Eileen Halperin Wins Award

We are very proud to announce that Purple Room teacher, Eileen Halperin, was honored by Childcare Network of Evanston on March 7th with an Early Childhood Education award. 

Eileen is part of Cherry's founding staff and has taught preschoolers for over 25 years. Throughout her career, Eileen has been a dedicated, caring, creative, and skilled teacher who has touched the lives of countless children and families in our community.  

Eileen’s work always goes above and beyond expectations.  She is a meticulous planner, creating exciting, innovative, and challenging curriculum for two classes of pre-kindergarten age children each year.  She has also designed a beautiful classroom environment reflective of her interest in Reggio Emilia and her respect for and love of the children with whom she works.  Eileen is an innovative teacher who truly believes in child-centered and play-based learning while also finding ways to introduce the skills children need as they enter kindergarten.  In recent years, she has embraced the project approach and her classes have studied a variety of topics (museums, restaurants, airline travel, cities, buildings, etc.), culminating each time in an event for the families of the children in her classes.  These projects reflect the extraordinary amount of time, planning, and effort that Eileen puts forth every year.  

In addition, Eileen is an empathic and caring teacher who works in partnership with the families in her classes.  She welcomes children with special needs into her classroom community.  In the spirit of her anti-bias approach to education, she values and accepts each child as a unique individual and invites families to share their cultures with one another. Children who speak languages other than English are encouraged to teach their language to their classmates and children’s cultures and reflected throughout the classroom environment.  

Eileen has been a leader and advocate throughout her career.  She has mentored countless teachers, aides, student interns, and ETHS high school students doing community service at Cherry Preschool.  In addition to serving on the Cherry Preschool Board several times, Eileen had presented at early childhood conferences.  We are delighted that Eileen will be recognized for all she has done for the children and families in the Evanston community over her long and distinguished career.