History
Cooperative Nursery School means cooperative in many ways. Through the years at Meridian Hills Cooperative Nursery School & Kindergarten, parents have been eager to help the school have a better and more varied equipment allowing more opportunities for learning and playing. Many have donated time or talent to make something – or paint – or repair. Our books have come one-by-one as nursery schoolers with birthdays have given a few dollars to have a book added as their gift to the school. How did such a cooperative effort as Meridian Hills Cooperative Nursery School & Kindergarten begin?
While the First Congregational Church, the church home MHCNS, was being planned and built, its minister, Reverend Ray Utterback, was active in promoting the inclusion of a weekday nursery school in the new structure. During the same period of time, 1952-1957, the lack of pre-school experience available in Indiana was of growing concern to many. One of the results of this concern was the establishment around 1955 of parent cooperative nursery school in the city.
After the congregation moved into the new building at 7171 N. Pennsylvania, Mrs. Harold B. West called together women in the church whom she knew to have a special interest in the nursery school. Mrs. Roger Roeske took an active role in gathering together a group of mothers and organizing them into a cooperative nursery school. The first teacher was found with an ad in the Northside Topics. Mary Batrick was a trained first grade teacher who was hired to teach the first class when it met in January, 1960.
The nursery school made good use of the permanent equipment in the room which belonged to the Sunday School – and the school supplemented this equipment with blocks and puzzles and tricycles which the children rode in the community room or the parking lot. By the summer of 1961, MHCNS was looking for a new teacher and Mrs. John Partenheimer was looking for a nursery school for her children. She was a trained and experienced nursery school teacher and, therefore, not only enrolled her children at Meridian Hills but took the teaching job.
In 1963, Mrs. Bert Doyne joined Mrs. Partenheimer to teach the four-year-old class and the following fall a second four-year-old class was added to make it possible for more children to benefit from nursery school. (The waiting list was growing). With well-equipped rooms, a stable teaching staff and a full enrollment, MHCNS turned to undertaking a dreamed-of-project-a fenced play yard for stimulating and creative outdoor play.
In the Fall of 1965, the children began climbing up ladders, peeking out portholes and sliding down the firemen’s pole and slide off the imaginative treehouse designed by Mrs. Partenheimer and Mrs. Doyne with improvements and working drawings by Dr. Carl Rothe, a school father. The contractor was Ronal McConkey, uncle of another child in school. The Rothes and other parents continued to work in the play yard in the summer. The cost labor and materials for the playground, such as the paved patio and trike runs, storage sheds, fencing, and digging area were paid for with a $2,750 bank loan signed by three school fathers, repaid within a few years.
Inside the school a new play area was donated (labor and supplies) by Barry Bartle, a father who had four children enrolled at MHCNS. The (lower level) second story doll corner has been a very popular place for “family life” since 1970. There is a long list of other inside equipment which the school now enjoys with thanks to many creative parents such as the painting smocks designed by Mrs. Rothe and made by many mothers, the rocking horse barrel constructed by Mrs. Evans Woolen, the large bulletin boards made and installed by John Partenheimer, the flannel board season picture by Mrs. John Lanagan and many more. In 1972, a set of eight park swings and big slide were donated by Meridian Hills Country Club and put in place in the school yard by many helpful fathers.
Gradually, the school, under the imaginative and energetic directorship of Mrs. Partenheimer with happy addition of another excellent teacher, Mrs. Herbert Kohls (Carol) in 1968, has been able to grow from one class to, beginning next fall, four classes with more and better equipment and play areas. The emphasis, it is clear, at Meridian Hills Cooperative Nursery School & Kindergarten is on cooperation and everyone contributing in his or her own way. This formula has resulted in many happy days for the children, their parents and teachers.
