Local Co-op Preschool Thrives in New Location

For more than 50 years, Los Altos Parent Preschool (LAPP) has been a thriving and successful preschool that parents from as far away as San Jose and Milpitas are willing to make the trek to.

However, all that was threatened at the end of the 2010-11 school year in June, when LAPP found out it would be losing its location.

Little did the families and teachers of LAPP know, the unexpected turn of events would end up being the best thing that could have happened to them.

For a long time, LAPP had been located in a corner of the campus, since the preschool is actually part of the Mountain View-Los Altos Adult Education School.

Though the reason they were losing their location was understandable, it was still devastating to the preschool, when the teachers and parents learned the news.

“Los Altos High had a tremendous growth and expansion going on at their school, and they just needed the extra space,” LAPP parent volunteer Shanon Pestrong explained.

As soon as they found out, Pestrong said a group of LAPP staff and parent volunteers set to work searching for a new location.

Fortunately, one came about—a corner of the campus, in the Rancho neighborhood of Los Altos.

“We were lucky that there was some space available here,” said Pestrong.

“The school district is pleased to partner with LAPP,” said Jeffrey Baier, superintendent of the . “The fact that we were able to provide a new home to LAPP—a long-standing community asset—is icing on the cake.”

As the LAPP family would soon discover, their luck didn’t end there. LAPP staff members found themselves faced with a unique circumstance—the chance to completely rebuild and remodel their school.

A Brand New School

It was an extremely tight squeeze, but over a period of barely two months—between the 2010-11 school year ending in June and the start of the 2011-12 school year in August—the family of LAPP teachers, staff and parents built themselves, in essence, a brand new school at the new Covington location, and moved all of their old materials over from the old Los Altos High location.

It was a tough job, but the benefits have been incredible, say the LAPP families.

“We are thrilled and honored by the support that we have received from students’ families, the community, and our dedicated teachers,” said Lara Sandora, president of the LAPP Board of Directors. “Their generosity and support have helped us realize our vision for a school facility that can not only be a great resource for our students, but for the broader community as well.”

LAPP’s campus is bigger, better and newer than ever, said Pestrong. The Covington campus features a new indoor classroom customized to meet the needs of LAPP’s programs, with several activity stations.

There is now also a very large outdoor classroom, equipped with multiple areas for hands-on learning, such as sensory play, science, gardening, painting, block play and sand play. Additionally, the newly renovated playground offers abundant opportunities for large motor play, including a play structure, tricycle path and tire swing, as well as a log cabin and boat for dramatic play. Also in keeping with LAPP’s hands-on learning approach, staff has installed an irrigation system for fruit and vegetable gardens and flower beds that will be planted and tended to by the children.

“We have been able to completely transform the space,” Pestrong said.

The ‘Co-op’ Way of Doing Things

LAPP first opened in 1954. The school offers three different grade-level classes: the “Young 3s” class for ages 2 ½ to 3 ½, the “3s/4s” class for ages 3 ½ to 4 ½, and a “Pre-Kindergarten” class for ages 4 ½ to 5 ½.

“We have a great, three-year prep before you go off to kindergarten,” Pestrong said. “In my opinion, it’s a great transition; it’s a nice gateway, or launch, to what will be the rest of their schooling career.”

Pestrong said, part of being a co-op school is that every family is assigned roughly three “jobs” for the year, to satisfy their portion of the co-op requirements.

The first job is to be assigned a regular day each week to work in the classroom as the teacher’s helper. The second is to be assigned a specific job or area of contribution that the parent will do for the year.

“The job has you working on something that somehow contributes to the school in some way,” she explained. Examples include the “curriculum committee,” which helps prep materials for learning projects; the “scheduling committee,” which helps the teachers plan out a calendar of learning for the year; or, a parent can volunteer for a position on the board of directors.

“So, every parent is expected to do their weekly workday, and their job for the year,” she said.

The last part of the parent commitment is to attend regular school meetings and take part in parent education. Pestrong explained, as part of the Mountain View-Los Altos Adult Education School, LAPP offers an element of education to help parents learn how to be better parents.

“We are a parent education-based program. We’re not only here to educate our kids, but our parents as well.”

This comes in the form of speaker nights featuring authors, health professionals and other experts.

“I really love how everybody participates in the bigger picture,” she added. “And, no piece is any more important than any other piece—the person who fills the water buckets is just as important as the person who makes our budget.”

Why a Co-op?

Besides being more affordable than traditional drop-off schools because of the costs saved by having parent volunteers take the place of many paid staff, Pestrong said, the concept of a co-op school is attractive to her because of all the facets of her son's growth that she gets to witness and participate in.

“I have been able to witness things in my own child that I otherwise would never have seen,” she said, telling the story of how the first time her son pedaled a bike was at LAPP, and had she not been a parent volunteer in the classroom, she never would have seen it, and perhaps never even known it had happened.

Pestrong said, she also loves the sense of community she found with other parents at LAPP. Even on days when her son is in class but she is not working, the parents love to give each other full reports, such as, everything her son ate, said or did that day, and what his mood and reactions were like.

And, you just can’t match the camaraderie and emotional support that comes with volunteering together each week, she said.

“It’s a great community I can lean on, and go to for advice and support.”

Pestrong said, she has also noticed how, being exposed to so many different adults all the time, rather than just one teacher, her sons have a better relationship in general with adults.

“I love how he’s not just getting comfortable with his teacher, but with other adults and parents as well,” she said. “He feels comfortable enough to come and ask them for help, to let them know what he needs.”

All in all, Pestrong says, LAPP has been a wonderful experience for her family; one that she would recommend to anyone.

“I have complete respect for what drop-off preschools offer families who need that fulltime care,” she said. “I’m just very grateful that our family has the flexibility to be able to use Los Altos Parent Preschool, and I really love it.”

LAPP is still accepting applications for some classes. For more information, visit www.lapp.coop, e-mail LAPPinfo@lapp.coop, or call 650-947-9371.