The care and education of young children is a complex and demanding profession. Educators must have knowledge and skills that prepare them to be successful in their challenging and rewarding work. This foundation is gained through formal education, ongoing professional development, mentoring relationships and a deep commitment to young children and to the early childhood profession.
Crescent Park employs and supports a teaching staff that has the educational qualifications, experience and professional commitment necessary to promote children’s learning and to support families’ diverse needs and interests. From the classroom to the office, our staff consists of talented, thoughtful, heart-centered people with AA to MA degrees in Early Childhood Education or related fields. Our Director has lived in and raised her own children in our community over the past 20 years, and she has a background teaching and administrating early childhood programs at Stanford University. All members of our teaching staff are fully qualified teachers with the State of California and are credentialed with the Santa Clara County Department of Education or are working towards their teaching credential. They are committed to the standards of excellence developed by the National Association for the Education of Young Children and participate in professional development opportunities throughout the year. They are dedicated to the lives of young children, to reflective practice and to the value of life-long learning.
All Crescent Park educators seek to provide a safe, supportive, loving environment where children and their interests are valued. Educators give special attention to the social and emotional development of each child while providing guidance and support for problem solving using positive approaches to discipline and modeling respectful interactions with others. Our adult to child ratio is 1:7.
The Crescent Park staff meets weekly for pedagogical meetings to reflect upon their observations and documentation of the children’s play and to build upon the children’s interests using emergent curriculum practices. In addition, they meet bi-weekly to collaborate with the entire teaching team to share their reflections and deepen their understandings. Educators put great emphasis in making the child’s work meaningful and visible. They expand upon their own knowledge by studying child development theory and research to insure that it is reflected in daily practice in order to optimize every child’s unique learning journey within our diverse community.
In the world of the young child there are three teachers that inspire learning in the early years.
The Child and his/her peers
The Adults – the educators, parents and community
The Environment
All three "teachers" work together to help children become autonomous and to support their competency, intellect and natural curiosity. When the environment is ordered and well-designed, and when the teachers understand their roles as reflective collaborators alongside the children, we see the rich potential for optimizing the continued growth for all members of our learning community.