European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - April 14, 1986, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Monday april 14, 1986 the stars and stripes Page 13 by Mitchell Landsberg associated press four children Are playing quietly an contentedly in a brightly coloured room in private Nursery school on Manhattan s upper East Side. They Are about to teach the grown ups a lesson. One of them 4-year-old Carmen the Bright healthy daughter of a successful architect is exactly the sort of child you would expect to find in a school in this wealthiest of new York neighbourhoods. But at Merrical s Castle Nursery school children of privilege mix with children of poverty and disease. Carmen s playmates this afternoon Are Jason 5, who was homeless until a year ago Saidah 5, who helps care for a sick and impoverished Mother and Shira 4, who has a deadly crippling disease. Jason is using wooden blocks to make a House. It is his favorite pastime. Carmen and Saidah approach Shira a plump faced balding Cherub who was born with a rare immune system disease and is deaf. Carmen gestures emphatically in sign language and Points to the boy with the blocks. Shira he wants to play with you she says out loud. Shira s fat Cheeks crease in a smile and she nods enthusiastically. She helps Jason build his House. Gretchen Buchenholz the director of Merrical s Castle founded the school 11 years ago on the premise that All children can thrive and learn from each other Given the Chance. From the beginning the Nursery school and Day care Center accepted handicapped abused and disadvantaged children. For the past three years it has been seeking out homeless children As Well. Slightly More than half the children fall into one of those categories. The rest include the Cream of the upper East Side. We were absolutely convinced that kids could be mainstreamed " says Buchenholz and that if you had the right mix of kids in the room and the right number and Quality and Type of staff in the room and the right equipment and a lot of craziness and some courage you could really help a handicapped child thrive and reach his  the Effort is neither easy nor cheap. Leslie r. Williams an associate professor of Early childhood education at Columbia University s teachers College says most schools would like to take in disadvantaged children but Lack the resources. Among those schools that can take in such children disadvantaged students generally account for Only 10 percent to 20 percent of the total she says. Merrical s maintains a full time staff of 18 for slightly More than 100 children. It also has a Large part time contingent of nurses doctors social workers psychologists and crisis intervention specialists. The school is on the second floor of a French gothic Church building on a quiet Block lined with town houses and apartment buildings. Just around the Corner is Elaine a the restaurant where celebrities hang out. Visitors enter the school through a fenced in Garden planted in honeysuckle and Magnolia. After that Buchenholz tells them just follow the  tuition for those children whose parents can afford it ranges up to $6,000 a year. In addition the parents hold fundraisers and there is some support from private foundations. Buchenholz an impassioned crusader who has founded soup kitchens and lobbies vigorously on behalf of the homeless and handicapped believes Merrical s should receive Public funding As Well. She sees her school As a National Model and is suing the state for Money on behalf of at risk students. Childhood ends quickly she says. In Many cases it ends quickly in death. We Are in a great hurry to do something substantial and meaningful to bring Relief to these children who Are  where government will not step in Buchenholz does. When she discovered the plight of the City s thousands of homeless children who follow their unemployed mothers from the streets to Barracks style shelters to seedy welfare hotels she began rescuing them. Buchenholz has single Anderly taken several families out of the hotels found them apartments and enrolled their children in her school. Sometimes she seeks them out sometimes they turn up at the school the Way sometimes cats  a photos at the Merrical Castle Nursery school a Pupil assists Thomas Connolly who was born with Neo Natal muscular dystrophy. Left a Pupil Speaks in sign language to a deaf classmate. Nursery school for the Fering