My Brooklyn era started as a parent member with a 3-year-old! I was attracted to cooperative preschool in great part due to the memories of attending one myself–we had this old clawfoot bathtub filled with pillows for lounging with picture books, a whole room dedicated to woodworking where I got my first blood blister, and a vibrant teacher who played records and puppets–and my mom’s subsequent ongoing friendship with my preschool teacher. 

Brooklyn later hired me to teach at the recommendation of my daughter’s teacher during a transition from one teacher to two. I did not predict this community would carry me through both my children’s preschool years all the way to college! What has remained true from the beginning is the value of being involved in and integral to a child’s education. I love representing that standard of parenting that cooperative preschool offers and nourishing it along the way with both my experience and the dialogue made possible by regularly sharing a classroom with parents.

Over the past 20 years, Portland has seen a massive bloom of various preschool program options. More options mean more competition, so that our once-thriving waitlists and lottery admission process serving predominantly local families has been outpaced by selective enrollment. We have seen a trend in being a landing place for families relocating to Portland who either were part of a co-op in another city or see the opportunity to build community in our parent-participation classrooms. At Brooklyn we have blossomed by adding a 2’s program for toddlers, integrating our 2 and 3 day preschool programs into mixed-age school days for 3’s and 4’s and including community events for our families to come together every other month as an accessory experience to our days together in the classrooms.

In my earliest teaching years, I wanted to promote a community connection without adhering to a holiday theme. We regularly invent holidays in my classroom each year, inspired by the kids’ ideas – we’ve had a Rainbow Day, a Darkness Day and Wacky Days that avoid the trappings of commercialism and give kids the liberation of bringing their ideas into being. 

Before I was savvy to the skills of kids taking the lead on that, the Lantern Walk was born of wanting to do something in December with universal appeal, warmth and literal glow that we could prepare for in the classroom, and the nugget that my family really enjoyed taking walks at night. 

For most of the last 20 years, we have been constructing lanterns and coming together with families to take a night walk in the dark, sing some songs and bundle up for whatever the winter weather is doing that evening. Some years we have musicians in our community that play with us or for us, start with a potluck, or end with cocoa. 

Home visits to students before coming to school were also inspired by my own preschool experience–my teacher visited me when I was 4 and that has always been my non-negotiable beginning with students!

Cooperative preschool is unlike any other preschool experience. We coach cohesive conflict resolution practices in the classroom that translate to any age and environment, we value ongoing adult education as a mission of the school, and our teachers love what we do. 

The whole family has a role at Brooklyn. Students are the gateway to the classroom, but parents and caregivers spend time in the classroom as Family Teachers and also share accountability for running the business aspects of the school. Legacy is naturally honored through siblings and the ascension of getting older in the formative early years. 

Participating in a co-op is an opportunity to join, build, and live community as a visible value, and to incorporate an attentive range of adults into young children’s lives beyond traditional family. Seen as an investment in the early years that may grow into lifelong friends, unexpected enrichment, and a front-row seat to the blossoming of your young child–nothing competes with the outcomes of these benefits!

The joy of meeting new people and the novelty of what I learn from kids year to year is what keeps me inspired to continue sharing my days with this age group. There were years that I saw my own kids connecting their ongoing school lives to their preschool years as foundational and core memory-making, there have been years that have activated the hardest work I have ever engaged, and very importantly there have been years I have seen the community uphold the meaning of care and commitment to myself and other members in times of monumental life events. What really keeps me inspired is that I can workshop new ideas with kids continually, and that I get a tremendously exciting influence on people’s lives in which I also get to experience appreciation and humility.