Current News

  • The Leake & Watts Biondi Education Center Varsity Basketball team won the Westchester County Class D Championship Title on March 1st!

  • Leake & Watts and three residents of the Residential Treatment Center were honored for outstanding community service at the Living Transformation International Center’s (LITC) First Annual Proclamation and Awards Dinner.

  • Leake & Watts opened a new community residence for six young men with developmental disabilities on November 17th. The new home, named Sevilla, provides 24-hour care and support and is the second opened by Leake & Watts in 2009. This growth spurt is part of an ongoing expansion of the agency’s Developmental Disabilities services, with seven additional residences like Sevilla scheduled to open in the next 18 months.

  • Leake & Watts received numerous awards at the New York State Foster and Adoptive Parent Association annual award banquet on October 30th. The association grants awards based on the votes of foster parents across all agencies in the state. In recognition of outstanding service and dedication in several categories, Leake & Watts was given the most accolades of any agency.

  • The Carol and Frank Biondi Education Center has been selected as a 2009-2010 National Association of Special Education Teachers (NASET) School of Excellence. Each year, this distinction is bestowed upon a few select and qualified licensed non-public special education schools in the State of New York and is one of the highest levels of recognition that a non-public special education school can achieve. Schools are selected each year by demonstrating truly exceptional dedication, commitment and achievement in the field of special education.

  • Highbridge Nursery School, one of our child care centers in the Bronx, joined Cool Culture and the Guggenheim Museum for "Literacy Through Culture," a project for both parents and students designed to strengthen parents’ capacity to support their children’s learning during museum visits and everday routines this spring. Highbridge Nursery School is one of only eleven child care centers in New York City that participated in this exciting project. Students enjoyed opportunities that are often inaccessible to children in under-served neighborhoods through this unique program.

  • The spirit of John Watts, Jr., founder of Leake & Watts in 1831, was alive and well this spring. On Wednesday, May 13th, fifth grade students from the Leake & Watts Biondi Elementary School in the Williamsbridge neighborhood of the Bronx visited the home of the 69th Regiment at the Armory on Lexington and 26th Street in Manhattan. The site of the Armory was once the farm of founder John Watts, Jr. himself.

    Earlier this spring, students at Biondi Elementary wrote thank you letters to the soldiers of the 69th Regiment who had recently served in Iraq and Afghanistan. Nineteen members of the 69th Regiment were killed in action on their most recent tour to Iraq.