As a cooperative preschool, RCNS depends on the involvement of its parents. Not only do parents get a chance to participate in day-to-day classroom activities, but we also serve in administrative roles and help in fundraising efforts to support the school.
What do parents gain from a cooperative preschool?
Parent Cooperative Preschools International says it this way: “Parents gain insight into child behavior by observing other children. They observe how other parents and the professional teachers handle various situations and gain greater understanding and enjoyment of their own children through active participation in their education. They have the opportunity to share their experiences and expertise with others while working together in a cooperative setting.”And there’s much more. As two RCNS parents recently wrote on a local site, “Parents get to know all the children in the classroom deeply. We develop a sense of shared responsibility to each others’ children, and our children learn that they are nurtured by a wide variety of adults.”Parents set school policies regarding everything from snacks to class size, and parent input is valued in every aspect of the school. Our cooperative nursery school allows parents the opportunity to directly influence how the school impacts their children. The end result is a nurturing, caring preschool environment, where both children and parents feel valued.”To provide a quality nursery school program for our children, parents have the following responsibilities to RCNS:
- Classroom co-oping on a rotating basis: Parents take turns being in the classroom as teacher’s assistant for the full school day, and bringing a favorite fresh fruit or vegetable to share for snack.
- Saturday housekeeping, once per family each year.
- An administrative job, to substantively contribute to the running of our school.
- Participation in Family Fun Day.
More information on parent responsibilities and the cooperative experience may be found in our RCNS Handbook 2022-2023.
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What our parents say…
I love the co-oping experience and model and wish all parents the opportunity to take part in the early school years.
I would recommend RCNS because of the parental involvement and what comes with it – learning about all the classmates, seeing the teacher in action and getting to know all the parents better that I would have ever been able to do in traditional preschool.
At RCNS classmates become like a big family, everyone knows children and parents. It’s totally different feeling from an ordinary school.
The school helped my child with social emotional development. I think this is really due to the play based curriculum.
All the teachers and staff we have had last few years have all been amazing.
Each teacher has been a perfect fit for the class they teach. Mrs. Levy has prepared my children for kindergarten in the best possible way. RCNS has been one of the best decisions I have ever made.
Best Thing about our RCNS experience : Getting to work with the children. — I didn’t believe I’d enjoy it as much as I have. One Aspect: The quality of the teachers. — The teachers are very warm, caring, and work very hard. They are all just wonderful!
Our best experiences this year were getting to have Ms. Mahoney as our teacher. She understands the goals of the curriculum and manages a group of rambunctious 2/3 year olds well. We also had a great experience in serving in our administrative positions due to the wonderful Co-presidents. They made us feel welcome and that our role was important to the school.
We loved having our child in Ms. Sofya’s class. She is an amazing teacher, so loving, so creative and really tuned in to the needs of her students. She has a very deep understanding of children in this age group and has been great about communicating with us on how to deal with the challenges of raising a 3-year-old.
The best thing at RCNS was the parent-teacher conference. Mrs. Levy shared lots of information with me and gave me some suggestions about how to help my kid to getting better and better. I appreciated her hard work. All teachers at RCNS are professional and full of love to all kids. They helped my kid improving everyday. My kid loves school and she is ready for kindergarten.
The best thing about our experience at RCNS this year was seeing how my child grew and matured socially, emotionally and academically. Ms. Sofya was a wonderfully caring and patient teacher and my child benefited from his time in her classroom.
RCNS is not our daughter’s first school, but it is the school she loves a lot. everyday, she is ready to school and prepare all the stuff by herself. She is very happy at RCNS. We appreciate the love of all teachers and the hard work of each co-op parent.
We are very happy with the social-emotional growth that our child has made and the culture of community and support that RCNS has provided for us/her. We feel that the teachers, staff, and parents sincerely care about our child and her well-being.
Ms. Elizabeth was the perfect first teacher for my daughter! The children feel loved by Ms. Elizabeth every day! My daughter grew tremendously this year in her vocabulary, her number sense and with her ability to complete tasks. Thank you, Ms. Elizabeth, for a wonderful intro to preschool!
