Certificates
Certified Nature Explore Classroom
Our classes spend much of their day outdoors. Our original Poe Elementary location was a Certified Nature Explore Classroom, and our current outdoor classroom was intentionally designed with many of these same features:
- Wide, open spaces
- Extensive, kid-tended vegetable and flower garden
- Play structure and monkey bars for climbing and sliding
- Water table with different implements and materials each week
- Mud kitchen
- Large sandbox with all sorts of diggers
- Nature art and writing stations
- Tricycles, swings, and more
National Association for the Education of Young Children
Poe Co is the rare preschool that is both accredited by N.A.E.Y.C. (the National Association for the Education of Young Children) and a parent cooperative. The Poe Co director, board of directors and teaching staff work diligently every year to make sure the program meets N.A.E.Y.C.’s high standards for developmentally appropriate early childhood education.
N.A.E.Y.C. accreditation is a rigorous, voluntary process by which early childhood programs demonstrate that they consistently meet national standards of excellence. Child care centers, preschools, kindergartens, and first grade programs are eligible to seek NAEYC accreditation. Approximately 8,000 programs are engaged in seeking accreditation.
Programs seeking accreditation undergo an intensive self-study collecting information from parents, teachers, administrators and classroom observations. They receive an on-site visit conducted by early childhood professionals specially trained by N.A.E.Y.C. to validate their self-study results. All of this information is independently reviewed by a team of national experts who grant or defer accreditation.
