SALTZMAN COMMUNITY SERVICES CENTER
The Diane Lindner-Goldberg Child Care Institute (CCI) is a licensed, NAEYC-accredited early childhood program offering high-quality care and education for infants, toddlers, and preschoolers, as well as our exemplary pre-K classroom.
Our program is open year-round, Monday through Friday, from 7:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., and includes nutritious breakfast, lunch, and snacks prepared to support healthy growth and development.
As a part of the Joan and Arnold Saltzman Community Services Center, your child will receive free evaluations from graduate students in our clinics. Services include psychological evaluations and services, literacy support, and diagnostics in speech, language, and hearing.
Fun at CCI
A Champion Center for Child Care
CCI is one of the first childcare centers in Nassau County to be designated as a Champion Center by the Child and Adult Care Food Program (CACFP). As a Champion Center, we are held to high standards and required to increase the number of healthy snacks provided.
Creating Lifelong Learners
CCI’s program focuses on the development of your child’s social, emotional, and cognitive abilities as well as their skills and attributes. The Institute offers developmentally appropriate activities for children ages eight weeks to five years, providing opportunities for hands-on, integrated learning. Children are grouped according to age and ability.
Frequently Asked Questions
CCI opens its doors promptly at 7:30 a.m. Parents sign in their children each morning and can help get them settled in their classroom with their teacher. You may pick up your child as late as 5:30 p.m.
If we see that your child isn’t feeling well or detect that he or she has a fever, we will call you to pick your child up as soon as possible. Your child must be fever-free for 24 hours before returning to CCI.
Yes, we accommodate dietary restrictions and food allergies.
In the infant room, babies eat and sleep on their own schedules. In this nurturing and loving environment, the infants have their own play area and toys.
In each classroom, children choose from a wide array of age-appropriate play activities until breakfast is served. Children may play independently or in a group.
Following breakfast, children may move to the indoor play area, go outside to the playground – which is completely enclosed – or explore Hofstra’s beautiful campus (a recognized arboretum) with their class. Strollers and multiple-seat buggies allow the infants and young toddlers to also take advantage of the scenic campus environment.
After their walk or play, it is lunchtime. Meals and snacks, including fresh fruits and vegetables, are served family style. The children help teachers set the table, serve the food, and even clean up afterwards. Lunch is followed by nap or rest time.
Throughout the day, children engage in Center time and Circle time activities.
Center time allows teachers to provide opportunities for the children to choose from a variety of activities, including the block area, creative art, writing center, science and discovery center, dramatic play, music, and movement. Center time is focused on building children’s skills, language, and vocabulary.
Circle time is an opportunity for the children to come together to read books, sing songs, dance, exercise, discuss classroom activities, participate in flannel board stories, and puppet play.
From the time they are dropped off in the morning until they are picked up by their parents, the children have a day full of learning, physical activity, and bonding with their peers and teachers.
CCI will send out a notification asking parents to pick up their children because of the early closure of the campus. However, the Center will remain open and staffed until the last child is picked up.
Yes. CCI has been designated a Breastfeeding-Friendly Child Care Center by the New York State Department of Health’s Child and Adult Care Food Program.
Parents are asked to fill out a form at the start of the academic year providing detailed information on who may visit their child and who may pick up their child. If someone comes by who is not on the parent-authorized list, they are not admitted into the center.
Everyone (including parents) who stops by during the course of the school day must be buzzed in through a double-locked door and then sign in at the front desk before being admitted to the classroom area.
Infants are cared for in the specialty infant room and have their own dedicated staff. There are classrooms for toddlers separated by age, as well as a pre-K classroom. While there are special occasions when children from different areas do congregate, we maintain a separate schedule for each group of children on the playground and in CCI’s indoor play pit. Breakfast, lunch, and snacks are also served in the individual classrooms.
All child care staff are subject to NYS comprehensive background checks.
As required by the Child Care and Development Block Grant Act (CCDBG) and New York State Social Services Law, new comprehensive background checks became effective on September 25, 2019.
These background check requirements include:
- NYS criminal history check
- FBI criminal history check
- NYS child abuse and maltreatment registry screening
- NYS Sex Offender Registry check
- National Crime and Information Center – National Sex Offender Registry Check
In addition, any individual who resides or who resided in another state at some point in the prior five years must undergo the following checks for that state(s):
- Criminal history repository
- Child abuse and maltreatment registry
- Sex offender registry
Contact the Institute
Questions?
