How a Cooperative Preschool Works
Families who seek out co-ops are committed to being actively involved in the life of the school.They have an active willinginess to contriubute to their child's school and education.

Co-ops bring families with young children together around the issues of education, parenting, community, and care. Co-op parents have the willingness and ability to be a significant part of their child’s school and education. Cooperative preschools are not for every family. For a cooperative preschool to be successful, each family has to be committed to creating an enriching and safe learning environment for their child.

What do parents do?

Co-op members serve on the board of directors and on committees. They make budget decisions, hire staff, and set policies. Members also help out in day-to-day ways. Parents rotate certain daily responsibilities. For example, parent-teachers assist in the classrooms and rotate the responsibility of bringing a daily snack. Co-op families also participate in work/cleaning days and put time into projects such as admission activities, toy and equipment drives and other special projects.

For parents, the time commitment is significant but not at all burdensome. Most parents report that they enjoy their parent responsibilities because they make a meaningful contribution to their child’s education, form lasting friendships with other families and learn new skills. Depending on the number of days the child is enrolled, co-op families can expect to contribute one to three days per month to the school, plus a few hours every week or two to their committee jobs.

The strength and quality of a co-op is a reflection of what member families bring to it. We want our families to come from all walks of life and all kinds of backgrounds — white collar, blue collar, and no collar. We hope include artists, cooks, scholars, teachers, doctors, entrepreneurs, lawyers, scientists, musicians, construction workers, homemakers, and managers. What unites the members is the shared belief in the importance of the family-school partnership and in the idea that communities as well as families play a vital role in a child’s development.

Information in these pages regarding co-ops and how they work was gratefully borrowed and adapted from Parent Cooperative Preschools International and Agassiz Preschool in Cambridge, MA.