Mount Pleasant Blythedale School Celebrates 50th Anniversary

This year, the Mt. Pleasant Blythedale Union Free School District celebrates 50 years of educating children who are patients of Blythedale Children’s Hospital, while their bodies heal.

Education has been a critical part of Blythedale’s mission from its earliest days. In 1919, Blythedale’s “school” was an annex of P.S. 192 in Manhattan and averaged 18 children in each of two classes – one for kindergarten and first grade, and another dedicated to grades two through nine. Over the years, a bedside teacher was added, and in 1941, a high school teacher was brought in to meet the needs of the older children.

In 1971, Blythedale’s school was officially organized by the NYS legislature as the Mt. Pleasant Blythedale UFSD – a special act public school district, uniquely created to serve the highly specialized needs of Blythedale’s patients. Blythedale Children’s Hospital remains the only hospital in New York State with its own public school district on site. The School, which adjoins the Hospital, is a modern, two-story 32,000-square-foot building with state-of-the-art technology and specialized modifications to meet the unique medical needs of its student body.

Today, more than 130 children in grades K through 12, who require intensive rehabilitation and medical care, attend school either as inpatients or through Blythedale’s Day Hospital Program. Preschoolers receive services through a Committee on Preschool Special Education (CPSE) program or the Hospital’s Early Childhood Center.

All children receive daily medical and nursing care, physical, occupational and/ or speech therapy, as well as appropriate medical consultation based on an individualized treatment plan. All teachers are dual-certified in special education and either a secondary content area or elementary education.

When ready to transition back to their home school district, a comprehensive reintegration program helps children and parents identify appropriate placement options.

Even though they are patients in a hospital, children are encouraged to pursue the primary tasks of childhood and adolescence: having fun and growing emotionally, socially and academically.

Blythedale Children’s Hospital remains the only hospital in New York State with its own public school district on site.