Our History

Gantry View School continues the work of Queens Paideia School, which was founded by educators and parents who were concerned that traditional classrooms, with their high student-teacher ratios and limited methodology, could not accommodate the needs or consider the true potential of most children. Gantry View School is a destination for parents who seek academic rigor, emphasis on the “whole child,” and greater involvement in their children’s education.

How It Started

The educators who formed Gantry View were motivated by a desire to bring academic rigor and an emphasis on the “whole child” to Long Island City. These values already permeated the Bunny Hill preschools, founded in Brooklyn in 2014 and LIC in 2018. Inspired by the Reggio Emilia philosophy and approach, Bunny Hill offers preschoolers—infants to UPK—individualized attention and multi-sensory experiences. 

Bunny Hill’s founders learned of the remarkable work happening at Queens Paideia School in Court Square. Since 2009, QPS had been implementing learning modalities designed to reach a broader range of children, based on its low ratio and core belief that true learning happens with consistent observation and feedback. QPS’s program emphasized the connection between skill-building, content knowledge, and application, as well as the benefits of independent and collaborative learning, project-based learning, and community outreach and environmental preservation. All of this made QPS the go-to institution for parents who prized deep learning for their children over progress fueled primarily by grades and other extrinsic factors. 

In spring 2020, Bunny Hill’s Leah Tong and QPS founders Dr. Francis Mechner and Karyn Slutsky explored the idea of creating a new school in LIC that would embrace their shared passion for educational theory and current research on how children learn best. These exchanges engendered warmth and mutual regard, which, when expanded to include QPS’s formidable team of Learning Managers, led to the formation of Gantry View.

Gantry View combines the experience and knowledge of Queens Paideia with Bunny Hill’s administrative know-how and vision for a larger school that can serve Long Island City and its surrounding neighborhoods.