About the Monarch Preschool College Park & the Children’s Guild

The Monarch Preschool College Park is a high-quality project-based learning pre-kindergarten for children ages 3-5. It is a  place where care is not passive. Teachers are active and engaged, helping children apply their learning to real world issues. We expect to foster a life-long love of learning, focusing on the whole child approach and getting children ready for school and life beyond.

Its advisory board includes members of the City and University community. (See Advisory Board)

The Monarch Preschool College Park was founded by The Children’s Guild—a nonprofit organization that is an affiliate of the Children’s Guild. The Children’s Guild was founded in 1953 and is dedicated to pioneering educational services for children and families. One of The Children’s Guild founders included Dr. Leo Kanner, a world–renowned psychiatrist from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, who first identified childhood autism.

Since its founding, The Children’s Guild has had an extensive history of successfully educating students using an innovative philosophy known as Transformation Education (TranZed). TranZed counters traditional programs by challenging adult mindsets, creating engaging environments, instituting supportive structures, and employing neuroscience to serve our youth. In addition, all of The Children’s Guild settings emphasize project-based learning which provides authentic experiences to students. In essence, what makes The Children’s Guild schools different is the relentless attention to a culture of student personal, social, and academic development.

The Children’s Guild operates two non-public special education schools in Baltimore and Prince George’s County, serving students with emotional disabilities and autism.  In addition, The Children’s Guild operates three residential group homes in Baltimore and provides mental health services to over 80 schools. In 2009, The Children’s Guild opened its first charter school in Anne Arundel County and has added three more charter and contract schools in Maryland and the District of Columbia.  The Children’s Guild provides direct services to over 9,000 children and families — and is committed to developing children who are caring, committed, and contributing to a cause greater than themselves.

Project-based learning: how the Monarch Preschool College Park students will explore and experience the world

All children can and want to learn. Project-based learning harnesses the natural passion to learn, by presenting learning experiences as expeditions into the unknown. Project-based learning cultivates and fosters greater continuity of relationships between students and teachers, draws on the power of small groups, creates an exploratory mindset, and allows a child to understand the greater community. 

Monarch Preschool College Park is a project-based learning school, presenting the curriculum in a consistently hands-on, interactive, and dynamic manner.  It provides an authentic application of learning that embeds the arts within the important learning concepts to foster engagement, aid in retention, and enhance comprehension.

The Monarch Preschool College Park will be a hub for community and collaboration

Strong partnerships with the University of Maryland, the City of College Park, and the Prince George’s County, and State of Maryland early education entities provide robust opportunities for Monarch Preschool College Park students to widen their horizons and engage in meaningful learning.

How the Monarch Preschool College Park fits into the City of College Park and the University of Maryland’s work to implement the University District Vision 2020

The Monarch Preschool College Park’s opening is part of a larger effort to make College Park a top-university community as outlined in the College Park City-University Partnership’s University District Vision 2020. This initiative, supported by both the City of College Park and the University of Maryland, includes creating a more walkable and vibrant Baltimore Avenue, the founding and success of College Park Academy, a greener community, the incoming Purple Line and more. In 2016, the Partnership invited The Children’s Guild to open Monarch Preschool in College Park and worked with them to build the school and find its location off of Rhode Island Avenue.

The City is experiencing a boom in economic revitalization which presents it with a unique opportunity to support the flourishing landscape with programs that parents want and that children can be successful in. Our unique preschool is a warm and welcoming place where students learn how to make sense of their world. Providing a preschool experience unlike any other is an important step in attracting parents to move and stay in the City and contribute to our local economy.

The Monarch Preschool College Park, along with the University’s Center for Young Children and a new UMD daycare at Calvert Road, will provide UMD employees, City residents and families in the surrounding communities with three excellent options for early childhood care in College Park.

Monarch is a project-based learning school because the design offers us a vision that allows us to implement our curriculum in a consistently hands-on, interactive, and dynamic manner.  It provides an authentic application of learning that embeds the arts within the important learning concepts to foster engagement, aide in retention and enhance comprehension.