Hello.

I am writing today because my daughter is a student at the Dulin Cooperative Preschool in Falls Church, VA and I am concerned that the new training requirements contained in your proposal (sections 22VAC40-185-245C and 22VAC40-185-240) could put an end to the cooperative preschool model as we know it.

Like other parents who are writing to you, my wife and I went out of our way to find a Cooperative Preschool for our child because of the unique opportunity that it gives us to participate in her early childhood learning and development and because of the collaborative atmosphere that cooperative preschools foster.

After being in the classroom this past year, I firmly believe that Cooperative Preschools are good not only not only for the children attending them, but for the cooperative parents and the broader community at large.  

First, at a cooperative preschool learning takes place at all levels – parents, teachers, and children all learn from one another – and because the parents are present, this learning continues long after class is over when they use their observations from the classroom to help their children with any social and learning development areas at home.

Second, when you put parents and teacher with diverse social, economic, cultural, and educational backgrounds and experiences together in a classroom with the shared goal of creating the best possible education for the children – something amazing happens – you build more compassionate human beings. Parents and teachers with different ideas learn from one another and children receive the chance to see their parents model appropriate behavior when interacting with adults and children from a variety backgrounds in a variety of situations – leading to greater understanding and acceptance.

Although the benefits for Cooperative Preschools go well beyond this, these two described above are some of the most compelling. Therefore, we implore you to PLEASE keep the training requirements for cooperative preschool parents as they are now. The proposed new training requirements for parents who volunteer at cooperative preschools are so burdensome that they will doom the traditional cooperative preschool model. It is not feasible to ask parents of young children to undergo 16 hours of orientation training and 20 hours of annual training.

 We ask that the total number of training hours (both orientation and ongoing, collectively) for cooperative preschool parents be limited to the current 4 hours.  If this does not happen, parents may not be able to participate and the schools may have to hire additional staff, with an added negative impact of driving tuition costs up for families who cannot afford traditional preschool model tuitions.  

If you agree that the benefits of Cooperative Preschools help not only the participating families and staff, but our community as well - we implore you to keep the training requirements as is.

Sincerely,
Hetel Patel, Dulin Cooperative Preschool Parent