Mission: Our mission is to provide universally accessible, high-quality, inclusive early learning services for our whole community.

Vision: We believe that social & emotional learning and foundational literacy & math skills are the building blocks to success in school. Yet, only some of our community’s learners are able to access high-quality early learning. Our vision is to close the opportunity gap in social-emotional learning and academic success by providing all young children with access to high-quality, culturally sustaining early learning services. We prioritize children and families who have been historically underserved, including families navigating poverty; whose first language is not English; children with disabilities; and children who may have experienced limited educational opportunities, trauma, or other barriers.

The purpose of our early learning program is to prepare preschool-aged children for success in kindergarten and beyond, including 1) social-emotional learning, self-regulation skills, interpersonal skills, empathy, and contributions to the classroom community and 2) academic skills, including language development, literacy and numeracy.  The goal of the program is to close the opportunity gap, with all students entering kindergarten ready to learn and meeting reading benchmarks at third grade.

Beliefs, practices and philosophy:  our high-quality early learning delivery is rooted in the philosophy that by employing best practice, policy and research we prepare our preschool structure so that all children will achieve connection and growth.  We are intentional and inclusive of all early learners from a diversity of cultures and experiences, enrolling students with special education considerations, English language-learning and dual language learning, and multicultural backgrounds. We seek to be enriched and strengthened by the wisdom of diversity, and bring families into our work. 

We believe that children are inherently capable, and our core task is to apply developmentally appropriate practices in support of their social, emotional and academic growth.

Oregon Department of Education (ODE)’s Early Learning and Kindergarten Guidelines:

Oregon’s Early Learning and Kindergarten Guidelines are for everyone who interacts with children ages three-six. Through alignment of and, in some cases, adjustments or additions to the goals and progressions identified in the Head Start Early Learning Outcomes Framework and the standards identified in the Common Core State Standards for Kindergarten, this document offers a shared view of and common vocabulary for child development and learning from age 3 through the end of kindergarten. The Early Learning and Kindergarten Guidelines include a continuum of development and learning in five domains: approaches to learning, social-emotional development, language and communication, literacy, and mathematics.

Early Learning Guidelines are available in English, Spanish, Chinese, Russian, and Vietnamese through the Oregon Department of Education’s website:

http://www.oregon.gov/ode/students-and-family/FullDayK/Pages/Early-Learning-and-Kindergarten-Guidelines.aspx