About us

The Downing Street Playgroup is a non-profit cooperative preschool, licensed by the New York City Department of Health. For over 50 years, we’ve held that education should be a partnership between families and educators and we are looking for families who would like to be involved.

As a parent cooperative, parents serve as parent-teachers once a month. We also manage the administrative and financial duties. To keep us all involved in the progress and challenges of the school, we have monthly meetings for one hour in the evening. Beyond seeking families who want to be involved, we seek a diverse population in our school community.

We actively encourage applications from families of all backgrounds. Every kind of family constellation is welcomed and treated with respect. As the parent body runs the school, we all take part in creating our goal of offering high-quality, low-tuition preschool education to the children of the community.

History

The Downing Street Playgroup was conceived during the summer of 1969 by Mary Spilotros and Margaret Hable, two mothers with preschool-aged children living in the general neighborhood of the Downing Street Playground. After numerous conversations with other parents they realized that there was an interest and need for a cooperative effort to provide a playgroup atmosphere for their children.

Spilotros and Hable discovered a second floor room in the playground building that was being used as a workroom and storage area for the City Puppeteer. Several local officials and other interested individuals acted on the Playgroup's behalf to contact the New York City Administration. After extensive discussions with various City officials, the puppeteer relocated to a comparable facility and terms were finalized in which the City allowed our preschool to use and occupy the premises of the second floor room, our present location.

By allowing neighborhood residents the free use of NYC property to operate a quasi-private playgroup, The Downing Street Playgroup posed a unique challenge to municipal officials. It was decided that enrollment would be open to neighborhood children and that the expenses for a director, personnel or equipment would not be the responsibility of the City but solely that of the group. The City could not ethically allow the playgroup to use the building for restricted or private functions. Hence, the City's insistence upon the widest possible publicity in the neighborhood and its further insistence that as vacancies occurred, every effort be expended to enroll as many children as the park room could accommodate—fifteen.

Teachers

We have two full time certified co-teachers, Nancy McAuliffe and Anne Hager, as well as a rotating parent of the day, with a maximum of 15 children in the classroom at any given time.

Nancy, is a warm and creative educator with a Master's degree and New York State certification in Early Childhood Education. She has been teaching in early childhood classrooms since 2007, and in addition has over six years' experience schooling young children in dance, including three years as Director of a dancing school. She is passionate about the lifelong benefits of play in the early childhood classroom and a teacher's role in providing rich opportunities in exploration and discovery. Nancy began teaching at Downing Street in 2009.

Anne has more than a decade of experience teaching in early childhood classrooms, and a Master’s degree in education from Bankstreet College. She is passionate about child-centered play-based early childhood education. Anne grew up in and lives in the West Village. She is a former parent co-chair of the co-op. She is a mother of 3 children and an active participant in their schools as well as in broader educational advocacy.