The Capital Campaign
Imagine...
It is the near future at The Children's School.
In one warm and brightly-lit room, a group of three students is huddled around an art teacher, eagerly mixing primary paint to create new colors, while another group sits by the window reading a book together. In another room, students gather for a morning meeting and sing a welcoming song together. Between classes, teachers prepare materials and share suggestions with each other in a new teachers' planning room.
To provide for this future, The Children's School is embarking on a significant improvement. We will build two additional energy-efficient rooms totaling 1,600 square feet on the ground level and a similar size basement below. These two new above ground rooms will allow The Children's School to continue providing a quality early childhood education and develop a multipurpose space shared by the TCS community.
The renovations will improve the use of the building while preserving treasured parts of the play yard: the hill, the sandstone balancing wall, the sand play areas, and the climbing trees.
A History of
Growing the Whole Child
The roots of our 27-year-old school are in research started at Bank Street College School for Children in New York City nearly 100 years ago. The Children's School's goal was to discover and develop the kinds of environments that are optimal for children's growth and development. We believe that, at The Children's School, we have created those optimal environments in which the cognitive, social, and emotional lives of children are given equal attention.
Through innovative curriculum taught to the individual learning styles of each child, we have transformed more than 1,000 children into inquisitive, self-directed, and empathetic learners. Indeed, some of our early graduates have gone on to be leaders of our community and parents of current TCS students.
Our faculty is able to deliver top-notch programs to our children because they not only come to us as experts in the field of early childhood education, but they have also strengthened their knowledge and skills through professional development and years of dedicated service to our students.
The Children's School earned accreditation from the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) in 1989, making the school the first in Boise to achieve this recognition. Every five years, our programs and staff undergo the same comprehensive scrutiny to assure adherence to national standards of early childhood education required by accreditation.
The School Today
Our programs have grown through time, and, while our building is newly remodeled and a wonderful resource, the school lost a much-needed classroom in the renovation. As a result, there remains a lack of adequate storage and the necessity for frequent classroom age-level changes requiring teachers to "move and store" after each group. This greatly limits the amount of time teachers can spend planning activities and collaborating to address children's needs.
Remarkable learning and growth has happened at The Children's School. We need to complete the building so that it matches the excellence of the faculty and program.
Two Classrooms
It may not sound like a major change, but the addition of two classrooms will help us:
- Support our teachers by providing them with adequate storage and planning space and stable classroom environments
- Provide bigger, brighter classrooms close to playgrounds
- Offer more small-group activities, where students can work closely with specialists in art and music
- Expand indoor activities to those only possible in larger rooms, such as creative movement, rainy day games and adult meetings
If It Is To Be,
It Is Up To Me
After a careful, consensus-building process in which parents, teachers, staff, and alumni families considered many options, The Children's School board and staff are taking steps to assure the expansion by conducting phase two of the school's first-ever capital campaign.
Phase two seeks $600,000 from current parents, past parents, alumni, key friends of the school, and supporters of early childhood education in Boise. Our hope is that the funds will be secured, construction started, and the new space available for children by the Fall of 2013.
Your help is needed to make that a reality.
More than 30 years ago, visionary families came together to purchase the building and land that houses The Children's School. Since then, others helped make important additions such as the beloved play yard, the sand pit, and the climbing area. Most recently, 85% of current families helped raise nearly $500,000 to remodel and update the worn-out building.
Now is the chance for our community to support putting the finishing touches on this campaign to create a model environment for a model program.