Taking Giant Steps

Every day brings a news adventure

Joe doesn’t know what a brain injury is. He doesn’t know why therapists come to see him in the classroom – or why his right leg and arm don’t work like his left.

But he knows this: Every day at the Curtis Center he sees kids his age doing things that may challenge him physically and developmentally – and he wants to do those things too.

Joe just turned 2, but already he’s a fighter. He’s a fighter with a sweet personality – and a willingness to work for things that come easy to others.

There had been no warning of the stroke that sent Joe into neonatal intensive care the moment he was born.

His parents, Ellee and Bo, had gone to the hospital expecting a normal delivery.

But nothing that day was normal.

Joe was diagnosed with spastic cerebral palsy on his right side – and his parents began a months-long deep dive into childbirth brain injuries.

They started him on therapies for feeding, muscle tone, fine motor skills, speaking.

They wanted to try everything. They hoped. They despaired.

While other kids were walking, Joe couldn’t sit up unsupported. And Ellee couldn’t imagine putting him in childcare with his special needs and almost-daily therapy appointments.

“I thought he’d always need me to be with him,” she says.

What Joe needed, it turns out, was a place at the Curtis Center.

His pediatrician knew about the center’s inclusive classrooms and, on her recommendation, Joe’s parents enrolled him after his first birthday.

This is what happened next:

Joe’s teachers treated him like anyone else in his class; he joined every activity, and no fuss was made of his walker or his arm brace or his special cup. His therapists worked with him in the classroom or on the playground. His classmates were just as caring and inclusive as the adults.

And his parents watched with joy and relief as Joe started to catch up. “We saw Joe mirroring his friends’ movements and behaviors in play,” Ellee says.

Today – the Curtis Center playground is Joe’s favorite place. It’s where he hangs out with friends. It’s where Ellee and Bo watched him take his first independent steps – the first of many.

“We’re looking forward to seeing him grow and learn to keep up with his friends,” Ellee says. “I have no doubt that by the time he graduates from the Curtis Center and moves onto kindergarten, he’ll be running faster than we can keep up with.”

The Barbara H. Curtis Center is a five-star preschool whose inclusive classrooms create a welcoming “school family” for children of diverse abilities, ethnicities, and family incomes.