The ones parents actually ask

It depends entirely on the room. Infant places are the tightest — twelve to eighteen months is normal, and families who start looking during pregnancy are not being dramatic. Preschool and Pre-K move faster, often within a term, because children leave for kindergarten every summer. We will tell you where you actually sit on the list and what that has historically meant, rather than a comfortable number.

Yes. Siblings of currently enrolled children come first, then children of staff, then the list in application-date order. That is the whole hierarchy and there is nothing else in it — no donations, no interviews, no assessment of the child.

Please do. Tours run Tuesday and Thursday at 9:30am, deliberately while the rooms are full and noisy and mid-project. Book one on the tour page, or call. If neither day works, tell us and we will find something.

No. Montessori is a distinct method with a specific sequence of materials, a prepared environment designed for individual work, and trained Montessori guides. It is a serious and coherent approach — it is simply not ours. Meadow is Reggio Emilia-inspired: our materials are open-ended rather than self-correcting, most work is done in groups rather than alone, the direction of a project comes from the children rather than a sequence, and educators document what happens rather than track progress through a curriculum.

Reggio Emilia is a city in northern Italy, and its municipal infant-toddler centres and preschools are a specific public system. Nobody outside it is a Reggio school, and any centre in the United States calling itself one is overclaiming. “Inspired” means we take its principles seriously — the child as capable, the environment as the third teacher, the atelier, long-term projects, and pedagogical documentation — and adapt them honestly to Portland, Oregon in the 2020s.

Play-based generally means children choose their activity from what is set out, and learning is expected to happen through that. That describes part of what happens here, but the project work is the distinctive bit — a small group following one question for weeks, with adults documenting and feeding it. On readiness: children leave here able to hold a question, disagree and stay friends, ask an adult for what they need, and finish something hard. They also read and write when they are ready to, because there is a great deal of reason to. There are no worksheets and no letter of the week.

Not for children. Educators use a camera and a tablet for documentation, and the older rooms sometimes use a projector as a light source in the studio. There is no television, no tablet time and no educational software anywhere in the building.

We go outside. Portland gets around 150 rainy days a year and treating them all as indoor days would mean children barely went out between October and May. Every child needs waterproofs and boots here, and we keep spares. We come in for lightning, ice, heat above 95°F, or an air quality index above 150.

They rest, which is not the same as sleeping. Everyone lies down for about twenty minutes with a book; children who do not sleep then get up and work quietly at a table while the room stays dim. Nobody is kept on a cot for two hours.

On the child’s timeline, in partnership with you, starting in the Twos room for most children. There is no schedule, no reward chart and no requirement to be trained before moving up a room. Accidents are cleaned up without comment.

Expect it in the toddler year — it is developmentally normal and it is horrible for everyone. We shadow the child who is biting, work out what triggers it, and change the environment. Both families are told the same day, and neither child is named to the other family. If it persists we meet with you, and if it continues beyond that we bring in an early-childhood behaviour consultant, at our cost.

Infants and Toddlers 1:3 in groups of six; Twos 1:4 in groups of eight; Preschool 1:7 in groups of fourteen; Pre-K 1:8 in groups of sixteen. All of those are below Oregon’s certified-center maximums. Ratio is held continuously — including during nap and outdoor play, and including at 5pm — and the director, kitchen and atelierista are additional to it rather than counted in it.

Only the adults on your written, signed authorised-pickup list. We ask for photo identification from anyone we do not know by sight, every time, until we do know them. You can change the list at any time in writing; a phoned change is confirmed by calling you back on the number in your file before it takes effect.

With a written allergy action plan signed by your physician before your child starts, allergen information posted in the kitchen and at every point of service with your child’s photograph, allergen-free meals plated first in the kitchen and carried separately, and epinephrine stored unlocked at room temperature in your child’s own room rather than in a locked office. Every educator trains annually on recognising and treating anaphylaxis. Any epinephrine given is followed immediately by a 911 call.

Every adult who is ever alone with a child, before their first shift — a criminal history check, a fingerprint-based check and a child-abuse registry check, through Oregon’s Central Background Registry. Volunteers and student teachers are never alone with children. Every educator is a trained mandated reporter and holds current pediatric CPR and first aid.

All meals and snacks cooked here, nappies and wipes, sun cream, all studio and outdoor materials including spare waterproofs, bedding and its laundering, your child’s documentation folder, and two conferences a year. The separate costs are a $75 application fee, a deposit of two weeks’ tuition applied to your final month, and about $60 a year of Pre-K trip transport.

Yes — Oregon’s Employment Related Day Care (ERDC) program, and we participate in Multnomah County Preschool for All for three- and four-year-olds. We also hold four sliding-scale places a year funded from our own budget; applications go to the board and room staff are not told who holds one.

Thirty days’ written notice, and your deposit covers your final two weeks. There is no exit penalty and no obligation to explain. If you are leaving because something went wrong, we would like to know, but it is not a condition of anything.