Castro Valley Parent Nursery School Celebrates 75 Years
In 1949, Elaine Johnson and 30 families gathered at Castro Valley Methodist to establish a two-room, co-operative nursery school with an open atmosphere for kids and their families to encourage creativity, learning, free play, and developing social skills.
Now, 75 years and many generations of families later, Castro Valley Parent Nursery School (CVPNS) is preparing to honor its heritage by inviting parents, former students, staff, directors, and the community to celebrate with them this year.
“We want to welcome back the previous directors and all our families for an open house that we are scheduling soon,” says CVPNS vice president Katie Burdett, whose husband graduated from CVPNS under director Jean Ericson. The couple currently have a daughter enrolled in the school.
“I have two pictures of a classic VW Beetle on campus that was renovated and made play-friendly,” Burdett says. “One is an older picture with my husband on the Bug, and there is a newer one with my daughter playing around the same car.”
CVPNS has had five different locations over the years. Its current home is on Christensen Lane, purchased in August 1957. It was only intended to be a temporary location. However, when the Board of Directors analyzed the cost of building a permanent school from scratch at a different location, it was not cost-effective, so the Preschool stayed put.
Over the years, CVPNS began partnering with Castro Valley Adult & Career Education under its Parent Education program. Parents are enrolled, and the students can access either the morning or afternoon sessions. Mornings are for 3-year-old students. The afternoon session is designed for the 4- and 5-year-olds. The Adult School pays for any hours that can be directly linked to educating the parents of the school, such as a parent-teacher conference. Since CVPNS owns its property, tuition fees are $265 a month for half days.
The trade-off for the low cost is that parents must volunteer one day a week. A workday is considered a laboratory for the class. Parent instruction also includes multiple group sessions on topics ranging from handling a child’s emotions and setting them up for long-term learning and success. Parents must also spend a set number of volunteer hours for special events such as Family Night, Cowfolk Day, Carnival, Halloween Party, and the Light Parade in November.
“I love to see these moms and dads,” Burdett says. “Having other parents around supporting each other during their child’s toddler stage is invaluable. For my daughter, the other kids are her best friends, and they will surely keep in touch even if they go off to different Elementary Schools. How she lights up when she sees these kids is so precious.”
She adds that the benefits of preschool education are “mind-blowing” since the children get a chance to practice fine motor skills as well as social and emotional learning in a group setting, such as learning to put on a jacket, put an envelope in a backpack and zip it up, and use the bathroom by themselves.
There have been 19 different directors over the years. In 1977, the school hired a separate director for the morning and afternoon sessions. Mr. Terry Hueffed served as the director for both sessions that year. Jean Erickson followed his term between 1979 and 2000. Patricia Brohard took over for Erickson until 2012, with Charlene Giffin as director from 2012 to 2019. Vanessa Grazzini and Sandra Turretta were hired as the directors from 2019 to 2023.
The current director is Laura Goodspeed, who has a master's in child development and has her own tutoring company.
There is a form on the CVPNS website (https://www.cvpns.org/wp/) where current and former participants can sign up for information on the 75th celebration.