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“Where Nature Meets Nurture”

est.1939
Rose Scharlin Cooperative Nursery School
2414 Lake View Ave. Los Angeles, Ca. 90039
(323) 661-1319, info@rosescharlin.com
www.rosescharlin.com, License # 191802033

WE ARE CURRENTLY
ACCEPTING ENROLLMENT APPLICATIONS FOR FALL 2008!
Enrollees should be 2 yrs, 9 months by Sept 2008
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ORIENTATION MEETINGS presented by our Director will be held during The Toddler Playgroup
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The Toddler Playgroup will meet every Tuesday from
2:30 - 5:00pm
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THE SCHOOL IS CLOSED FOR PREP WEEK SEPT 1 - 5.
THERE WILL BE NO TODDLER PLAYGROUP SEPT 2.
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School Visits are held in February and March for eligible families on the Wait List
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Wait List applications are available on our website or visit The Toddler Playgroup for an information packet
*

Click HERE for a printer friendly map of our location.

Our purpose is to provide a safe, secure and challenging environment for our children; to offer them a range of developmentally appropriate activities; and to reflect the diversity of our backgrounds, our community and our world. We emphasize the process of parents and children learning and working together for the social, emotional, physical, intellectual and spiritual growth of all. We cherish each child's need to play. We acknowledge and value our differences, and respect our children as unique individuals with their own abilities and needs. We actively seek to challenge the impact of bias on our children in our interactions with them and each other and in our choice of educational materials and activities. We work to encourage the growth and empowerment of children and adults in building the cooperative community of Rose Scharlin, respecting all individuals as we work toward our shared goals.

Rose Scharlin Cooperative Nursery School has the distinction of being the very first cooperative nursery school in the City of Los Angeles and the model upon which local schools patterned themselves. It was founded in 1939 as the Echo Park Cooperative Nursery School, using the facilities of the Echo Park Playground. In March 1946 a number of its members decided to start a similar school for the Silver Lake area and broke away from the original group, taking with them as the new school's director Mrs. Rose Scharlin.

The new school began as the Lakeview Cooperative Nursery School at the present school site, which was then an abandoned tennis court. Rose Scharlin was, without doubt, the moving force in the school, fostering the idea of parents and children growing and learning together within the group. When Rose Scharlin died in 1948, the name of the school was changed in her memory. In 1955 it merged with the old Echo Park School to become one again.

1. The primary goals of the nursery school experience are to build confidence in social interaction, develop self-esteem and promote positive feelings toward learning. We believe it is important to establish an individual relationship with each child in order to create within each child a feeling of being "emotionally safe." When children are comfortable with all aspects of their surroundings, they will feel free to explore current interests, reach for new experiences and stretch even further into the interests of their peers and the teachings of adults.

2. We want our children to develop a sense of community, to experience the love and responsibility of a cooperative situation and to develop or enhance the ability to care for themselves and others. From this will come the ability to delay personal gratification, take turns and share.

3. We treat each child with kindness, acceptance and respect, and guide them in a positive, non-judgmental and non-shaming manner.

4. In our school, a child's feelings matter, and the tone and words we choose are an important aspect of how we communicate with each other.

5. We encourage children to feel successful and to have a sense of pride in what they can do.

6. We believe that each child deserves to be valued as an individual. Each child is a unique person, with his or her own pattern and timing for growth and development.

7. We believe in holistic and emergent curriculum. Our school offers experiences that acknowledge the whole child: playing, learning, sharing, feeling, exploring, discovering and creating. Our curriculum offers enough choice to meet individual needs and stimulate learning in all developmental areas-physical, social, emotional and cognitive. The majority of activities are open-ended and process oriented. Children can choose from activities that adults have set up or that they themselves have spontaneously initiated.

8. Our child development philosophy follows the theories of Jean Piaget and Erik Erikson.

9. Structure is provided through a limited number of close-ended activities, circle time and activity-room time and through scheduled routines (i.e., hand washing). We offer freedom with healthy limits, providing an opportunity for children to learn and develop at their own pace by participating in a safe and enriching, child-centered, environment.

10. The goal of discipline is to teach responsibility and foster a child's emerging inner controls by setting clear limits. We encourage appropriate behavior through behavior modeling, positive language and the teaching of conflict resolution skills.

Discipline techniques include:

• Helping children discuss and resolve conflicts with developmentally appropriate language
• Redirecting children to more developmentally appropriate activities
• Offering choice of area based on behavior
• Repeatedly setting clear limits for unsafe behavior
• Under extreme circumstances, asking a child to temporarily leave an area where she/he is consistently having trouble
• Assigning a "companion" to a child who exhibits extreme aggressive behavior that may physically or emotionally harm other children
• Providing parent/teacher conferences to relay and teach intervention methods to parents for any problem that has not been resolved through previous efforts (may sometimes involve parent assisting with "shadowing" child in school)

The above techniques provide a basic guideline for handling conflicts as well as teaching problem-solving skills. They are fairly standard in any truly child-centered program and when used regularly with repetition and patience, will offer some success. As a parent, you are your child's first teacher. Here at Rose Scharlin, as a workday parent, you have an opportunity to expand upon the home environment.

A co-op provides a unique situation where your behavior toward the children and other adults can become a model for the way a young child perceives a social setting. All your individual personalities are welcome here, for they are a major part of a child's glimpse into this diverse world of ours. For three-and-a-half hours you are to many children what you are to your own child every waking hour. It is critical to the school's overriding goal of "community" that we ourselves endeavor to reach the standards that we ask of our children.

All contents © Rose Scharlin Co-op Nursery School, 2004.