C5 CHILDREN'S SCHOOL
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Mission Statement
We provide comprehensive, high quality early care and educational experiences daily to children age 2 months to 6 years old so their parents can go to work and successfully participate in our U.S. economy. We are influenced by the preprimary schools in Reggio Emilia, Italy. Our emergent curriculum is based on children's interests and fascinations. We facilitate children into in-depth explorations through a project approach. This co-construtive learning model includes working with children as their partners. We facilitate small groups to learn effective group processes and become powerful learning teams. We help our families, neighbors, and colleagues to better understand and appreciate the amazing capacity of children and the importance of early learning. Everyday our children are expressing themselves through the 100 Language of Children by talking, drawing, writing, painting, sculpting, singing, dancing, exploring light and shadow, textures, color, patterns, numbers, spatial relationships, nature and more.
About This Cause
Welcome to C5 Children’s School! Family, Staff, and Culture – We join all of our families and staff members in recognizing our marvelous diversity. We welcome and are proud of all the differences represented by children, parents and staff including their race, color, creed, religion, national origin, ancestry, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity and other unique qualities. This diversity is celebrated through special programs, such as the Summer Book & Box, Winter Cultural Highlights, Family Food Experiences, Fall Family Festival, and Festival of Learning. We also explore many aspects of those issues with children in the natural course of examining daily life and learning throughout the year as part of the emergent curriculum. Our Mission is to facilitate young children's optimal development and learning in a safe, supportive, and enriched environment. Our Goal is to provide leadership and innovation for learning of the highest quality to our enrolled children and their families and to the Early Care and Education community. We aspire to demonstrate how our view of children and our work with them to be highly capable and caring learners, critical thinkers, and community members leads to their success now and later in school and life. Our Philosophy of learning and development is influenced by the constructivist and social-constructivist learning theories of John Dewey, Jean Piaget, Lev Vygotsky, and Jerome Bruner. Other influences are from the work of Howard Gardner; Reggio Emilia's Loris Malaguzzi and Carlina Rinaldi; and, C5 Children's School's approaches of “Partnership with Children,” “Partnership with Parents,” and “Community of Learners.” Our Community of Learners approach stems from the group process and organization development work and writings of Richard and Patricia Schmuck. We are also influenced by the methods developed by the Program for Infant-Toddler Care (PITC), which is a collaboration of the Far West Laboratory for Educational Research and Development, now called WestEd, and Magda Gerber's Resources for Infant Educarers (RIE). Our Inspiration is drawn in part from the educators and preprimary schools of Reggio Emilia, Italy, and from others from around the U.S. and the world who are also influenced by progressive, social-constructivist approaches to Early Care and Education. Our faculty regularly participates in conferences and activities conducted by the North American Reggio Alliance and by other progressive schools in the USA and abroad. Our Children are our partners in learning and development and receive our deep respect and dedication in all aspects of our work and our organization. We collaborate with them to maintain an atmosphere that is joyful, exciting, caring, aesthetic, compelling, and rich with creativity, surprises, shared successes, and the promise of great possibilities. Our Staff facilitates individual and group development by supporting stimulating learning experiences, environments, materials, tools, and equipment that foster physical growth, emotional well-being, social relationships, creativity, and intellectual development based on children’s interests and fascinations via an emergent curriculum and an approach that features in-depth explorations and projects. Classroom Names and Ages of Children City Center – 525 Golden Gate Avenue Babbling Brook 2--9months Bay Shore 9--18 months Sea Shore 18--24 months Mighty Oak 2--3.5 years Redwood 3--5.9 years State Center – 455 Golden Gate Avenue Bay 18 months--2.5years Pacific 18 months--2.5 years Cable Car 2.5--3.5 years Golden Gate 3--5.9years Identity and History — C5 is a nonprofit, public service, membership organization, founded in 1985, that now has the capacity to serve 166 children from ages six weeks to 5.9 years old at two sites in the San Francisco Civic Center. One center is located in a California state office building at 455 Golden Gate Avenue and the other is located in the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission Headquarters at 525 Golden Gate Avenue. Both sites are across the street from the majestic San Francisco City Hall and two blocks away from the Main Branch Public Library, Asian Art Museum, Symphony, Ballet, Herbst Theatre, and the Opera. Light spreads all day through the grand windows at our newest center in the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission Building where our 14 Infant and Toddler teachers work with 30-36 children and their families. The Preschool located upstairs, opened in November 2012, has the capacity to enroll 45 children with 6 teachers. The school's Director of Learning, Center Site Supervisor, Food & Housekeeping Support, and Office Manager are also located here. Across the street, looking onto the grand Civic Center Park, is the State of California Supreme Court building and the Hiram Johnson state office building complex that houses our C5 Center that is home to 70-85 children. They range in age from 18 months old to 5.9 years old. The children and their families all collaborate daily with 14 teachers, the Center Director, Food and Housekeeping Support, Office Manager, and Executive Director. The entire C5 community learns and grows together in an urban setting with a maritime climate on the San Francisco Bay. We offer a full-day, full-year program that is child-initiated, teacher facilitated, and based on an emergent curriculum with a project emphasis that springs from children’s interests, fascinations, and their family cultures. They do so in an environment nurturing multiple intelligences and a rich, wide array of materials, processes, tools, equipment, and facilities, including outdoor gardens and play spaces. Our organization began approximately 30 years ago with a group of parents who were employed at the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) Building. They organized a child care center under the authorization of a new California law. Their goal was to establish on-site child care services for state employees and the general public. The result was one of the first on-site child care programs in a business or government facility in San Francisco. Our State Preschool Center was opened in 2000 in the newly reconstructed State building two blocks away from the CPUC. In 2002, the Board of Directors offered the current Executive Director a job and the opportunity to apply her leadership skills and her strong interest in the approach of the Reggio Emilia Preprimary Schools to evolving C5 from a child care program into a comprehensive child development and learning program. A year later, our current Director of Learning and City Center Director joined C5. His background includes degrees in art education and work with all age levels in various forms of learning and development. He also fulfills the roles of Pedagogista and Atelierista for the school. Originally, our name was “Civic Center Child Care Corporation,” which was affectionately shortened by people to C5. In 2004, through an inclusive community process, the school changed its official name to “C5 Children’s School” to better represent the character of the institution and its comprehensiveness. By keeping “C5” we retain an important part of our history and familiarity with a wide range of people who know us well. The drawing for our Jellyperson school logo was created by a three-year old child at C5 while she was working on a group project studying the ocean and the San Francisco Bay drawing. We chose it after the project finished as our logo to represent our program and indicate our deep respect for children and their work and our appreciation for the San Francisco Bay region. Our collaboration with parents includes their active involvement in and support of many aspects of the program. A few examples are their contributions to: the myriad of learning areas and variety of materials in the classrooms; support for projects that last for weeks and months; posting on the Connections Website, an innovative and comprehensive private information exchange for families and staff as a valuable tool for daily stories with pictures, home-school journals, children’s portfolios, announcements, and on-going dialogue throughout the community; documentation displays of children’s work and children working; and project culmination celebrations. We facilitate optimal development and learning for all ages of children from infants through pre-kindergarten. As the children get older, we collaborate with them on in-depth explorations and a project approach that stems from an emergent curriculum that comes from children's developmental stages, interests, fascinations, and cultural influences. We say that, "The curriculum walks in the door every day.” We have many special programs, such as Creative Movement and Dance, Music Together, Children Learning in Nature, Summer Book & Box representing all families’ summers; Winter Cultural Highlights presenting all families’ current culture and heritage; an annual month long Festival of Learning that includes an Exhibit of Children’s work from every learning group, a Saturday Educators’ Seminar, all learning groups working in public, and a Gala evening party for the entire community; Costume Days; and, Visiting Artists from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. We are continually evolving and improving our program. We engage in permanent, on-going professional development on a daily basis, including regular individual, team, and all-staff meetings; special conferences and seminars; formal college and university courses; and visits to other schools. Staff members receive annual educational stipends. We also offer workshops and host and present at conferences on early childhood topics for professionals, students, and the general public.