Third Avenue’s Bay One Preschool celebrates ribbon cutting

It’s a great day to be a kid in Bay Ridge.

Bay One Preschool — a new educational facility at 7106 Third Avenue — celebrated its official grand opening with a ribbon cutting on Friday, May 26.

The school, still new to the nabe, was the brainchild of Bay Ridge resident Juan Li, who also serves as the school’s director.

“I’ve been in Bay Ridge since 2014,” she said, noting that, when she moved here 13 years ago, she didn’t have a family of her own yet.

Now, with two “beautiful boys,” Li said, giving back to the community and providing an educational outlet were both of great importance to her.

“I just want to try to do my best to help out the community and the parents of Bay Ridge,” said Li, who used to work in a public school as a bilingual teacher. “I wanted to open a pre-school that maybe in the future I can turn into a multi-lingual pre-school where children can come to learn languages like Chinese, Spanish, Arabic and others.”

For now, she said, her school — which operates Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. — serves just under a dozen children from two and a half to five years old.

However, the building — complete with three floors and a bountiful backyard — has room for way more.

“It’s a very big school,” she said, adding also that she has already applied for the center to hopefully become a universal pre-k site in the future. “We have three floors, all of which are for our pre-school, and our goal is one classroom per floor. It’s a very safe environment for the students, and we also offer bilingual education, which is beneficial for the children.”

The preschool, she added, is close by to schools like P.S. 102, making it “very convenient for local parents.”

“I also want to help out parents of families with low income,” Li added, noting that she is in the process of applying for programs that can help families pay for their children to attend the facility either with a voucher or with no payment at all. “That’s my goal. I just want to help the community.”

For more information, visit Bay One Preschool on Facebook at www.facebook.com/bayonepreschool.

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