Pre-K

Our Pre-Kindergarten “Yellow Door” program prepares students for entry into kindergarten the following year and is open to children who will turn 5 between September 1^st  and December 31^st.  In some instances children with late summer birthdays will attend our PreK program to fine-tune some skills before entering elementary school.. Our Pre-K students attend Monday – Friday from 9 am – 12:00 pm with optional extended care and enrichment programs until 3:30 pm. In our Pre-K program we honor proven research on how children develop and what skills they are truly ready for as 4–5-year-olds. In honoring childhood, we want children to learn at their own pace during this year, allowing them to master competencies such as small motor skills before moving on to a tightly structured environment of elementary school. Our low 6:1 student : teacher ratio (2 teachers and an assistant to 18 children max) ensures each child receives individual attention.

Both programs have a goal of getting children ready for Kindergarten, but each approaches this goal differently. The biggest difference in the two programs comes from which agency oversees the regulations for the programs. Public TK programs are under the Department of Public Education. Therefore, their regulations will mirror elementary school policies that are designed for children ages 5-12. Our Pre-K Program is under policies from the Department of Social Services, which sets the regulations for our programs and mirrors traditional early childhood policies and priorities. Unlike public school TK, our program continues to use an educational play-based approach to help children acquire cognitive skills in literacy, letters and numbers, concepts, size, sequence, patterns, colors, and other academic skills along with working on social and emotional competencies. While some of our children end the year reading, this is not our driving force. Rather, we seek to make children excited about learning.