Apple Playschools

Apple Playschools embodies inclusion, innovation, and environmental stewardship in entrepreneurship and education in order to make a more equitable world. We facilitate innovative, play-based early childhood education promoting interpersonal relationships, equity and inclusion, nature exploration, and environmental stewardship. We started as a small, for-profit child care in 2011 and became a nonprofit entity in 2014. By the end of 2015, we had outgrown our original building and moved into three separate centers. After the departure of many of our founding staff in 2017 and 2018, we entered a new stage of development on the eve of the COVID-19 pandemic. Three years later, we are moving out of crisis response towards a vision of transforming our local community through work and play to build equitable world where all people are respected as capable, competent and ​empowered citizens of the planet.

We hold the deep belief that deep belief that our staff and educators deserve the same respect, with opportunities to grow and thrive, as the students they teach. Educators working in early childhood should not have to choose between supporting their families, doing meaningful work, and having high-quality education opportunities for their own children. Through partnerships with families and the broader community, we strive to pay our teachers a living wage, support their leadership, growth, and development, and provide tuition assistance for their children to participate in our programs. Our management practices support a feminist work environment driven by coaching and an anti-bias lens. We carry the principles of our Social Justice Branches through all levels of our work, supporting collaboration, innovation, diversity, inclusion, and environmental education and stewardship.

We operate two unique early childhood programs for infants through kindergarten across three distinct sites: Green Apple Garden Lower and Upper Playschools and Manzanitas Spanish Immersion Playschool. We also serve school-age children in our Apple Scouts summer camp. All of our programs are inspired by the Reggio Emilia philosophy, utilizing a child-led, play-based approach. In programs, children are immersed in nature through outdoor play, engaged in art making, gardening, and food preparation, and taught conflict resolution and collaboration at a young age. We partner closely with families to help adult caregivers continue this work at home. Our programs provide essential care for families working outside the home, and foster deep, trusting relationships with professionals who can share the work of educating children.

We believe that teachers and students learn best when they have space to play and practice real-life skills, opportunities to take risks and build meaningful relationships, and language to understand their life experiences, describe unfairness, and problem solve for the common good. Our play-based approach builds on children’s curiosity about the world, and places teachers as partners and researchers who help young learners practice essential life skills, develop diverse relationships, and foster a sense of stewardship for the natural world.