Dear Co-op Families,
I am so excited to be writing this email to you! As you know, the hiring committee has been working this summer to find a new teacher for our school. We hit on a few stumbling blocks with our licensing and certification needs, but now we know those stumbling blocks were meant to be. Efforts paid off and we feel like we hit a home run!!
Enter Karen Oatley, a veteran preschool teacher from Nevada AND Susan Rambeau a newly certified preschool teacher from Loretto. Yes, the hiring committee has hired not one, but two wonderful teachers. As we went through the hiring process, we came to realize that our school runs best with 2 teachers, and that it is worth the financial challenges to give our children the best playschool experience possible.
Fate is such a beautiful thing. Karen was first introduced to our school last summer, when we were trying to fill an open teacher position that was eventually filled by Mindy. She inquired about the job and felt like it would be a perfect fit. Her biggest decision wasn't to apply for the position, but to determine if State College was in her future. Karen lived in Reno Nevada and was pondering a move to State College to be closer to her grandchildren. Long story short, she stayed in Nevada and remained teaching at her school. But this summer, the need to be with her family and see her grandchildren grow was very clear and she moved to State College. She retired and didn't know for sure that she wanted a job again. But, I think we all know teachers like this... she just didn't feel complete, sitting around while her grandsons are in school! She needs to be with kids, so she made a call to us, not knowing we were hiring again this year... but as fate would have it, the hiring committee got the call 48 hours before the last day of interviews. We were able to work her into our interview schedule and the rest is history... Her experiences as lead teacher and director are the kind you notice just from talking to her. She KNOWS children. She knows what it means to know them individually, to reach them, to teach them, to be a part of their playful day of learning. Karen will be our Lead Teacher and we know you will be pleased once you get a chance to meet her.
Susan graduated this past May, and has already been working with children in a preschool setting for the past few years during winter and summer breaks. She believes in our play-based program, and in the power of community, respect and cooperation. She is excited to work and learn alongside Karen. Fate had a part in Susan's story as well. She had many opportunities to choose from and declined our original offer. But, after a night to reconsider her choice, she determined that our school was the right place for her and accepted the position.
We can't wait for you to meet these fabulous teachers. We believe they will make an incredible team and give our children a wonderful preschool year. Next Wednesday, September 1st, we will have a Meet The Teachers play date. It will start at 10:30 AM and it will be on the Coop Playground. We'll bring snacks, and you bring your kids! Karen will be there, and we are still waiting to see if Susan can get the morning off of her summer job. We'll ask that Karen and Susan have a small group activity for the kids to be a part, very similar to what we experienced at Circle Time. Then, the children can play and you will all have the chance to introduce you to our new teachers and get to know them.
With our efforts to find the perfect teachers, we are slightly behind on preparing the school for the first day. We'll have more information to share about the beginning of the school year and provide opportunities for you to get involved and help build our community and cooperative environment as we prepare our school for our children. We definitely need your help!
If you have any questions or would like additional information, please don't hesitate to contact Either Ona or Ed.
We could not have written a more perfect story (except this all happening in July instead of August :-) ), but it would not be possible without the efforts of the Alumni Families who volunteered to be part of the hiring committee. We'd like to give a special thanks to Pam Adams and Judi Glaze who committed their time and made the investment to ensure the best interest of school and our children was made. There were some long days and many, many email... but as you are soon to see, it all paid off. Thanks Pam and Judi!!
We look forward to seeing you on Wednesday as we begin this fantastic year!
Thanks to our parent volunteers and teachers for making this past weekend's events successful.
We attended the 4th Annual Mothers and More Preschool Fair where we met lots of great kids and parents who will be hopefully joining the Coop soon.
Another team was at the school, hosting an Open House with the teachers. Thanks to them, we'll soon be welcoming a new family for the Spring Semester, as well as (hopefully) finding some families for the fall.
And a MIGHTY thank you to ALL families for their help with Winter clean-up. The school looks great!
We're off to a great start on our year... I can't believe 2 months have gone by already!
I feel like I know most of this year's families already... but I'd still love to know more!
If you haven't already done so, please take the time to send Dayna your Family Profile and a family picture. Write whatever you want... just your names, or fill out Dayna's rockin' questionairre... whatever moves you.
These will be posted at the school, and the kids always love looking at each other's family pictures, and reading their family stories.
In the spirit of inspiring you all, I'll share our family profile, written last year:
Once upon a time, in a tiny village called Linden Hall, a Beautiful Lady named Kate and her Prince Charming, whose name is Tony,welcomed their baby daughter to the world. They named her Aubrey Emily Sanfilippo, because they liked the name, and because the Lady’s best friend was named Emily, too. They were very happy together, with their dog Benny and their cats Bill and Purple. Aubrey was a good baby with blue eyes and long legs. She was very smart and funny, and she loved to make music. But still, they felt their family was not yet complete. So a small time later, they welcomed another tiny daughter to the family. They named her JoAnn Evans Sanfilippo, after the Lady’s Grandma and Daddy. JoAnn was a good baby too, and her round cheeks and full lips made them all fall in love with her right away. JoAnn loved to make art and to sing, and she was also smart and funny (smart and funny seemed to be a family trait). Finally, they knew their family was complete. One day, the whole family came to visit a magical place called the Cooperative Playschool, and they knew right away that it was the perfect place for them to find more families to play, learn, and grow with. And they all lived happily ever after.
I am terribly remiss in not posting this news sooner.... sorry!
We are proud and pleased as punch to welcome Ms. Mindy to the Coop family as our new teacher of the "green team". We've only known her for a few weeks, but already she is family.
Here's a letter from Ms. Mindy introducing herself:
Dear Parents,
Hello and welcome to the three year old class! I am so excited to begin this school year with the Cooperative Playschool! My name is Mindy Miller and I am looking forward to working with your child this year!
I have been working with children for the past six years. In 2003, I entered Penn State as a returning adult student to pursue my dream of becoming a teacher. During this time, I began driving school bus while residing in Mifflin County.The job fit perfect into my busy school schedule and still allowed me time to spend with my son. Two years later I relocated to State College. I graduated from Penn State in the spring of 2007 with a B.S. in Elementary and Kindergarten Education.
During my years in college I worked in the infant through preschool rooms at Nittany Christian School. After graduation I began substituting at Nittany Christian, as well as State College & Bellefonte Area School Districts.I also spent a year employed as a long term substitute for the Central Intermediate Unit #10. I was a preschool developmental teacher working with children on the Autism spectrum.
I have two absolutely wonderful children. My son, Devin, is thirteen and began seventh grade last week. My daughter, Kinzley, just turned three in June!We have a home in Park Forest and love living in State College.
Please feel free to ask me any questions your may have.I can be reached at 814-(redacted) or you can email me at (redacted). I check my email every evening. Thank you for taking the time to read this.I look forward to getting to know you and your child this year!
This past May the Coop generously paid my tuition to attend a workshop with Bev Bos. Bev Bos was the mentor of Mrs. Nancy and came highly recommended as the ‘expert on play based programs’. I was not disappointed.She was a dynamic, enthusiastic, talented, insightful preschool teacher/director who left me inspired and motivated.Her departing advice was to “start with one or two areas and apply these ideas.”She is the author of several books which will be available on the Parent Lending Library Shelf. Please sign out these books for one week and learn what a brilliant child advocate can accomplish at her own play based school.
One of the biggest tenants of her program is to set up areas that encourage exploration and discovery. She has an amazing assortment of accoutrements in her block center that yield ramps, tunnels, marble runs, ping pong ball tracks and more. She asks that no toy be brought in front of the children with only one attribute. She decries the use of character toys because are locked into one identity and application.She refuses to let art be anything other than an exploration of materials.She made me cringe when she said “If there is an adult model of the project, then I question if it is really art.” While some ‘craft projects’ are acceptable, the bulk of her program focuses on developing creativity. Ileft the workshop vowing to create a clay play area, build a large sand pit and add on to their block building centers.
With the support and contagious enthusiasm of our Co-Chairs and Mrs. Lori we all took up her challenges and are doing our best to enrich your child’s experience here at Coop. Our first steps are to add a clay area and to have a large art exploration center using the bulletin board as an easel.Her book Please Don’t Move the Muffin Tins; A Hands Off Guide to Art for the Young Child has many ideas and examples of ways to rotate new materials and mediums in and around the art center. Please feel free to sign up to be the facilitator at this center as an activity.We will also be rotating the clay play area with the woodworking table to bring more exploration with a variety of materials.
Our challenge to provide open ended sand play gave rise to the construction of a large sand pit near the playground fence.Using a hose or filling the magic well with water and providing buckets gets these engineers inspired to build moats, lakes, waterfalls, and roadways.We hope to bring out the cars, shovels, sifters, shells, treasure box etc. to this area and use it as long as possible.Bev Boss has photos of children stripped down to their underwear in the cold November weather filling moats with water! This area will also become the site for our butterfly garden.If you have perennials that need dividing this fall that are insect friendly, please give us some plants. We are hoping to construct a shed with the children’s help to store our gardening and sand play equipment.If this inspires you please see the Co-Chairs or the Teachers and we will co-conspire to build a small lean-to shed together.Bev’s book Tumbling Over the Edge,A Rant for Children’s Play has many inspiring and creative outdoor and indoor ideas along these lines.
Lastly, we are hoping to have your cooperation as snack parents to help us make that a meaningful activity, rather than something done in the kitchen before the children arrive. We understand that some of you don’t have the time or inclination to cook with kids, and there will be times when a bag of pretzels and some grapes will be our snack option, but we hope to have many parents embrace our goal of making the snack preparation a chance for the children to learn and explore and make discoveries too. Some of our ideas are : husk corn and serve corn on the cob; make butter in a jar;make ice cream in a bag; bread baking in it’s many forms and incarnations (pretzels, bread, pita, doughnuts, fry bread,chapattis, tortillas) ; making nut butters; making applesauce; using the apple peeler/corer to prepare apples for snack; scrubbing potatoes and making mashed or broiled potatoes; simple soups using a few vegetables the kids wash and put through a food processor or hand slice; mixing up trail mix, making pasta, preparing pizza, baking a pie, no-bake cookies, healthy muffins etc. etc.The children will also be washing their own cloth napkins each week as part of our effort to cut down on disposables.Mrs. Kat will provide a hand wringer washer for this weekly ritual, as well as a child sized clothes hanger. We hope to make every part of our day meaningful and play-based to give your children the best experience possible.
Our Beloved Mrs. Lori has tendered her resignation from the Cooperative Playschool. We are sad to see her go, and wish her luck in her future endeavors.
This departure has opened up a great opportunity for a new teacher for the "Green Team", the 3-4 year old classroom. Follow the link below to the job posting, and apply today!
The 2009-10 Cooperative Playschool Board of Directors is hard at work, preparing the school for the new year. Shortly you will receive by post the 2009-10 Information Packet, containing valuable information about the upcoming year. Read it thoroughly, and save it for further reference.
In the meantime, join us on Wednesdays 10 to Noon for a playdate! It's a great way to meet other families and kids before the school year starts.
Also be on the lookout for upcoming news regarding painting the school and building our new storage shed for the kids. We are planning a work weekend in August. It will be a good opportunity for parents and kids to bond over purposeful work!
We are proud to present our Cafe Press shop, available anytime, for all you Cooperative Playschool merchandise needs.
This is a fundraiser for the school (we get $1+ for each item purchased), so of course we thank you very much for your support. Plus, you'll look great!
Don't see what you want? Email kate at communications@cooperativeplayschool.com, and I'll see what I can do about adding an item/size/whatever.
We'll link to this site permanently soon, but for now, visit us at
Please join new, current, and alumni families at Co-op’s Summer Play dates! All play dates are from 10:00 - Noon, although you can show up anytime and also bring a picnic lunch. If you have Co-op T-shirts, it’s great to wear them to help incoming families recognize you.
WedJune 3Del Grosso’s Park
WedJune 10Co-op Playground
WedJune 17Sunset Park
WedJune 24Sunset Park
WedJuly 1Sunset Park
WedJuly 8Children’s Day at Arts Festival—Face Painting on Old Main Lawn
