Parent Participation

Engage in Your Child’s Early Education

MVNS places emphasis on whole family education, and provides an immersive learning experience for children and adults alike. Parents will find the school to be a hands-on workshop where they are given the rare gift of joining their child in a social-learning context.

The unique opportunity to observe the diverse ways in which children learn and grow furthers parents’ understanding of their own child’s unique developmental profile, and the complexity of human development overall. Learning from children beyond your own provides a unique perspective that enriches parenting and teaching skills. Through regular participation and under the guidance of skilled educators, parents learn to support all the children in our community through their successes, transitions, relationships, emotions, and, at times, challenging behavior.

Parent Participation at MVNS

Families partner with teachers to enrich the school environment, as a means of honoring and further developing the learning interests and developmental needs of each child. Actively supporting the mission and vision of MVNS enhances children’s educational experiences and reinforces families’ sense of community and commitment to one another.

Parents are assigned a weekly morning workday (up to 4 hours per week) for the year. With up to 4 parents-teachers present each day, we collaborate to prepare for and tidy up learning invitations, fostering an engaging and supportive environment for all the children in our community.

During your time, you might find yourself supervising outdoor play, guiding an art exploration, and learning to support children through problem-solving. The Director and teacher are readily available to offer guidance and support.

Monthly Meetings

Mandatory monthly meetings convene on the 1st Monday of every month to discuss the school and plan the upcoming month. These membership meetings are community building events, parent education events, and business items about the day-to-day running of the school.Several times a year we host guest speakers (e.g. Taylor Ross) as part of our parent education, topics of interest to parents with young children are offered to support our work at school with our children and at home.

Committee Positions

Parents contribute their skills by holding a committee position dedicated to a certain topic, such as fundraising, finance, marketing, and community events.

Maintenance
&
Fundraising

Parents participate in all the little things that make a community school possible, such as “Maintenance Days” and fundraising events.Engaging families in maintaining and enhancing the school aids in keeping tuition low and cultivates community bonds.

Parents contribute to the community in many ways:

“My son was a COVID baby and stayed home primarily with my husband, an "stay-at-home" parent. One of the considerations for him going to preschool was the opportunity he would have to socialize with his peers. Due to COVID and staying home with dad, socializing happened most often within the family or with his older brother. The parent-teacher model worked well for us because my husband was there to support the transition from being primarily at home to a new environment. When he started as the youngest member of the school, he played independently, didn't join the group as much and needed more support with toilet learning. By the end of the year he had flourished, made important connections with his peers, joined others and initiated play and was not reliant on solely dad's presence at school as he had made connections with teachers and other parents. Having the ability to be with him at school eased his transition and also ours! I credit the parent participation model of MVNS for allowing this transition to be thoughtful, paced and affirming to his development and growth.”