Danielle Dorland

Danielle, our Secretary says, "When our family first began to assess where and when to start our children in early education, the process seemed very daunting. We looked at a lot of options and toured a few schools, finding that they often meant more expense and sometimes felt more like a childcare solution than the classroom experience we were looking for. Our goal was elementary school readiness, so finding a place that offered an introduction to a classroom environment and gave our child exposure to the routines she could expect from kindergarten was one of our main determining factors in choosing ICP. The added bonus of economical tuition peeked our interest as well!

After attending an open house and getting a sense of what the coop would mean for our child and our family we felt like this was truly the best fit. We saw an opportunity to help our daughter transition into a learning environment outside the house where we could help guide them in navigating interactions with other children and adults. Our daughter always seemed very socially inclined and receptive for her age but even so, looming worries about how she would handle conflict and interaction without us remained. Knowing that the coop would provide a consistent environment with a combination of time and activities with and without us present felt like a comforting and positive way to get her excited about school and all that comes with it.

ICP has provided us with such a special experience that allowed us to engage with our daughter while she learned about school, classroom lessons, and peer interaction. Being able to accompany her to class weekly and have an inside knowledge of what she was learning enabled us to better support her in the process and better understand her struggles and frustrations so we could help her work through them. There is so much we have learned about our children, ourselves, and early exposure to school from this experience!

With our second child (age 4) now completing his second year in the coop and our daughter (age 6) in kindergarten we have come to find that ICP has helped us to build an incredible support system. As full-time working parents outside our home we were unsure if we would be able to make the time commitments work and we have found ourselves in many situations where we have received gracious and unsolicited assistance from the parents of the other families. ICP is built in a way that fosters community and we are forever grateful for what it has provided to our family!"