ABOUT

Mission Statement

Since 2001, Mount Pleasant Academy (MPA) has established itself as a premiere facility for children who need extra support for their educational and emotional development. Mount Pleasant Academy provides cutting-edge education and therapeutic services for its children and their families. By combining current research findings, state-of-the-art teaching and multisensory strategies, and a fully-integrated team of educators, occupational therapists, speech/language therapists, children’s mental health specialists, and family support workers, we can provide children at MPA comprehensive services that surpass those available in a public school setting.

MPA History

Mount Pleasant Academy is a program of Family Service of RI (FSRI). Family Service of Rhode Island, Inc., is a non-profit organization that provides a wide array of social, medical and educational services to primarily low-income children, adults and families in every Rhode Island community, and in Massachusetts and Connecticut communities along the Rhode Island border. It was founded in 1892, which makes it one of the oldest non-profit agencies in Rhode Island.

In January 2000, FSRI hired Jeffrey Brusini to create a day treatment facility for children with emotional and behavioral challenges. The facility was to be based in Providence. In the ten years prior, Dr. Brusini had been the director of a small private school for children with similar needs in Warwick, RI.

Dr. Brusini began a property search within the City, and at the same time began developing the structure and plan for a cutting-edge program designed to support children with behavioral, emotional and learning challenges, as well as their families.

In the spring of 2000, we located a piece of property in the Mount Pleasant section of the City. The building, originally built in 1858, had been one of the City’s elementary schools for over a century. Mount Pleasant Elementary School (also known as “Little Mount Pleasant”) served primarily kindergarten and first-graders. The City eventually closed Little Mount Pleasant and sold the building in the late 1970’s to private developers, who renovated the building several times.

FSRI purchased the building in the fall of 2000, and began working with French Design & Build to return the building to use as a school. In the mean time, Dr. Brusini hired Joan Colwell, recently retired director of special education for the Town of East Greenwich, to serve as the new school’s director of education.

Mount Pleasant Academy opened for business on September 20, 2001. That was the first day a student was actually taught “in the building.” (Senior staff may remember that we had actually accepted students a few days prior to the building being ready, so we ended up having class at their homes, on the playground, and now and then in a vehicle!). We originally opened for students in grades 2-5, and each subsequent year added a grade. The “official” grand opening was held a little later, in November 2001.

In 2008, we renovated our ground floor to provide additional learning space for MPA students. Also in 2008, we partnered with the City of Providence and obtained grant funding to renovate and update the George West playground, which is adjacent to MPA.

When COVID closed all schools in the spring of 2020, MPA closed as well, but despite having created a sophisticated “on-line” version of MPA for our students via Distance Learning, we could see them regress.  So, in June 2020, we re-opened, the first school in RI to do so, and offered parents an option of sending their children back to MPA for the summer program, or having them continue to participate via Distance Learning—thus, MPA was the first school in RI to offer hybrid learning.  About 60% of our students returned in person, happy to be back in the building and getting services in-person.

THE FLOOD: All was well in the summer of 2020, until the weekend of August 2.  A tiny (1/4 inch) crack in a plumbing pipe on our third floor resulted in water flowing all weekend, and by the time it was discovered, over 50% of the building’s interior had been destroyed!  Thanks to COVID (!!) we were able to switch back to Distance Learning immediately, and remained that way until the building’s interior was gutted and rebuilt—students returned to a brand-new MPA in January 2021!

As of 2024, MPA is now in its 23rd  year, licensed for grades K-8, and has served hundreds and hundreds of children and families from RI and surrounding states.