Dream Comes True For Breinigsville Teacher

Most of us start our adult lives with goals and dreams, which are a little bit different. Goals you can reach step by step while dreams are accumulated goals years in the making.

How many of us actually live our dreams, sometimes framed in our minds 15, 20, 30 years ago?

Jennifer Truckly of Breinigsville, a special education and kindergarten teacher in the Whitehall-Coplay School District for 19 years, is seeing her dream come true right now.

Truckly knew as a student at Kutztown University, with a major in special education, that she wanted to have a school of her own someday, one that she ran.

And it’s happening now. In September her Parkland Academy of Early Learning will open at the intersection of Routes. 100 and 222, in an old barn she’s been renovating over the summer right behind the Bear’s Repeating children’s consignment shop. She’s also installed a paved parking lot and a play area with a privacy fence, accessible from inside the academy.

Truckly will continue in her teaching position in Whitehall-Coplay and work at the academy after her day in the public school is over. She’s hired an academy director, Rachel Vermulen of Macungie, another Kutztown University grad. Six other certified teachers have been hired to work with the 36 children ages two to five the academy will accept.

Truckly is on the Curriculum Committee in Whitehall-Coplay and has chosen a program for her school that will incorporate both sign language and Spanish into the academy’s instructional program. Also to be taught to the toddlers are language arts, math, science and social studies.

The curriculum is approved by the National Association for Education of Young Children.

Truckly says, "We’ll be building a foundation for lifelong learning. It’s very rewarding helping kids succeed."

She will accept children with learning disabilities. As a special education teacher for ten years she taught children with learning disabilities and emotional problems. And, her son has ADHD, which she says, "inspired me, and helped keep the dream alive. I know what a mom goes through having a child with ADHD. I’ve also taught teachers how to handle children with disabilities."

Truckly emphasizes that the academy is for, "early education and early childhood development that prepares kids for kindergarten, which is now like first grade in many school districts."

She’s already accepted four children before the building’s interior is completed.

The academy will be open from 6:30 a.m. until 6 p.m., Monday through Friday. Truckly can be contacted at 610-351-7235 or parklandacademy@gmail.com.