Rancho Co-op Preschool

My four kids all attended Rancho Co-op and it was a wonderful experience for them, and myself as a parent. Rancho is more than a preschool. It's a community. The parents become friends as the children are building their own friendships. The school is focused on play-based learning and helping kids develop extremely important social and emotional skills. We loved our time at Rancho.
For those families that want and have the time to have an active role in their child(ren)'s early education, co-op preschools are a very rewarding experience. Rancho offers: 1) parent education opportunities, 2) a tight-knit community of children and parents with similar parenting styles, 3) the ability to help make decisions that affect the school, 4) knowing how your child spends their day at their "home away from home", 5) an above average adult-to-child ratio
My kids and I are better people for having gone to Rancho. I highly recommend it.

Both of my kids have attended this school. We started our oldest child out in a fancy, Waldorf-inspired, picturesque, language-immersion school that, as you can imagine, was difficult to afford. I'm an educator myself, and I just could not stop nit-picking the place in my mind. I was never satisfied. I couldn't put my finger on it, but I just wasn't happy with my family there. I found Rancho, and realized what I had been missing. Community. Rancho Co-op Nursery School is a school run by families, families who parent like me. As such, after a month there I felt more at home, more included. I *knew* the other kids, and their parents because I spent my days with them. After a month at Rancho I trusted those other folks more than I had trusted my previous school's teachers after more than a year.

In Los Angeles, it can be hard to find community. But, not at Rancho. These people are like family. We raise our kids together with similar parenting philosophies. If I had a life threatening emergency and had to leave my kids with someone, I would literally leave them with ANY of the families at Rancho. It's a pretty special community.

The facilities aren't fancy, but my kids love it there. It's play based. They encourage creativity, and independence. They foster the skills for children to learn how to work well together and get what they need - be it asking a friend to respect their body, or more politely asking an adult for help.

If you're unfamiliar with how co-ops work, at Rancho we have a Director who is there every day, and each family is responsible for covering one "work shift" a week per enrolled child, plus other responsibilities, in addition to tuition.