Rainier Valley Cooperative Preschool

Our Vision Statement

We are a community of learners creating a culture of care for one another and the world.

Our Mission
1. We are a cooperative preschool where adults and children are equal and active participants in learning.

• We value play as the “work” of early childhood education.
• Weekly lessons are based on the children’s emerging skills and interests.
• Caregivers have monthly meetings with a parent educator to discuss current child development, topics, and research.
• In daily school interactions, the teacher demonstrates concrete, developmentally appropriate methods of working with children.

2. We support adults and children to feel safe in being themselves as they learn and grow.

• Adults and children are allowed to represent truthfully their own feelings and current experience without judgment.

The Co-op Experience

Co-op preschool can be a wonderful experience for your child and for you. We are a welcoming community of families, and we’re very proud of our teachers, our children and our marvelous preschool. When parents are engaged in their child’s learning, the experience is more rewarding for both child and parents.

Our preschool is a parent-run cooperative, and its success depends on everyone doing his or her part. In addition to working in the classroom on a regular basis, our parents manage and operate the school. Each family:

• assists in the classroom on a regular basis
• holds a job/position (everything from art supply manager to web resources manager)
• attends monthly parent meetings
• participates in fundraising
• participates in cleaning and maintenance

We believe that the rewards of participating in our co-op are many:

• Parental involvement creates confidence in kids and parents.
• Our families are part of a wonderful, supportive community invested in and committed to the success of each child as well as the overall success of the organization.
• Participation in monthly meetings facilitated by a Parent Educator from SCCC are a useful source of age/stage specific information and advice.

Membership in our co-op preschool is not restricted according to race, religion, gender, sexual preference, ethnicity or national origin.