Ava O’Scanlon and Leo Home are in the play area of a unique Santa Barbara preschool, using a miniature version of a zip line designed for little kids. They are laughing and playing together as they zip up and down the rope line.
The five-year-olds are students in at the Starr King Parent-Child Workshop.
Watching them is Calais Storey, who is Director of the non-profit preschool. As the name suggests , the preschool is unique in how it involves parents with the program. Parents come to school one day a week to help with educational programs, and also attend a college parenting class.
"We are a preschool program, and serve children from around two and a half to six years old," said Storey. "We have been in existence for 75 years, right here at this location...we were founded by a member of the Unitarian Society. We're also a parent cooperative. What that means is the parents attend with their child."
The parental participation helped keep down tuition costs by reducing the total number of staff members needed for the 30 plus students. But more importantly, the participation is intended to help them with their child’s educational process.
Kevin O’Scanlon’s five year old daughter is in the program.
"There's a lot of things that are great about it," said O'Scanlon. "Parental participation programs, we all do our work days, we're all learning together, we are learning from each other, taking part in weekly classes taught by Santa Barbara City College."
Emily Kellow is another parent with a child in the pre-school program. She’s a huge supporter, because she knows the program’s benefits firsthand. "My son goes here...he's three and a half. I went here in 1988. So, I went through the program as a kid, so my parents went through the program."
Even though the preschool has been around since 1949, many people don’t even know it exists. It’s off of Santa Barbara Street in downtown Santa Barbara, tucked away on the grounds of the Unitarian Church.
Storey says they use play as an important teaching took for the preschoolers.
"We're a play-based program. What that means is children learn through their play. Play is their work. Social skills, emotional skills, and when you talk about academics, its working on motor skills, building their skills on how to hold a pencil."
The preschool relies on tuition and donations to survive, but also has some scholarships available to help financially struggling families. One of its biggest fundraisers is returning in a few weeks, when the Starr King Annual Rummage Sale takes place at the Earl Warren Showgrounds February 10.
Like the preschool itself, the rummage sale is a community tradition which dates back more than seven decades.
