TEACHERS

The care and education of young children is a complex and demanding profession.  Teachers must have knowledge and skills that prepare them to be successful in their challenging and rewarding work.  This foundation is gained through formal education, ongoing professional development, mentoring relationships and a deep commitment to young children and to the early childhood profession. 

Crescent Park employs and supports a teaching staff that has the educational qualifications, experience and professional commitment necessary to promote children’s learning and to support families’ diverse needs and interests.  From the classroom to the office, our staff consists of talented, thoughtful, heart-centered people with AA to MA degrees in Early Childhood Education or related fields. Our Director and Associate Director have both lived in and raised their own children in our community over the past 20 years and they both have backgrounds teaching and administrating early childhood programs for Stanford University.  All members of our teaching staff are fully qualified teachers and are members of The National Association for the Education of Young Children .  They are dedicated to the lives of young children and to becoming life-long learners themselves.

The teaching staff seeks to provide a safe, supportive, loving environment where children and their interests are valued. Teachers give special attention to the social and emotional development of each child while providing guidance and support for problem solving using positive approaches to discipline and modeling respectful interactions with others.  Our adult to child ratio is 1:7.

The Crescent Park staff meets bi-weekly to reflect upon their observations of the children’s play and to build upon the children’s interests using emergent curriculum practices.  Teachers put great emphasis in making the child’s work meaningful and visible.  They expand upon their own knowledge by studying child development theory and research to insure that it is reflected in daily practice in order to optimize every child’s unique learning journey.

 In the world of the young child there are three teachers that inspire learning in the early years.

• The Child and his/her peers
• The Environment
• The Adults – the teachers, parents and community

All three teachers work together to help children become autonomous and to support their competency, intellect and natural curiosity.  When the environment is ordered and well-designed, and when the teachers understand their roles as supportive members of the learning community the child is able to grow to his fullest potential.