Cardinal O’Connell Early Learning Center

Special Education Team

Evaluation Team Chairperson (ETC) - Mary Murphy-Porkola

Psychologist - Marin Cleary

Speech Language Pathologist (SLP) - Krystal Gratta

Occupational Therapist - (OT) - Monica Eynation

Physical Therapist - Barbara Stryker

Behavior Specialist BCBA - Megan Chane

The Early Childhood Center at the Cardinal O’Connell provides early childhood education to all children and houses the Early Childhood Department staff.  Lowell Public Schools provides preschool to children that turn 4 on or before September 1st as well as young children with eligible disabilities upon their 3rd birthday.

The Early Childhood Center at the Cardinal O’Connell is the first such early childhood center in Lowell.  The Center is focused on welcoming young children and their families into the school district.  It houses 2 full-day integrated preschool classrooms, 3 half-day integrated preschool classrooms, 3 sub-separate classrooms, and our Parent Child Home Program staff that provides home visits to 36 families in Lowell each year, in addition to weekly playgroups throughout the city.

The Early Childhood Center at the Cardinal O’Connell is unique in its focus on providing high quality early education to young children and their families.  Our staff is committed to helping all children develop school readiness skills prior to kindergarten entry. We provide rich content through an integrated curriculum that offers children the opportunity to participate in whole group, small group, and center-based learning. This is linked to early learning standards that focus on social emotional learning, language and literacy, self-help, fine and gross motor skills, science and technology, history and social science, and arts. 

Our goal at the Early Childhood Center at the Cardinal O’Connell is to strengthen the role families play as a child’s first teacher, while providing children with intentional learning opportunities that provide young children with the prerequisite skills known to positively impact school achievement.