” she said, reflecting on how she came to work at the congregational preschool. “I had another job at the time, and I didn’t want to leave there, but I wanted to come here, too. Then I began to realize that we have the most wonderful parents. They’re just awesome. I don’t know if the rest of the world is like this, but it’s wonderful. The kids are wonderful, the families are wonderful.”

Ms Miklaszewski also enjoys a rich family life. She has six grandchildren, she said, with “one on the way.” Her family is spread out, however. One child lives in Rhode Island, another in Florida. Ms Miklaszewski said she hopes to spend more time visiting her children and grandchildren after her retirement.

She and her husband Ed, who have lived in Newtown for 37 years, also plan on traveling internationally. “That’s the next chapter, travel,” she said. She said she is looking forward to returning to countries she has visited before, such as Spain, Portugal, Great Britain, and Germany.

Ms Miklaszewski said she first became enamored of the congregational preschool when her own children were enrolled there. “I’d been in here a lot before I started working here,” she said. “It’s just such an awesome age group. I’ve been here for 18 years now. I have mixed emotions about leaving. I love it here. I thought, ‘well, I have to come in for the first day of school in September.’” But then she said, with a laugh, she might never leave.

Ms Murdy said she also enrolled her children when they were toddlers. Their children, Ms Murdy’s grandchildren, are now among the school’s current students. “So we’re getting to the next generation,” Ms Miklaszewski said.

 Before she joined the Newtown Congregational Preschool, Ms Miklaszewski said that she taught elementary school in Georgia, and in Norwalk and Orange, CT. After she began teaching preschool, she went back to school to get certified.

Ms Miklaszewski said, “Teaching preschool is very physically demanding. Parents who have volunteered have said they went home afterwards and took a nap.”

One thing that has changed in her 18 years at the preschool, Ms Miklaszewski said, is parental expectations. “Cathy and I are both very firm believers in the developmental approach,” she said. They value teaching social skills and independence over an academic curriculum. But increasingly, Ms Miklaszewski said, parents want their children to become early readers.

“They get to be children for such a short time,” Ms Miklaszewski said. She and Ms Murdy emphasize teaching children how to put on their own jackets, and to use the bathroom by themselves. “And hopefully,” she said, “they learn to share, and to be more independent of their parents.” Although she said that they do teach 4-year-olds the letters of the alphabet, and how to count, she believes the developmental approach in extremely important for 3-year-olds. “Learning to share and to be independent, to me, is much more valuable [at that age] than learning the alphabet or how to count,” she said.

She believes her approach works, too. “We had an awesome discovery,” she said. “Last year, three out of the top five graduates at Newtown High School went here. So we were like, ‘Yes! Our developmental approach works!’”

Ms Murdy said she hopes parents and alumni of the preschool who want to say goodbye to Ms Miklaszewski will come to the March 28 cocktail party, at 7 pm, at the Stony Hill Inn. Tickets are $30, and must be purchased in advance. Call Shannon Mulligan at 364-102, or e-mail her at shannonmulligan@aol.com to purchase tickets.