At Patchwork…

Children spend their days engaged in hands-on activities of their own choosing.  They learn through play, and they work hard at it as they negotiate with children of various ages, learning how to communicate their feelings and needs.

The Patchwork School is an innovative non-profit organization located in Louisville, Colorado, modeling and promoting children’s and teacher’s rights to an educational environment offering both meaningful curriculum as well as an integrated social emotional learning approach.  We offer daytime programs for Early Childhood (children ages 1-6).

Our Approach

By respecting children as people with ideas, interests and opinions, and by utilizing our community’s resources, we have created an experiential learning environment that fosters critical thinking and problem solving, develops communication and leadership abilities, nurture’s self-confidence and self-direction, promotes compassion and sustainability, and most of all preserves a passion for learning. Through the school, our parent education, teacher training, and community building, we advocate for freedom, responsibility and compassion in community. 

Patchwork is the 6th (!) pre-K that my family has enrolled in (in three cities/states)— and it’s by far the best experience we’ve ever had.  Again and again, I am so impressed in little and big ways about how children are engaged, talked to, and guided. The teachers are so sensitive, thoughtful, and wise; I know that I can completely trust you all to handle things in just the right way.  Our experience with Patchwork has been perhaps the best experience of the last three years, and I’m so grateful that we landed, serendipitously, in the most wonderful place. Patchwork will always be so special to me, and I can’t thank you all enough for what you do so well everyday.

Parent KK 2024

Freedom

embracing the opportunity to be fully alive, accepting what is, and also learning to be an agent for change

Responsibility

learning to take ownership of one’s experiences, feelings, needs and goals

Compassion

learning to see where others are coming from, how to actively listen and understand another perspective

My son has blossomed since he started at Patchwork. He has learned how to express himself constructively, and [to] confront conflict with kindness and understanding.

Parent of a pre-schooler (age 3), 2018

Non-discrimination policy

To foster an equitable, nurturing, and stimulating environment for educational experiences and community building, The Patchwork School affirms that its students, staff, volunteers and guests have a right to be free from discrimination. We invite all people to participate in the activities, events and community of our school. We do not discriminate on any basis (cultural background, ethnicity, race, color, age, gender, sexual orientation, sex, disability, marital status, immigration status or spirituality) in the administration of our care, instruction, admission, employment, or tuition assistance policies.  We also strive to learn more about our blind spots and to be proactively anti-discrimination in our approaches to teaching and learning with students, as well as with staff and parents.

Black Lives Matter

The Patchwork School would like to affirm that we stand with the Black community.  Thinking of the lives impacted daily in this country by racism and systemic oppression is truly disheartening.  As we work to educate the next generation of children, The Patchwork School has always been committed to advocating for social justice.  As a predominantly white community, we have our work cut out for us, as it is so easy to hide behind our privileges.  One of the reasons we have taken our time in creating this statement is because we feel that it is essential that we commit to taking action and not just talking.  We don’t claim to have all of the answers or to know what other communities might need, but we have come up with a list of actionable items that we intend to work on, and invite you to contribute, as well. 

• We are continuing to include and update our anti-racist training as a part of our orientation process for all staff members.
• We have been and are continuing to comb through our library to ensure there are not any racist sentiments, and we are continuing to add new books that represent BIPOC (black, indigenous, people of color), not just in their suffering, but also in celebration and in everyday situations.
• We are committed to having open and honest conversations about race with children, in a developmentally appropriate manner. We are also checking in regularly regarding how BIPOC are being represented in our day-to-day activities and curriculum.
• We are committing to offer training to parents regularly on how to talk to children about racism.

Working towards a more just future for our children means achieving justice for black people and people of color, because our futures are all inextricably woven together.   Please join us in taking concrete steps to move towards change, and please share your feedback.  We all have blind spots, and so we need your help to know what else can and should be done.

I wanted to share a deep & sincere thank you for the way Patchwork instills in children to make space for emotions, comfortable having them & for being able to communicate about them. The words [our child] chooses to comfort & validate that all feelings are ok, how she’ll sit with me in silence, or reminding me I’ll be ok – I do attribute so much to what she’s learned in practice at Patchwork. It’s pretty amazing.

Parent of a kinder student (age 5), 2024