The Children’s School in Southampton Celebrates 45 Years of Learning

For a couple of hours on a recent Monday morning inside The Children’s School, nearly 40 children looked like they had stepped back into the Roaring Twenties.

And as director Kathy Bishop returned to her office, she needed to catch her breath.

“We’re doing pictures today, so we just finished — it’s for our fundraiser,” she said, taking a sip of water. “So we dressed the kids up and, oh my gosh, the pictures are so cute!”

Leading, and wrangling, a brood of 2-to-4-year-olds is a balancing act, Bishop explained — in her vision to create an environment with learning and play, in navigating their ecstatic discoveries and sadder moments, and in creating a child-centered environment while being able to finance it.

If all goes to plan, the upcoming event on April 29 at the Dormition of the Virgin Mary Greek Orthodox Church of the Hamptons in Shinnecock Hills will raise some of the funds Bishop needs for the early childhood program — located in the education wing of the United Methodist Church in Southampton — that has now served families of the East End for 45 years.

“I am thankful every day that I’ve been able to do this for my adult life,” she said. “It’s a very happy place.”

When Bishop moved to Southampton as a senior in high school, she already had it in her mind that she wanted to work in early childhood education. She grew to be the second eldest among her seven siblings, she said, but the seed had been planted even earlier than that.

“On the way to school, when I was in fifth and sixth grade, we passed the nursery school, and I just loved looking at it,” she said, “and I thought that just looks like what I want to do.”

Bishop would go on to earn her Bachelor of Science degree in education and a Master of Science degree in early childhood education from Southampton College, when it was the easternmost campus of Long Island University, followed by schooling at C.W. Post to become a certified school administrator.

But it was during her graduate program that one of her professors approached her with a proposition: To start an early childhood classroom where students could learn. And so, in February 1978, they did.

With just eight students, the first year was a “whirlwind,” Bishop recalled. During the second year, the school expanded to a little cottage on campus, she said, and enrollment nearly quadrupled.

“It went from eight to 30 almost immediately,” she said. “Then it went from 30 to 45. And then, our last year at the college, we had taken over more than the cottage. They had given us room in the dorm behind us and we had 85 kids.”

When Long Island University parted ways with the campus and sold to Stony Brook University in 2006, The Children’s School needed to find a new location, too — which they ultimately did in Southampton Village.

“We spent the summer — parents, teachers, friends — moving,” Bishop said. “It took the better part of that summer. Everyone helped, fathers came up with trucks and muscle and moved big things, and other parents came up and packed boxes and then unpacked boxes when we got here. The teachers came in and set up their classrooms.

“We didn’t have much money that year, but we had a lot of help,” she continued. “Everyone was happy that we had a new home.”

For the school’s annual show, which has had a different theme every year since 1978, the students dedicated it to Southampton Village — a love letter titled “Our Community,” Bishop said — and included local businesses like Catena’s Market. Its co-owner, Vic Finalborgo, even made an appearance on stage.

“He came out in his apron and said to the kids, ‘Come on, we’ve got to get this place packed up and ready for the customers,’” Bishop recalled with a laugh. “He was disappointed the next year, he said, ‘What did I do wrong?’ I said, ‘We have a different theme.’”

The school’s learning program also follows a thematic approach, and through an integrated curriculum, the students are engaged and excited during class, Bishop said.

“I love to see kids learning,” she said. “I love to see the expression on their face. I love to see when they come up with something new themselves, or when they get something that we’ve taught them or something from one another. I have always felt from the parents that there was a need for this and it’s just so important.”

Today, The Children’s School is home to 39 students, eight teachers, a volunteer and Bishop’s assistant, who is learning the ropes of the office. At age 72, retirement may be on the horizon for the school’s founder, but imagining a future without the kids — who are “spirit lifting,” she said — is complicated, at best.

“It’s hard to give up. This is really my first child,” Bishop said. “I’m hoping to be able to pass the baton — and I hope it will continue. I have to say, I love The Children’s School. And I have loved doing this. Yes, there are days when you go home and think, ‘Oh my God, that was a struggle.’ But I love the children, my staff, the families, and I’m grateful that I was able to do this with my adult life.”