The Children’s Cooperative Nursery School

Children’s Co-​op is an amazing preschool. When my daughter started in September, she had never been left with anyone but me, her father, or her grandmother. Needless to say, I was quite nervous about leaving her for the first time ever. And as it turned out, the nervousness was needless as well.
The wonderful thing about a co-​op preschool is that parents take an active role in the running of it. Everyday a different parent helps out in the classroom. This provides an excellent opportunity to view your child in the classroom environment. You get to know and play with your child’s classmates. You get to see the teachers in action. And your child gets the pleasure of showing you all that they do in school every day.
But you don’t have to worry about it being some huge time commitment. Since there are 14 — 16 kids in the class it works out to about once a month that a parent has to help out in class. And if you trade off with your partner, that means just one half day every other month you’d need to be there.
Besides the co-​op structure, other features I love about the Children’s Coo-​op:
* low student/​teacher ratio (in the younger class it’s 14 students with 2 full-​time teachers, 1 part-​time teacher, and 1 parent helper), and the teachers are all wonderful
* play-​based curriculum — they’re NAEYC accredited
* great facilities — sunny rooms, fun playground
* location location location — right in Newton Center, across the street from Starbucks, down the street from the T, ample free parking
* flexible schedule — in addition to the normal school hours, 9 — 12 every morning (except Wednesdays for the younger class) they have early drop off and late stay day options
My daughter loves school. So I love it.