Curtis Blake Day School.JPG

(Photo by John Suchocki)

SPRINGFIELD - Parents and students' hopes to keep the Curtis Blake Day School open were dashed late last week when American International College declined to transfer the state certification to another education company interested in continuing the program.

"We were too far along in the process to stop it without disruption the children and their families," said Timothy Grader, director of marketing and communications for the college.

The process to receive a special education certification from the state Department of Elementary and Secondary Education is complex and to transfer the certification after college officials already began the process of closing out the certification would not work, he said.

On March 2, college officials announced the Curtis Blake Day School for students with language disabilities, including dyslexia, would close at the end of the year because of declining enrollment.

Meanwhile parents of the 38 children in the school thought they found a way to save the school when the Children's Study Home offered to transfer the teachers and students to its Old Mill Pond School for children with learning disabilities.

"We had a viable option in the Children's Study Home. They gave AIC (the college) a proposal and it was rejected," said Melissa Sullivan, of Suffield, whose son attends the fifth grade at Curtis Blake.

With the college unwilling to transfer the certification with the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, the idea died, she said.

While the Children's Study Home could apply for a new license, it would take a year or longer and the school needs the certification for September, Sullivan said.

"We have the staff and the kids all we needed was an accreditation," she said. "Without the accreditation there is no school."

Since the announcement, parents have been raising money to save the school. She said it is frustrating to have their efforts crushed because of the license.

So far state officials, who she has been working with, have not returned her calls and the college will not explain why they will not transfer the accreditation, she said.

Sullivan said she is now pursuing alternative schools for her son, who has been at Curtis Blake since he was in the second grade.

At least a quarter of the students have already found another school for next year and American International College trustees questioned if the Children's Study Home could operate a school with so few students, Grader said.

"It is an extremely complex process," he said.