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Our Philosophy
Parents have operated and shaped this school since 1947. Being part of a community of families is a very important facet of our cooperative nursery school. Parents learn about child development by working with the Director and children as a parent-teacher one morning each week. Monthly parent education meetings and interactions with the other parents offer support in the challenging job of raising our children. Peter Pan provides a community, a neighborhood, an extended family in which parents and children can grow and learn together in a diverse, nurturing and flexible environment. 
Children are free to learn at their own pace with a group of friends of different ages, backgrounds and temperaments. This environment allows children to develop independence, and self-direction as well as social and teamwork skills. The children learn from each other to respect their friends and to take care of their school. We pay particular attention to conflict resolution with strategies that help children learn to share, compromise, understand each other’s needs/interests, and verbalize their feelings. The structure of our daily schedule and our developmental, age appropriate curriculum allow children to explore, question and create at their own pace.
We use the works of Gesell, Ilg and Ames to educate and guide us in raising our children. This developmental philosophy has proven to be very natural and has helped the Peter Pan community work well with children of many temperaments and backgrounds, including children with special needs. In short, we provide fun, growth opportunities for all our children at Peter Pan.
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