What does it mean to be a Co-Op Preschool?

As I try to explain our program to potential parents, I am often struck by how unique our school is! First of all, we are a parent-cooperative. There are not many of us left anymore (co-ops that are) – we are the dinosaurs of preschools, left over from the nursery schools of the 50s and 60s. Maybe we are considered retro now! I am hoping that sounds cool and not just old.

Sonshine offers parents 3 Co-op levels to choose from: Full, Partial, or Non-Co-op. Tuition is based on parent participation with Full Co-op parents doing the most volunteer work and paying the least amount of tuition. Full Co-op parents participate on a Committee, Saturday Workday (once a Year), and help in their child’s classroom once every 3 weeks. Partial Co-op parents only volunteer in their child’s classroom – no Committee or Workday. Not all parents can/want to participate – that is why we offer Non-Co-op, they are not required to participate.

Sonshine operates as an outreach and ministry of Trinity Lutheran Church in Pleasanton, California. We are open to the whole community so not all of our students are Christian and they are not required to be to attend Sonshine. We say an opening prayer each morning, a table grace at snack time, attend monthly chapel time, and celebrate Christmas and Easter.

We are a play-based, developmental preschool. I think people probably read that and ask themselves, “What does that mean?!” Well, to us here at Sonshine, it means we balance free-play opportunities with teacher-directed activities and hands-on exploration with traditional academic work. This is no easy task! Our amazing teachers create a warm, nurturing, enriched environment in which children can prepare for the rigors of kindergarten without having the spark squelched out of them at 2, 3, 4, or 5 years of age! Mostly it means that we take each child where they are, and try to move forward from that point together because we know that each child has his/her own developmental trajectory. It also means that we value children’s play as their work.

We are blessed to have longevity amongst our staff members at Sonshine. Although we have a few new teachers from time to time, most of us have been here somewhere between 3 and 21 years! There are several of us that started at Sonshine as parents in the program and stayed on after our children graduated. We enjoy it so much here we don’t want to leave!

We are licensed by the State Of California and teachers are required to have 12 Early Childhood Education units, 50 hours of supervised work in a licensed facility, a background check through the Department of Justice and the FBI, in addition to a physical and proof of immunizations.