It’s a sunny morning on a Carpinteria school campus, and a half dozen preschoolers are having fun in the playground area.
Three-year-old Miko Alvarez is surrounded by a pile of oversized building blocks. What's his favorite thing to do here at school?
"Play with my friends," said Alavarez, with a big grin on his face.
We are at the Carpinteria Children’s Project, a one-of-a-kind preschool for more than 80 kids, ranging for 18 month to five years old.
"The Carpinteria Children's Project was formed in 2009, by the (Carpinteria) School District. The idea was to focus on early childhood education," said Teresa Alvarez, who is the Executive Director of the Carpinteria Children’s Project.
"The idea came from the Superintendent at the time, who gathered a lot of private foundations, and was able to get the school district to buy in to early childhood education, and giving families an early start," she said.
"We know that it's really important to get everybody on a solid start from zero to three...those are the pivotal years, really for a child's brain development," said Alvarez. "We also understand parenting is very difficult, so we want to help parents as much as we can, with things like parenting classes."
A few years ago, they realized its would be easier to fundraise as an independent non-profit. So, they spun it off from the school district. It's based on one of the district's school campuses which was closed because of declining enrollment.
Libby Lok has a four year old son, and a two year old daughter at the preschool. Lok says she’s grateful that there’s such a unique program available in the community, especially because her son is on the autism spectrum.
"We're set up with speech therapy, and occupational therapy," said Lok. "Our therapists are very in touch with our teachers."
She said the communication between the therapists, the teachers, and the parents have created a comprehensive program for their son.
"We do a lot of hands-on activities...sensory activities, fine motor activities, things that are initiating the love for learning," said Gabby Cardona, who is is one of the Carpinteria Children’s Project teachers.
The big focus of the preschool is giving kids a head start for when they begin kindergarten.
But in addition for the programs for kids, they have some for parents as well, as well as a Family Resource Center. The idea is to make it a one stop community center for families, to help with things like mental health issues or food insecurity.
The non-profit program has 24 employees, and a $1.8 million budget. Alvarez says it relies on grants, donations, and tuition to pay for the bills. There are scholarships to help low income families.
While the program serves kids from 18 months to five years old now, one of its next big projects is to expand the range. It’s adding an infant room, to support families with children as young as three months old.
