Kapka Cooperative Elementary School

Sending my daughter to Kapka was one of the best decisions our family has made. We chose Kapka for the small community that we thought would be ideal for our shy apprehensive girl. In the first month at Kapka she was comfortable and happy to go to school everyday. Particularly impressive following three years of dragging her out the door to preschool. Now in 3rd grade at Kapka she is happy, confident, loves to learn and still excited to go to school everyday. The teaching team is fun and fabulous and the community is warm and caring and feels like family. As a family with 2 full-time working parents we weren't sure how we would be able to pull off a co-op school, but it is such a strong community that we get so much more out of it as parents than what we put in. Now our son has also joined Kapka for kindergarten and ends every day with a huge smile.

Our daughter spent six years at KapKa and was wonderfully prepared to enter middle school. The teachers are top-notch, devoted to the children, and committed to establishing a joy of learning in their students. The school's strengths are project based learning, art, music, multi-age groupings, and social emotional learning. As a cooperative, parents are heavily involved, creating a wonderful sense of community.

My daughter is thriving at KapKa. The teachers are superb, the class sizes are small, and each child is known and supported. The school maintains a balance of enrichment activities you don't find at traditional schools (woodworking, sewing, reading to seniors, raising salmon, social skills practice, etc.) and strong academics due to teachers who are excel at tailoring curriculum to each child's learning style. As another review mentioned, how the kids are taught to be in a community and feel empowered to create their own activities and solve problems is truly special. If you want a place for your child will learn to LOVE learning and soar both academically and in spirit, I can't imagine a better school than KapKa.

Social skills are paramount in today's high tech lifestyle - this one of the reasons we chose KapKa - we all must learn to get along and work together! KapKa does not ascribe to a particular educational philosophy but it does lean upon Waldorf, Montessori, and Reggio Emillia in some of its approaches and traditions. There is quite a bit of project-based learning and plenty of hands-on activities. What that means is that children are engaged and never think about "learning" because it's fun (and work) in a very supportive, nurturing environment.

After a rough 2nd grade year for our son at public school, we decided to give KapKa a try. It's been absolutely life-changing for our son. Last year, he dreaded going to school. This year he can't wait to go. He's gained not only friends, but real community. The way KapKa kids confidently work together and advocate for themselves and their ideas... it's hard to describe, but it's just inspiring. And the teachers are first class--every single one of them. Small class sizes, amazing teachers, flexible but challenging curriculum... the only downside to KapKa is that it requires a fairly substantial time investment from parents. But after one year, I can attest that it's absolutely worth it.

My wife and I marvel daily, it seems, at how lucky we were to find KapKa for our kindergarten son.

Where to start, when describing this school? I think most of all, the word is COMMUNITY. The child-raising cliche is that it "takes a village", but wow, the village really IS KapKa. Your kid is embraced there, by all. Every teacher (at every grade) knows every child, their strengths and challenges, their growth areas, their hopes and dreams. It's a place where every kid genuinely comes to feel like they belong.

Our kindergartner is my fourth child, and yet with every interaction I have with KapKa's teachers and staff, I feel I learn something new and grow as a parent. They are thoughtful, engaged, caring, wise beyond their years, empathetic to each individual. Gifted educators, all.

What's interesting is that the aspect that gave us initial pause about coming to KapKa -- the coop requirement that each family participate in the community through a parent job and a parent work shift -- has turned out to actually be a blessing. It’s turned the schooling situation into one where we’re actively involved, informed, and helping shape what happens, to a far greater degree than it would be otherwise.

We also like how, in this small school, there are countless ways that the staff integrates the different classes in various cross-grade learning activities. What’s also notable is that even in this intentionally “play-oriented” environment for the younger grades, we’ve seen our kindergartner thrive academically. It seems that just about everything gets creatively incorporated into a learning opportunity, from the counting games on the playground to the careful labeling of the shelves in the “garden store” that the kindergartners set up for parents.

We couldn’t be happier that we chose KapKa.

We chose Kapka because we wanted our children to have a lifelong joy for learning.