Who Are We?
Now taking waitlist applications
Preschool Program
for the upcoming school terms
To be placed on the waiting list for this or for future years, please complete the Intent to Enroll Form.
Our Cubs first entered our program in the fall of 2020 and are now at home in a new facility, located approx. two miles from our main campus (5811 Gleneagles Village Pkwy, Highlands Ranch, CO 80130). We had a very successful start and look forward to welcoming new families into our growing programs.
Offering small group sizes (10 students per teacher max) and highly qualified teachers, our fully-licensed, preschool program is aligned with the Platte River Academy Curriculum, Mission and Guiding Principles. This program was thoughtfully and carefully designed to grow and equip our littlest students with a strong foundation for Kindergarten and beyond.
Facility tours may be scheduled via the "Learn More and Tour" pull-down above. In the meantime, interested families may contact the preschool directors at:
PRACubs @prak8.org or call the preschool office at:
PH (303)471-1110
Fax (303)471-2470
As a division of Platte River Academy Charter School and in cooperation with Espree Child Learning Center, we share the purpose of providing an academically rich program that will support the pre-kindergarten community.
Students throughout the Denver metro area who are 2 1/2-years-old as of August are welcome to participate. In order to provide a solid foundation that will prepare our students for full-day kindergarten, we offer full-day, full-week preschool as well as extended care before and after the school day for children ages 2 1/2 -6 years old.
The goal of our program is, by developmentally appropriate means, to provide the social-emotional and academic skills needed to be successful in a rigorous, full-day kindergarten program. We work in close coordination with the PRA Kindergarten team to ensure success. We truly strive to "Know and Grow Every Learner!"
Our preschool program generally follows the PRA Calendar (with a few, minor, program-specific adjustments).
We will be hosting tours by appointment at our location at Espree Child Learning Center (5811 Gleneagles Village Pkwy, Highlands Ranch)
We can't wait to meet you, answer your questions and share our amazing program.
Please email us or call (303) 471-1110 for more information!
Mission and Vision
Teachers and staff working alongside parents to best-prepare early learners for everyday life and for kindergarten and beyond.
Our preschool exists to support parents with
a developmentally-appropriate, social-emotional and academic approach. This will prepare them to move on to any rigorous kindergarten when they reach that level (many of our students attend Platte River Academy). To support this, we create a community of deep thinkers through academically rich, experiential learning.
Our Preschool has programs for children who are at least 2 and 1/2 years old in August. Children are grouped by age and by the expected year of kindergarten. This guideline enables students and their families to establish relationships with the students they are likely to attend kindergarten with.
As an extension of Platte River Academy, our Preschool holds firm to the commitment to offer students and their families a solid curriculum alternative. The academic program follows the Core Knowledge Foundation’s content-based curriculum as outlined in the Scope and Sequence and also in the book series by E.D. Hirsch, Jr., What Preschoolers Needs to Know, et al. PRA has high academic expectations and emphasizes an intentional integration of the skills needed to begin the mastery of basic skills, such as language arts and mathematics.
The Core Knowledge Preschool Sequence (CKPS) is an age-appropriate set of model guidelines describing the foundational competencies and specific knowledge that provide coherent foundations for later learning in kindergarten and beyond. The CKPS gives attention to the physical, social, linguistic, and cognitive (intellectual) aspects of development.
Using this as a framework, our teachers strive to integrate curriculum and instruction across disciplines and begin to develop students’ problem solving and critical thinking skills academically and socially.
At the preschool level, much focus is given to the building blocks that will enable our students to make meaningful connections that enable a natural and stress-free transition into the kindergarten curriculum.
The Preschool classrooms promote and develop great character in their students and teach children to treat others as they themselves would want to be treated. Specific character values which include integrity, respect, responsibility, and compassion are modeled and strongly encouraged, just as they are in the elementary and middle school grades.
We have worked very diligently to find qualified and nurturing staff that can equip our youngest students both academically and social-emotionally.
We value the parent-staff partnership and are intentional about cultivating a flourishing community where children can see some of the most important people in their lives working together and integrating family to the PRA and Espree community.
We know that when every member of our community feels valued, respected, and confident in our ability to enable learning, students thrive.
