My almost 3 year old has attended Mountain Park Playschool in Lake Oswego since last September; the Playschool is located at 2 Mt. Jefferson Terrace, about 5 minutes from the Portland Community College's Sylvania campus. You don't have to be a member of the Mountain Park homeowners association to enroll your child in the Playschool; we live in SW Portland, just north of Mountain Park. Kids range from 2 to pre-K. The school claims to follow the Reggio Emilia instruction philosophy, but I must admit I don't really know enough about this approach to understand if it is truly applied. I just know that the teachers are mature and loving, the kids experience a wide range of activities throughout the day, and my son always tell me he had a great day at the end of the day (and it usually takes about 10 minutes to get him to leave the place).
When we moved to the area last summer, we visited several places, observed the kids, talked to the teachers, and both DH and I ranked Playschool as our top choice. The school is located in a residential area; it has a really extensive playground area surrounded by greenery. (Two other schools we visited had chain linked fences and were located right off busy roads. The environment just feels really different.) The teachers are long time mature employees, unlike a few other places we visited where high turnover or very young teachers seem to be the norm.
One thing that we considered when looking at preschools was the school's use of computers. The Playschool has a couple of computer terminals donated to the pre-K class and the kids get very limited supervised use of those computers on occasion. (We visited two other preschools that had computer terminals in the 2s and 3 year old classes as well, and we were told the kids have computer play time as part of their free choice every day. Such early and extensive exposure to computer play (and TV) just doesn't fit with our child-rearing philosophy.)
Cami, the Director, is terrific. We have dropped our son off at various times during the day -- from before 9 am to after 11 am -- and picked him up at various times in the afternoon -- from around 3 pm to 6 pm; so we've had the opportunity to observe the staff and kids in a wide range of periods. My son has also spent time with all the teachers since enrolling. I really think everyone there is wonderful.
The school staff had no previous experience with cloth diapers, but Cami was not even hesitant about having the teachers learn to use cloth when I asked if they would be willing to change cloth; I used the pocket diapers for daycare to make it easier on the teachers.
They were really flexible about the start of enrollment, and we were able to visit and hang out several days over a week's time to get my son acclimated before officially enrolling him.
If the location is convenient, I really recommend a visit to the Playschool for all parents shopping around for preschools.
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